Making workplaces safe for employees is a perennial requirement for employers, more so in the aftermath of COVID-19. It has created a new need to step up safety practices including physical distancing norms and sufficient availability of PPE. This is in addition to the traditional requirement of reporting illnesses and injuries, meeting safety regulations and staying up to date with CDC and OSHA guidelines.
Drawing on its combined experience in Quality and Safety Management Systems (QHSE), ComplianceQuest has launched a Workplace Safety App for Work.com to help enterprises implement post-COVID-19 workplace safety practices.
Workplace Safety begins at home
As on-site operations restart, enterprises need safety checks and processes covering the entire lifecycle of an employee:
- Commute to and from work
- Pre-Entry into the place of work
- At work
- Common areas
- Post-Infection care
In addition to mandatory protective measures such as wearing masks and other PPE equipment, sanitizing the workplace and post-infection care, other requirements include:
- Return-to-Work Training
- Risk assessment, based on location and surveys
- Collaboration and communication, to keep up-to-date “safety-related” information of (and for) all employees
- Safe commute options
- Mental and physical health, along with personal wellness
- Staggered entry times
- Physical distancing within the workplace
- Restricting non-employee (supplier, customer) entry
- Screening and Temperature checks
- Sanitization processes
- Post-infection care and management
- Continuous improvement and change
- A data-driven approach to decision making
- Managing backend processes including inventory management and changing workflows
- Adherence to regulations
A non-automated process will not work efficiently
In large enterprises with teams across locations and multiple campuses, managing and monitoring safety processes can be a challenge if done manually. Even a simple task like cleaning and sanitization will require physically checking each floor and each building, leaving no time for more important safety checks. Automation is the only way to ensure adherence to all new safety processes and workflows.
The challenges small and medium enterprises face are different but just as daunting. Working with a lean staff, health and safety measures may end up being mere formalities that meet regulatory compliance requirements.
But neither small nor large enterprises can afford to slacken. Any incident endangers the health and safety of its employees, no doubt. But it can also affect the reputation of the company in addition to costing the business dearly. Risk mitigation and prevention are crucial, especially in today’s world of media trials and stringent regulatory requirements.
A collaborative approach between HR and Safety leaders
Automating HSE through a tool like the Workplace Safety App from ComplianceQuest and available on Work.com can help enterprises manage their health and safety information effectively and efficiently to protect workers, reduce safety costs and lower risk to operations. It is a platform for safety and HR leaders to collaborate effectively to design a robust process and continuously improve workplace safety standards.
The app integrates safety management methodology with a robust technology 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 its staff, clients, contractors and the community. Its data-capture and analytics features can help enterprises make informed decisions backed by real-time data.
To enable this, the Workplace Safety app has been designed with the following features:
- Work.com command center: From the command center, a safety leader can pull open the safety scores of any location. It includes a color-coded approach to indicate whether a location is a ‘Pass, Warning, or Fail’, making it easy for leaders to kept track of safety risk by location.
- Schedule and track inspections by month or by week
- Track the capacity of any location, based on CDC or OSHA stipulated guidelines
- Open CAPAs to ensure swift action is taken when needed
- Access reports by location, by injury type, or by the time of reporting of an incident
- Checklists, to track specialized requirements
Being built on the Salesforce.com platform, it is a cloud-based solution that can be deployed with ease, is scalable and flexible and can be customized to suit the needs of businesses of all shapes and sizes. Moreover, it integrates with ComplianceQuest’s QHSE system, thus offering an integrated platform to drive a 360-degree quality, health, safety and quality process.
The Workplace Safety app can also be integrated with other Work.com applications, making it easier for leaders to automate the process of reopening. Specifically, the app can automate the following:
- Facility Inspections
- Injury and Illness Reporting
- PPE Management
- Return to Work
- Safety Observations
- Hazard Analysis
- Stop Work Authority
- Safety Notifications through Chatter
- Analytics and Dashboards, with additional capabilities of Einstein analytics
By allowing the safety workers to have a finger on the pulse through such a comprehensive view, it can help them focus on implementing a four-pronged approach for improving employee health and workplace safety by:
- Designing exhaustive processes, workflows and checklists to manage employee safety interventions
- Monitoring employee safety data in real-time, with data visibility across the organization
- Acting based on predictive analytics and a proactive mindset
- Improving by taking prompt corrective action or preventive action as needed
Communication & Collaboration, the key
Proactive safety requires behavioural change, well-crafted communication and continuous evaluation. Employees need training on new workforce practices and safety and HR leaders can implement disciplinary measures to enforce rules. ComplianceQuest’s Workplace Safety app as part of Work.com is designed to do just that.
We recently published a whitepaper titled ‘Design, Automate and Monitor a Continuous Process around Workplace and Employee Safety’ to offer a guideline of sorts to help enterprises reopen with a safety-first mindset. Read it here: http://www.compliancequest.com/whitepaper/design-automate-and-monitor-a-continuous-process-around-workplace-and-employee-safety/
To request a demo of our Workplace Safety app, visit: http://www.compliancequest.com/workplace-safety/