Health & Safety and Technology – Combining the two
Organisations often struggle with integrating technology into existing Health & Safety protocols and yet this is a vital step to help keep staff and visitors safe.
Every company needs a Health and Safety policy for their company, in order to be fully compliant. The reality, is that just because you have a policy in place it doesn’t then mean all of your employees and visitors would be Health & Safety compliant.
Your health and safety policy demonstrates how your organisation manages health and safety and how your organisation is going to comply with specific regulations that are applicable to your business operations. Simple enough right? Lets just look again at that last part – “how your organisation is going to comply.” It’s one thing stating “how” in your policy, but what many organisations still fail to see is just “how” exactly they will demonstrate this across the site and their team. After all anyone can read a policy statement and claim to understand and remember the protocols, but what happens when accidents occur? As an employer the legal obligations for ensuring health and safety compliance falls under your responsibility.
There’s no point in having company policies, procedures and risk reduction strategies unless you monitor and record this. This is a legal requirement and an excellent opportunity to address all the health and safety issues in your organisation.
So what is a good solution? –
Employees should be introduced to your health and safety policy at their induction. Many companies are updating the way they deliver inductions and combining learning with technology. A computerised system, more commonly known as Online Induction Systems or Learning Management Systems is an excellent tool. These systems are an engaging way of educating personnel and visitors on your Health & Safety policy, whilst more importantly, accurately recording results for full compliance and audit purposes.
These systems come with a variety of other administrative functions such as Compliance Checking programs to see who is/ isn’t permitted to be on site, Records Management tools that flag when staff/ visitor qualifications and health & safety training need to be renewed. Along with many other practical functions, for instance: –
- Site Access systems for on site security
- Emergency Manifest databases
- Maintenance Outages
- Supplier Onboarding
Businesses already incorporating training with technology have found that their staff training is far more consistent, cost effective and efficient. See The True Cost Of Poor Health & Safety Training.
As more and more businesses improve their Health & Safety training, injuries at work continues to decline. There has been a long term downward trend in the rate of fatal injury to around 2012/13. (RIDDOR: Rate per 100,000 employees) Source HSE
Integrating technology into your existing system may seem daunting, but the end results far out weight the negatives. See how other companies are incorporating Induction Systems into their staff training.
See 5 Great Examples of Online Inductions Systems
