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.
Safety Software: a saviour in disguise?
The internet has fundamentally changed the way we do business. Files can be instantly transferred across the world, entire encyclopaedias of information are just a click away and social media gives your target market a voice. We live in a brave new world that is both deeply interconnected and highly competitive but there is one area where recent leaps in technology are yet to touch.
Risk assessments are as much a part of any high risk work environment as hard hats and steel cap boots. But whereas other industries have embraced the advantages offered by technology, safe operating procedures in Australia are still stuck in the past. Doing a risk assessment online seems like something that would have become industry standard by now, but in reality the paper-based method, although out dated and inefficient, is still the main method of handling risk and compliance in Australia. This is a problem because as OHS legislation Australia tightens and regulations intensify, the risk management process becomes far more time consuming and more costly. This is bad news for your competitiveness.
A risk assessment software is the solution but what it is and how it should be used properly, remains unresolved.
Until now.
Current examples of safety software merely provide you with a digital copy of safe work method statements and other risk assessment forms. This doesn’t do much in terms of streamlining the risk assessment process and reducing these costly drawbacks. The paperwork, even in a digital form, still needs to be completed, copied, printed, signed and stored for future compliance requests. The Risk assessment software SafeWorkPro has developed puts this entire process into one easy to use tool available on any smart phone or tablet device.
Check out how SafeWorkPro can take your business into the future.
Risk Assessment Software: 5 questions to consider
The best way to explain risk assessment software is to look at the advantages it has over the traditional paper-based method. For starters, as any business owner or manager would know, time is money, so a core value of risk assessment software is speed. The easy accessibility of construction safety software makes it instantly superior over the tiresome and time-consuming task of writing a risk assessment on paper. Using construction risk assessment software like SafeWorkPro, you can send a completed risk assessment anywhere at anytime, making compliance with OHS laws and regulations a breeze. But above all, construction safety software keeps your workforce safe and your business in line with risk assessment regulations.
In this article we will outline the 5 stages of risk assessment software in terms of how it works and what it can do for you. But don’t just take our word for it. The below video is the story of Cole Contracting, a small construction business that, when faced with falling productivity and lagging back end administration, looked to risk assessment software for the solution.
For more information on how our construction risk assessment software works, check out the SafeWorkPro Blog. There you’ll have access to all the information you need to get started, plus loads more on how to complete a risk assessment, how to improve productivity and examples of risk assessment forms.
But back to the building risk assessment checklist we think you should consider before signing up to any construction safety software service. These 5 factors will help you evaluate your options and make an informed decision.
1: How much does the risk assessment software cost?
2: Will the software make your workers safe at work?
3: Does the software give you insight into your business?
4: Will the software pass an audit?
5: Does the software help you comply with the Workplace Health and Safety Act?
1: How much does the risk assessment software cost?
The purpose of our software is to ease the problem of automation for risk assessment forms – in other words: to get rid of the paperwork and make the process quicker and easier. In this case, the software does come at a price but it pays for itself through a streamlined risk management process. Consider it more of an investment than a cost. Return on investment (ROI) is the concept of an investment of some resource yielding a benefit to the investor. So, as you are considering what risk assessment software to use, ask each vendor what ROI you can expect from using their software. SafeWorkPro has a calculated ROI of over 200% (learn more about how we calculated that figure here). We are confident that SafeWorkPro will save you time and money.
2: Will the software improve workplace safety?
Ultimately you want your workers to be safe while they’re on the job. So a key question to consider is how can software help with this? For SafeWorkPro’s risk assessment software, safe operating procedures are delivered to workers when they are on the job via a tool they can download to their mobile or tablet device. So when the worker starts to fill out a risk assessment form on their smartphone or tablet, they are presented with data that has been filled out on previous risk assessments. These suggestions mean that workers are provided with the most relevant risk
3: Does the software give you insight into your business?
Everyday construction managers have to deal with safety. It’s a big part of the job and many safety procedures must be followed otherwise strict penalties may apply. Unsafe behaviour can put workers at risk and result in accidents but there is a way that risk assessment software can help managers. Our software has a configurable dashboard that adds all sorts of meaningful graphs and tables allowing managers to identify hazards and plan a risk management process ahead of time. This is huge benefit for any risk assessment plan because time is saved through smarter and more efficient work.
4: Will the software pass an audit?
If you are audited and need to present your safety management plan, risk assessments, and safe work method statements, SafeWorkPro can deliver these documents to anyone at anytime. The federal government’s fact sheet looking into the top ten corrective action reports (CARs) lodged between 2012-1013 documents failed work practices and reflects the strict requirements of current legislation. So, to avoid joining this list, you need to make sure that your software can output all the documentation needed for the audit. Our software will output all risk
5: Does the software help you comply with the Workplace Health and Safety Act?
The general purpose of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 is to provide a balanced and nationally consistent framework that secures the health and safety of workers and workplaces. When you take a detailed looked at the legislation there are many factors to consider but there are a few general undertones worth mentioning. Firstly, it the duty of the individuals involved in the high risk construction work to manage risks to health and safety. These duties cannot be deferred to someone else. Furthermore, there are certain requirements that must be met or else a penalty could be issued. For example, a principal contractor must be presented with safe work method statements and risk assessments before work on a job can begin. So, the question is how does risk assessment software help with this? Our software allows you to email the appropriate documentation to the principal contractor before starting work. principal contractors find this very convenient as they then have an electronic record in their email inbox to keep and don’t have to worry about filling or document storage down the track.
Summary
There are many factors to consider when evaluating risk assessment software and we’ve touched on a few of the core issues you should think about. That being said, it is our belief that SafeWorkPro satisfies this criteria but if you would like to know more about our risk assessment software please take a look at the SafeWorkPro Blog or drop us a line via our contact page.
SafeWorkPro: getting you on the job quick, safe and compliant.
The Basic Risk Assessment Questions
Understanding OHS laws and regulations is a prime concern for anyone involved in high risk construction work. When done properly, risk assessments make worksites safe and reduce the likelihood of injury or worse. Knowing how to perform a risk assessment is not the only aspect to safe work practices that should be considered. There are other risk assessment questions worth addressing.
What is a risk assessment form?
This basic question has a basic answer. A risk assessment form is a series of documents that aim to identify the risks and hazards evident on a worksite, list the types of high risk construction work involved and outline the measures to be put in place that will eliminate or at least reduce these risks. Risk assessments consist of a safe work method statement and a risk assessment matrix. A safe work method statement is a certified document that must outline what the high risk work is, the risk involved and the control measures to be implemented. Risk assessment matrices place a numerical value on the level of risk associated with each type of high risk work based on their likelihood and consequence.
What is a risk analysis?
This is the process of interpreting just how severe the consequence of a risk or hazard could be. It involves using a risk assessment matrix to place a numerical value on how serve a specific hazard could be. This is done to give workers a better understanding of the risks involved, in turn encouraging safe work practices.
Why do we need risk assessments?
Although they are just another type of paperwork, risk assessments are essentially a way to make safe work practices part of an average worker’s daily routine. By instilling the risk assessment process into the everyday habits of a worker, it is hoped that the type of safe work practices required in any job will be better understood and used more regularly.
Why are risk assessments carried out?
Other than the promotion of safe work practices, risk assessments are carried out as a way to formalise compliance with OHS laws. By having a written record of your risk assessments, regulators are able to check the extent to which a construction business has complied with safe work standards. Also if an accident were to occur, the risk assessment can be used in legal proceedings as a record of compliance. This point underlines the importance of storing risk assessments clearly and efficiently – if you cannot display compliance then you may face penalties.
What is a risk assessment tool?
This is anything that aids or streamlines the risk assessment process. It can take many forms but to date the most efficient method of risk assessment appears to be that offered by software. Risk assessment software takes the paperwork associated with risk management and converts it to a digital form. This basically means that instead of writing a risk assessment on paper, the formwork is completed on an digital tool – like a smartphone app. This is a quicker method of writing a risk assessment but also streamlines the compliance process for managers who, instead of filing paperwork, simple save and store PDF files. Learn more about risk assessment software.
If you would like to learn more about the risk assessment process, check out the SafeWorkPro Blog.
