10 Key Questions to Answer Before Choosing an EHS Software for the Public Sector
Recently, we published a whitepaper titled “9-Step Guide to Safety Transformation in the Public Sector”.
The paper highlighted the following about automation and overall operational modernization at public sector and government-run organizations:
- The importance of spotting high-opportunity areas where digital transformation will make a big difference
- Digital transformation as a mean to drive more data-driven decisions
- Easier reporting and analytics when the right set of tools are used
- The need for integrated “connected” systems and how siloed digital tools will result in inefficiencies
The four points mentioned above are especially important from a health & safety perspective. Public sector entities understand the immense value of “safe people, safe workplace, and safe processes” and the only way to make it a reality is to embrace automation.
The automation of safety management processes and workflows will help with the following:
- Bringing together teams and stakeholders across locations to approach all the work they do with a “safety-first” approach
- A single platform where all safety-related documents including safety policy, SOP documentation, etc. can be easily accessed
- Ease of incident handling and planning CAPAs
- Recording, tracking, monitoring, and acting on near-misses and safety observations
- Scheduling of safety audits on a periodic basis
- Conducting focused safety inspections with clearly defined goals and objectives
- Proactive risk assessment and risk management
- Safety training - customized for various locations, nature of work, etc.
- Overall, build a safety culture and spread awareness about the importance of doing the right thing when it comes to health and safety
Safety Management in the Public Sector: Common Challenges
Some of the common challenges in the public sector when it comes to workplace safety include:
- Diverse workforce across several locations, cities, and offices
- Legacy systems and processes that are often difficult to change
- Prioritization of budgets
- Resource allocation, training, and planning
- Large, complex operations that are not easy to transform
- Public scrutiny and overall resistance to change
- Integration with other software/solutions used to make the new digital tools useful
In the whitepaper we mentioned above, we offer a manual of sorts to help guide safety leaders in the public sector implement a safety transformation project. The key aspects of any safety transformation must include the following:
- Assess and evaluate current state of safety management in your organization
- Analyze documents, data and reports that are currently available and decide what else is needed
- Define safety policy, plan out your goals & objectives
- Draft SOPs for various job roles
- Involve the leadership team and make safety a priority for them
- Of course, employee engagement across the organization is critical for effective implementation
- Continuous training is critical for ongoing improvement
- Measure both lagging and leading indicators of health & safety performance
- Empower people and teams; ensure they are truly engaged with the organization’s safety goals
- Ongoing audits and inspections are a critical component of better safety
- Proactive risk management with data at the core
Read the full whitepaper to find out more: https://www.compliancequest.com/whitepaper/9-step-guide-to-safety-transformation/
Evaluating an EHS Software for Your Public Sector Organization? Answer the Following Questions Before You Choose
As detailed above, a robust safety strategy is the first step towards better safety. But in order to implement this strategy and execute it well, the role of a modern EHS Software cannot be emphasized enough.
Answer the following questions for yourself, and then choose the EHS Software for your organization:
- Is the EHS tool flexible, scalable, and configurable?
- Is it secure and reliable?
- Can we implement this quickly?
- Do we need to worry about infrastructure?
- Does it integrate with our other software including our HRMS and CRM?
- Is it modular, so we can add features and capabilities as time goes by?
- Does it have out of the box checklists and pre-built processes for regulatory compliance?
- Will our people use it? Is it intuitive and simple to use?
- Does it take advantage of latest technology including leveraging AI and analytics?
- Is the solution running on a FedRAMP certified platform?
Evaluating your EHS Software options based on answers to the above questions will bring in a lot of clarity into your process.
At ComplianceQuest, we have built our EHS Solution on a FedRAMP High and IL4 Certified Platform. Find out more here: https://www.compliancequest.com/industry/government/
