Health and Safety: What CEOs Need to Know Now

Is your enterprise ready for the New Normal? Can your team inform you of where your safety risks are when it comes to employee, contractor, and client safety? Can they tell you exactly what is being done to mitigate the effects of this new way to operate? Can they provide you with high-level statistics that tell you all is being managed effectively or where the trouble spots are?

If the answer to any of these questions is “no”, then not only may your employees and clients be at higher risk, your company and brand may be challenged in this new and highly competitive environment.

Reliable Information is the key to solid decision-making capabilities for companies to get back on the path of success and remain viable. Business leaders are well-versed in their income, balance, and cash-flow statements and have up-to-date EBITDA and sales calculations at their fingertips. Your finger on the pulse of the financial health of the company is a no-brainer, but many are still reliant on disparate slices of safety information from multiple locations or departmental silos. In the new realities of operating with the COVID-19 pandemic, company leaders also need to have their finger on the pulse of health and safety – you can’t afford not to.

And the only way to do that in a company larger than a few small stores is to have a robust, integrated database that is easily accessible and manages the data to not only know what risks are being faced but also know what is being done and how effective those controls are. If you already have a Salesforce shop, it is an even simpler process to implement the ComplianceQuest Workplace Safety App from Appexchange.

Safety management methodology combined with robust technology will provide the platform to collect, collate and trend health and safety data related to COVID-19 or any other risk to the health and well-being of staff, clients, contractors, or the community. Effective data capture and analysis will provide the information for good, data-based decision making and therefore improve performance and the return on investment.

ComplianceQuest is an AppExchange partner contributing to Work.com to provide their extensive expertise in safety, quality, and operational compliance to assist businesses with reopening or addressing the next phase to open for business. A one-stop shop for collecting and managing health and safety information is key, not only for operational efficiency but to protect your workers and business in this unprecedented time.

Health and Safety: What Company Leadership Needs to Know Now

The WHO, CDC, governments, and health authorities have provided a recipe to reduce the threat of COVID as business resumes operation. Social distancing, wearing a mask, washing your hands, and staying home if you’re sick or have potentially been exposed to the virus. Ensuring these new processes and procedures are in place in a large company can be daunting, but the value gained can literally save lives, let alone your business and reputation.

There is also a recipe for improving safety in operations, and as in the case of managing COVID, it begins with people. Your workforce is your greatest asset and often the greatest expense, and yet you would think that more would be done to reduce injury rates and the associated costs. Companies often find out about operational hazards too late – after the fact. Yet many high-risk industries have shown that companies can indeed become proactive – know where and how injuries are likely and put steps in place to avoid them. It works, and the recipe is simple if leadership leads and fully commits both their focus and the resources to do so – the ROI has been shown to repay in spades. Here are some of the headlines for doing so:

• Safety Culture: It is how you harness the power of your workforce to help ensure your injury and unwanted event rate is reduced. A culture that fosters safety reporting, and transparent sharing of ideas and information around safety without fear of unwarranted discipline has been shown to be the key gaining the knowledge needed to proactively improve operations and protect workers from harm.
• Responsibility and Accountability: From the receptionist to the CEO and everyone in between, each person must be aware of their responsibilities with regards to safety in the workplace, and to be fairly held accountable for their actions in a non-punitive form. People make mistakes – it’s part of being human – and training, processes, oversight and fair treatment will reduce the likelihood and consequence of those errors.
• Non-punitive and transparent reporting of safety issues: Your workers are your eyes and ears throughout your operations. Some operations, through punitive actions and discipline for errors, foster a culture where people keep safety events to themselves. You can’t manage what you don’t know.
• Communication: Provide high level trend information up the food-chain, and important information and lessons learned to all staff. A well informed workforce is an engaged workforce and your greatest asset in maintaining and improving safety. Whether it is the battle against COVID or working towards zero injuries, knowing that safety is the first priority empowers staff, improves moral and adaptation to change as well as providing support in these trying times. Whether you work in a city with a high incident rate of COVID, a remote work camp or working from home, staff are working under different pressures and effective communication will lesson the stress as they return to work or phase in more operations.
• Integration of information: Away with the old, silo way of doing things – information is power. Bringing all your safety data under one umbrella allows you to manage risk, trend where and how hot spots appear, and quickly identify areas for improvement. COVID-19 requires us all to do business differently, managing the risk not only for our own employees, but their families, contractors, clients and vendors. Having the right tool to oversee inspections, checklists, illness rates, return to work and reporting from your workforce provides leadership with the information to be effective at managing their operation.

This is not rocket science, but the tried and true methodology of a Safety Management System. ComplianceQuest is uniquely positioned to provide the system and support needed to move from a purely reactive operation to one that is proactive and continuously improving. People and the information they provide and manage will work together to make this happen.