How to take control of health and safety without specialist Enterprise Software

Hype v reality with specialist software systems

The EBIS-HSE Law and Practice Update seminar this year discussed whether you need specialist HSE enterprise software to have a good safety system.

Safety conference exhibition halls and literature are filled with advertisements for HSE software that is supposed to give you a complete system that you can just buy and apply. This sounds immensely attractive until you try and implement it. EBIS delegates cited headaches including trying to make an off-the-shelf system fit, the cost and silo effect of user logins, the commitment to transferring data from existing systems and the lack of senior management buy-in. Also, what if you merge with another company, or want to change your HSE software provider, or they go bust…?

Specialist HSE software systems have been superseded

We have good news. It is no longer necessary to have HSE software for collecting field data, managing action items, conducting safety investigations and storing consultant and engineer reports. Most of the elements of a safety system are now managed better by the rapidly developing Microsoft (or other native software platforms) out-of-the-box (OOTB) solutions with a bit of no-code IT input. Communication and analysis of safety data is much easier using native platforms.

Five elements for effective health and safety systems

You can boil the bloated list of functions of HSE software systems down to 5 elements as follows:

·      Leadership by communication, systems and controlled documents

·      Forms for inspections, permissions and checks of all kinds

·      Data and records management – some of which is sensitive or personal

·      A system of task management especially highlighting incomplete safety critical tasks

·      A flexible system of graphical live reporting distributed throughout the organisation

Your native account can now do all these things better.

Case Studies

Our clients are using native platform software to do the following:

Leadership and Collaboration

Writing, collaboratively editing, disseminating and engaging people around policies and procedures that are meaningful and effective obviously does not need specialist software. The main platforms all have OOTB solutions to document control. Having managed hundreds of such documents over the years, you need them to be brief, specific and clear, or they are never read. Many consultants seem to have the Dickens approach, as if paid by the word – the more the merrier. I prefer the balsamic vinegar approach. The highest value is in the most reduced and powerful document. McNeilCollective.com has excellent document packages ready to go for many industry sectors.

Incident and near miss reports

Using a SharePoint form hundreds of workers on a construction site are able to link to a portal for submitting basic incident and near-miss data. The safety team could then prioritise these for more detailed analysis if necessary. A reporting dashboard fed back trends to all as per below.

Start-up safety management

A start-up was considering hiring traditional consultants to “Take care of health and safety so that they could concentrate on their business.” Considering HSE guidance and the principles of ISO 45001, the start-up wanted to manage health and safety in the same way as other key business elements so that they could have a system that grew with them. Using the McNeil Collective checklists and document pack saved them 70% of the annual costs on safety even with a handy mobile safety input app that gave them consultant quality reports of all health and safety issues and facilitate a collaborate approach to safety management. McNeil Collective IOSH grade health and safety consultants were brought in as necessary to carry out a verification audit of a fully functioning internal system for reassurance.

Office safety management

A safety consulting firm that sells a complex enterprise safety management system saw the McNeil Collective office checklist and app and immediately ordered it for all office managers to do their monthly safety checks and collaborate with their team and report on any issues. Their own system was so complex that nobody wanted to use it. The McNeil Collective checklists and app proved easy to use with 100% take-up straight away. There was no consultant plant and spread. Just the right, affordable tool to meet a specific need perfectly.

Health care charity CQC incident investigations

Using the McNeil Compliance App, a Corporate Safety team use their phone to dictate text, take photographs and collect data for an immediate PDF report of incident investigations. Signatures and a date stamp are collected for an official report. The data is securely transmitted. The app communicates with a database using secure REST APIs. Ad hoc teams are created using native system communication tools to ensure confidential consideration of the incident from all the angles involved.

Landlord Asset Inspection Programme

Safety audit checklists are specifically created by skilled and experienced consultants to help property surveyors understand safety issues and carry out safety audits as part of their normal property management visits to premises. The audit goes straight into the property database which feeds to a live Power BI Dashboard to give property managers prioritised action items.

Asbestos and engineering report generation and storage

Technical reports of asbestos surveys and engineering reports are created with the user in mind to ensure that the management is clear about action items and limits of the scope of the repot. It is generated immediately using the McNeil Compliance App and entered into the client database for permanent storage with PDF reports also generated for site use. All communication and storage is on the client software so the report is the property of the client.

Management dashboard reporting

A multi-site client has action items placed on a SharePoint drive. This gives a status report and attaches supporting documentation. Each site can only see their documents, but the managers can see all of them for the live reporting and deep penetration of status.

Training

SharePoint is used to highlight and distribute training outlines and videos across an organisation with hundreds of workers. Training for each department and risk area was created in PowerPoint videos or Moodle. Training records are captured on the Moodle platform as training progresses.

Take Control of your safety system

Forms, data, tasks and reporting should be handled using your OOTB native software tools. Basic IT input at a level commonly found in an organisation is often needed for setup However, there is no need for retained IT consultants as these are no-code solutions offered by the native software.

Data input needs a highly editable, low cost, simple, powerful app. It must connect to your native database and generate reports direct to avoid unnecessary 3rd party data ownership. Benefit from well-designed forms and policies that have been distilled by highly experienced consultants and input from engaged employees. With these systems it is possible to own your flexible, system with the McNeil Compliance app. Please contact us and visit our Website.