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COVID, no doubt, catalyzed interest in work health and safety. But then came time for the follow through – with the inevitable question asked, did safety promises become safety actions? Industry data suggest no. Are safety programs overpromising and underdelivering?
Widespread dissatisfaction with safety promises
Well, recently released safety data point to widespread dissatisfaction with safety programs.
Specifically, more than 70 per cent of workers say their organizations aren’t following through on safety promises (Safety + Health).
And if that’s not bad enough, almost two thirds of workers suggest that their employers aren’t doing enough to improve safety training.
What’s going on, here?
Clearly, workers are chiding employers for not getting serious about safety training.
Not just that, incomplete preparation for safety emergencies and poor notification of safety incidents have also emerged as points of contention.
Turning things around will naturally start there.
How to follow through on your safety promises
How to go about it?
Well, under the terms of international standard ISO 45001, organizations must take concrete steps to anticipate, prevent, or minimize the risk from potential emergencies. And that’s because emergency situations create safety risk.
A best-practice approach to remove that risk must, therefore, entail robust emergency preparedness and response measures at all stages of the emergency management lifecycle (mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery). Those measures will include:
- Identify and plan for potential emergency situations; integrate emergency exercises into your system.
- Prepare a planned response to emergency situations, such as bomb threats, terrorist attacks, active shooter incidents, or natural disasters.
- Periodically test and exercise emergency response capabilities.
- Evaluate and revise emergency preparedness measures, especially after the occurrence of emergency situations.
- Provide relevant information to all members of the organizations regarding their duties and responsibilities during an emergency event.
- At the very least, organizations should proactively maintain up-to-date contact details of all internal and external stakeholders and procure mass communication tools to be deployed during major emergencies, e.g., earthquakes and storms.
- Provide emergency prevention, preparedness, and response training.
- Communicate information to contractors, visitors, relevant emergency response services, government authorities, and the local community.
Digital technology to improve the quality of safety trainings
Now, what about deficiencies in safety trainings? Workers, here, say that those trainings should be mandatory and regular.
That’s proven a challenge, particularly for organizations with multiple sites. Fortunately, digital safety management software can help.
Following ISO standards, those platforms can help plan, conduct, and follow up using libraries of pre-configured training, audit, and inspection templates. Or, you can make your own using intuitive form and workflow designers.
The end-result is similar: getting everyone going through the same inductions, by streamlining induction process and enabling inductions to be completed online on any device. This allows organizations to track the status of all inductions in one location across multiple sites in real time.
What other capabilities matter to ensure safety programs are delivering on their promises? Download our Safety Management Software Buyer’s Guide to learn more.
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