3 Signs Safety Software Might Be The Solution For You
Safety software is a relatively new solution to an old problem. Have you ever thought to yourself, there has got to be a better way to stay complaint with safety regulations? Do you ever get frustrated that you have to fill out so many assessments and statements on paper. Do you find yourself missing things in your assessments because you are worried that it’s not in the right format?
These are just some of the frustrations that come with the process of staying compliant with safety regulations. It can have significant effects on your safety culture if you find the process of safety too difficult. If you have ever ran into any of the above, it might be time to consider finding a solution before it becomes too much of a headache that safety goes out the window and all your effort is spent just to be compliant.
In this article we will cover in depth 3 signs that it might be time to consider utilizing safety software before your safety is ignored for compliance.
You’re worried about compliance incase of an incident
Running a business is no easy task. It’s like juggling 10 things at once. When things are going well, it’s a great feeling. But it only takes one slip up or incident to cause everything to come crumbling down. The stress and anxiety of a WHS incident happening in your business is enough to keep anyone up at night. On top of that, if you know you might get slapped with a fine after the incident you’ll always be stressed or worse, you’ll delay reporting an incident. This can lead to huge fines and even jail time. No one wants that.
Safety compliance in the modern day is no simple task. There are a lot of regulations and legislation that you must adhere to in your day to day business. This can become quite a headache and adds to the stress of making sure you have ticked all the boxes. Or worse, leads you to ignoring your requirements and hoping that an incident doesn’t occur. As we have covered in a previous article, incidents happen to even the best of employers who are proactive with safety, its simply the reality of probability. If there is a chance, eventually it will happen.
Ask yourself this. If there was an incident at your workplace tomorrow and it lead to an inspection, would you be confident you would pass? Have you got a solid and refined risk assessment process in place to identify, assess and control risks in your workplace?
If the answer is not a confident yes then it might be time to look at solutions. Safety software like our platform SafeWorkPro allows you to focus on your process more while making the document compliance side of things a worry of the past. While SafeWorkPro won’t solve all of your safety worries, it will help you be more effective with your time so you can spend less time filling out forms and more time focusing on the actions that lead to a safer workplace. We have talked about how your process is more important than your documents in a previous article. In the eyes of the law, the concern is about what you actually do to keep people safe.
If you want to spend more time on safety and less time on the books, then safety software might be the solution for you.
Safety software makes documentation simple and easy
How long does it take you to complete a risk assessment from start to finish? What about a SWMS? Do you find it difficult to complete documents because of all the back and forth that is required between the site, office and in between your workers? If your documentation process is top notch and you have no issues with filling out lengthy paper documents then this might not apply to you. But for those that get frustrated with how much time away from work they have to take to complete documents, this one might be for you.
When the bottle neck for starting a job is the paperwork you need to complete for safety compliance it can become frustrating. It can sometimes feel like too much time is being wasted on paperwork when you could be working. This can lead to rushing through it which defeats its purpose. It also means that you are more likely to skip the processes that really matter to keep people safe.
If you are on a site that needs a SWMS and something changes that requires you to re-evaluate your SWMS, the process starts again and the tools are down until it is done. With safety software, the process of completing documentation is significantly easier. In principle, it is the same but in practice you’re saving time that would otherwise be spent filling a document and running around to get it signed. SafeWorkPro’s simple form based builder allows you to build custom documents which are super simple for your workers to complete on site when needed.
Save the hassle of the back and forth trying to get your documents read and signed by those on site. Have workers fill and sign documents from anywhere on site and have them submitted to the cloud for you to review from any location. SafeWorkPro even lets you get notifications when certain actions happen like a risk rating on a risk assessment matrix being too high or an incident is submitted. SafeWorkPro can help you save time on compliance and let’s you focus on what you do best.
Safety software helps you find old documents quick
Ask yourself this, can you find your risk assessment or SWMS from a job 2 years ago? If you were audited, could you produce it? This is something that isn’t obvious until it is an issue and by then it’s too late. How much of an impact on your day to day operations would a surprise audit have? Would you need to go digging through the back office folders to find the documents required? What a headache!
Even while you are on site, your documents like a SWMS need to be available for everyone to see. While they are there, they are likely to get damaged or degraded by weather. Sometimes, by the time they get stored for safe keeping they are almost falling apart.
With the safety of cloud document storage, SafeWorkPro can store all of your important documents online forever. With all of your documents in one place and neatly organized it’s super simple to find the documents you need, even if they are from years ago. Our software also makes audits quick and easy with next to no disruption in your operations. Export all of the data from your SafeWorkPro site for review without having to spend hours digging through folders, photocopying and physically delivering documents.
Conclusion
If any part of this article resonates with you, it might be time to consider trying out a better solution to using a manual safety process. Beyond just the convenience, SafeWorkPro can help you focus your time on the actions that truly make people safe, not just the actions that make you compliant. At the end of the day, that is what you will be judged on if you have an audit or investigation. Documentation is required of course, but that is simple the surface level when it comes to safety.
If you want to learn more about how SafeWorkPro could help you in simplifying your WHS, reach out to our friendly expert staff for a free, no obligation live demo.
A Risk Assessment Productivity Case Study: how to save time and money
Your business has a problem that you may not even realise exists. It bites way at your productivity, drains your resources and cripples the moral of your workforce. This problem is so embedded into your business model that the prospect of any alternative seems unnecessary and even unpleasant.
In construction, risk assessments are just part of the job. Completing safe work method statements, formulating risk management strategies and then consulting with your workforce is all part of the typical risk assessment workflow. The paperwork is a hassle, filing takes time and compliance requests are just one of those annoyances you have to put up with, right?
Wrong.
You may feel comfortable with the old way of doing risk assessment forms but unfortunately the paper-based method, although tried and tested, is wasteful and costing your business time and money. Whether you’re a business owner, site manager or tradie, risk assessments in the workplace are unnecessarily long and time consuming.
The Problem with the Paper-Based Risk Assessment Process
The sheer number of different safe work method statements (SWMS) in circulation is enough to give you a headache. Organising them all into one place costs money in terms of administrative overhead, not to mention the amount of office space filing takes up. Each worksite is unique and comes with different hazards and risks. Finding the right paperwork for the job takes an almost supernatural sense of premonition. Unfortunately you are not a fortune-teller so predicting how the risks in construction will change as a job develops can throw all your paperwork into a tailspin and render it utterly useless. Also, and let’s be honest here, all this paperwork is just bloody annoying.
Take our risk assessment case study for example. Using an electrical contractor that employees 12 workers, we estimated that our risk assessment software could save this business between $10k to $17k every year. We looked at how much time was spent of paper-based risk assessments and then at how much this process cost. The old saying ‘time is money’, has never been so true but if you’re still not convinced, just check out the below flowchart.
How Risk Assessment Software Can Help
Now all this isn’t to say you should just stick your head in the ground and forget about the risk management process altogether. You could try but sooner or later the regulators would catch up and you’d be facing some pretty serious penalties. Instead it’s time to think about how practical risk assessment software can help you identify risks and neutralise them. Check out just how much quicker the software alternative is below.\
That’s right, technology has the answer but don’t go running for the hills just yet. At SafeWorkPro we’ve developed safety management software that is so simple even your mate’s work dog could figure it out. We’ve achieved this through active consultation with tradies and contractors, not computer technicians who have never even touched a hammer before. SafeWorkPro’s risk management tool can be used on any smart phone or tablet device, and works to streamline the entire risk assessment process. Your safe work method statements are stored digitally – ready to be accessed and implemented into your risk assessment at any point. Then it’s as simple as of scrolling through various options, signing it and sending it away to the manager for storage as a PDF file. All this is done without the hassle of multiple forms or filing, and leaves you with more time to get the job done.
SafeWorkPro gets you on the job quicker, with more safety and in total compliance.
Workcover Risk Assessment Matrix
Every state and territory in Australia has its own form of Workcover which means that this is only a broad example of a industry standard risk assessment matrix. Although Workcover deals with risk assessment reports for matters of workers’ compensation, it is not directly involved in the process of writing risk assessments. Nonetheless each state or territory’s Workcover does provide a risk assessment guide for matrices but some are better than others. For instance take a look at this example of risk assessment matrix from Workcover NSW.
It’s very simple and does not serve as a exemplary industry benchmark for a compliance risk assessment matrix but it does serve to convey the underlying meaning of what is a risk assessment matrix. Each risk or hazard is allocated a number. The higher the risk, the higher the number and the same rule is applied to the likelihood of a risk occurring. Then these numbers are multiplied together and an aggregated number for the total risk involved in any workplace is given. For a more thorough risk assessment matrix example check out the below template from SafeWorkPro.
The Technology to Improve Productivity
Occupational health and safety is a time consuming task that every business, construction or otherwise, has to deal with on a daily basis. In construction, the time-cost associated with the mandatory risk assessment process is demanding for both workers on the job and managers back at the office. But safety and productivity are not mutually exclusive and do not need to come at the cost of one another.
There is technology to improve productivity and it isn’t space age nor is it overly complicated. It is in fact, quite simple.
Software risk assessment makes knowing how to improve productivity much easier. Risk assessment tools like SafeWorkPro utilise powerful but easy to use technology to streamline the risk assessment process. It cuts out the paperwork involved and replaces it with an easy to use tool available to download on any smartphone. Automated forms save risk assessment entries, storing them as PDFs to make displaying compliance as easy as sending an email.
The benefits are clear:
- Workers spend less time on risk assessment paperwork and more time on the job
- The backend administration of risk assessment forms is digitalised making filing and storage easier
- Displaying compliance in safety audits or inspections is as easy as sending an email
- Workers and managers can share critical safety information in real time
- The software can be downloaded to any smartphone or tablet device, and works without an internet connection
- Cost effective and easy to use
The goal of any construction technology that seeks to improve productivity is to advance what risk assessment systems already exist. Remaining compliant and in line with current OHS laws is critical for not only preventing workplace injuries but also ensuring construction businesses are not penalised. This is the simple brilliance of risk assessment software, but there is so much more to it than these initial benefits.
For more information on the type of risk assessment software you need, just ask these five questions.
