Where we at now?
I work with a lot of different companies and get to take part in numerous safety programs. One common trait I see throughout 90% of the companies is the generation of mounds of paper.
Why do companies operating in today’s electronic age refuse to move their safety program to an electronic platform? While they’re are certain documents in the field that must remain paper based (FLHA, Equipment Inspections), the overall program can be migrated to a digital system quite easily.
How many still use a paper-based system for accounting and communicating?
Why are most company documentation tasks completed electronically but the safety program is still mired in paperwork?
Boxes of Paper
Most programs follow a similar system consisting of field generated forms being collected at days end and submitted back to the office later, then handled again by office staff members, who either file them or enter/scan them into the “safety system”.
Think of this for minute. What value is the end product to the company operations? We’ve probably involved 3-5 staff members to arrive at a file folder on the shared drive that houses a collection of forms that field personnel may have filled out, signatures may be legible, and you may be able to show due diligence if required.
Why are we doing this!
If often hear that the exercise of completing forms at sites is time consuming and provides little value aside from keeping the client happy today and the company auditor every three years. When crews are faced with filling in numerous daily forms that get thrown in a box for delivery to the office sometime in the future, the enthusiasm is quickly lost. It’s simply an exercise to keep someone from complaining.
It all comes back to what value is received from the documentation that’s generated, either paper or electronic. Companies require it for proving due diligence and meeting required legislation to avoid fines and keep people out of jail.
As an owner, manager or supervisor, would you feel confident that the documentation from the past year would keep you in business if reviewed in court?
I’ll fight you, tooth and nail!
I’ve heard that at a site where I was hired to implement a cloud-based program to replace their paper based system. The foreman had enough experience that he had forms available on his laptop that covered any required documentation. He had taken the time to develop a very thorough filing system and he wasn’t about to have me messing with it.
This is part of the problem with paper-based programs, they allow silos of information that changes from site to site within the same company. This individual is very good at what he does and takes pride in having a system in place for documentation, sadly that wasn’t the case throughout the company. Every site had an assortment of forms that had developed over time, with client requests, personnel preference and past experience having shaped each version.
What are the benefits of using paper forms for your safety program? I can’t think of any.
What’s so great about that?
Here’s 6 questions for you to illustrate the benefits of moving to a digital H&S program, answer them from your current position with your safety program:
1. Can you review documentation in real time?
2. Are all required fields completed and legible?
3. Are documents the same at all your locations/crews?
4. Can you tell me what worker certifications are coming due in the next 3/6 months?
5. You’ve had an incident and need to show that a worker had been orientated with certain information and signed the required documents for the activity. Can you produce these within the next hour as you have to submit them to the site prime contractor as part of an investigation?
6. On inspections, can you easily show items that are flagged, who they’re assigned to for correction, attach the completed corrective actions, signed off, date/time stamped?
Here are my favorite points to demonstrate the advantage of moving to an online system.
- Consistency throughout all operations
- Automatic document retrieval
- Mandatory fields in forms
- Duplication features that enable repetitive tasks documentation to maintain recurring location, hazards and controls, etc.
- Date and time stamped documents establish accountability and history of activity for all personnel levels.
I’m not comfortable with that stuff!
The biggest obstacle that I’ve encountered is the anxiety that people feel towards using tablets due to having no experience with them. This is short lived when you take the time to load the required documents, explain how to access them and walk the person through several forms.
By having them experience the ease of filling in the required elements and signing off, viewpoints change. All that’s required is fifteen minutes and fingers for most people.
Take the time to show the crew that the tablet holds all the information required for the safety program. If you need something to read or sign that’s for safety, it’s here.
Gone are the binders full of documents that are dated, obsolete and duplicated. If you need a inspection checklist, product SDS, ERP plan, check crew certifications, SWP, JSA, it’s here in one place.
One of the major advantages to the online program is that there is one point of entry for adding/updating anything in the program which ensures that every site has the same information, allowing for seamless migration of workers between crews, documentation changes are made once, all sites instantly have the new version available. Ever try that when you change a policy or procedure in your paper system?
It’s pricey!
I won’t try to give you the comparison in a spreadsheet table, instead I’ll let you do the math.
Add the wages paid daily for all the time that you currently use throughout all levels of your company (complete, assemble, copy/scan/send and file) to keep your safety program running.
Now, with that number in mind, multiply it by 240 (# of days in a normal month x 12 months).
This is the annual wage cost of your current program, now look at what you got for that money.
Are you happy with the result, good value for your dollar? If so, then you won’t see any advantage of switching to a digital platform.
Oh by the way, plans for small companies are very affordable and you can run a very good online system that accommodates 100 workers for less than $500 a month!
Do you have 100 crew members using paper, what’s your number per month?
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