As a safety consultant who has visited many workplaces of all sizes and industry types, Acting Manager of the Health, Safety and Wellbeing team at the Victorian Chamber, Anton Zytnik, can attest that truly digital safety management systems remain hard to find, even in 2021.

Anton has encountered first-hand cumbersome incident reporting systems, critical safety information buried in PDFs on a shared drive, and a lack of useful real-time information about outstanding safety issues that need to be resolved.

Hazards often go unreported because a form is too long, there is poor internal communication, or missing safety instructions. All these scenarios increase the risk of serious injuries and worse.

What is a digital safety management system?

A truly digital safety management system is one where employees, managers and safety teams alike can exchange, submit, review, collaborate and act on safety information in a seamless process.

Consider the following scenarios:

• An employee scans a QR code and submits a hazard report on their phone in less time than it takes to order a taxi.
• Selected members of the safety team and management are instantly notified via an alert – the safety team allocates the issue to the correct department for resolution, who also receives a notification.
• An employer’s register of first aid officers, contact officers, HSR’s etc. is 100 per cent accurate and up to date. The safety team is notified in advance when refresher training is coming up for renewal.
• A new employee scans a QR code on her phone which links to a short instructional video on how to operate a high-risk piece of machinery.
• The safety team has a centralised calendar of events, including an auditing schedule, annual risk register review by senior leadership team, seasonal safety awareness campaigns
• Safety information is easily accessible on a web-based platform. It is easy to find, important documents, internal forms, instructional videos etc.

Fortunately, there are more tools available than ever before built into the Office suites of Microsoft and Google that negate the need for costly third-party proprietary software and are simple to set up and maintain.

With its 2020 release of Lists, for example, employers using MS Office 365 can capture incidents, hazards and near misses, assign owners and priority, follow-up overdue items, and access information about incidents in real-time across multiple devices. Google’s G Suite has also has similar capabilities.

How we can help

Our team of expert consultants have worked with businesses of different sizes and industry types to build and maintain digital safety transformation. In every aspect of our lives we expect efficient digital systems that we can use to submit, review and act on information anywhere, anytime, on any device. Why should the world of safety management be any different?

Contact us on 03 8662 5196 or at HSW@victorianchamber.com.au to talk about how we can help your business.