Traditionally, a safety manager’s majority of reporting has consisted of lagging indicators; injury and illness statistics, such as, Total Recordable Injury Frequency (TRIF) or Lost Time Injury Frequency (LTIF). Although these reports are widely used in the industry for historical purposes, they are not the best indicators for safety managers to use to improve their company’s safety program and determine the best place for safety resources.

One of the major reasons that lagging indicator reporting is used by safety managers is because leading indicator (proactive) reporting, such as compliance reporting and action items completed on time are very difficult to report. The benefit of having a quality online safety management system is that these statistics are generated from the system.

SafetySync now has two leading indicators available on our safety management system.  First, overall corporate compliance is charted to determine the overall direction of a companies compliance levels. This can then be drilled down to each element in the safety program, or down to the individual employee level.

In addition, SafetySync now charts Action Item History.  Allowing safety managers to track action items’ progress in four different categories, determining how effective their company is at completing action items on time.


These two leading indicators give forward-thinking safety managers the reports they need to inform management on the performance of their safety program and allow management to make informed decisions that will ultimately improve their corporate safety program.

SafetySync has taken the first step down the positive reinforcement path.  We have a comedian, Malcolm, who entertains employees that have actively participated in your safety program during the last week.

The “Joke of the Week” is available to employees that are 100% compliant, or have moved closer to 100% compliance in the last week by completing a minimum number of elements (set by the administrator).  If an employee has not completed the required number of safety program elements, links are provided to the next required element(s).

The best part of the system is that at the end of Malcolm’s performance, employees can give him a thumbs-up by throwing him a bag of money, or a thumbs-down by throwing a tomato.

The Joke of the Week uses up less than a minute of your employees' time each week, but it sends an important message that you appreciate their contribution to the success of your safety program! 

One of the greatest benefits of SafetySync is that the system actively communicates with employees in real time their compliance level. Continuous monitoring alleviates some of the pressures that safety manager’s face in ensuring their employees are 100% compliant. It allows employees to take control of their involvement of the safety program by accessing their personal compliance information.

The key to this process is the Safety System Monitoring system. This system sends out periodic safety compliance status reminder emails (time period is set by the administrator) that give employees a summary of their compliance status for each element of the safety program. This reminder is what employees need to ensure they are moving towards 100% compliance!

If you do not have the Safety System Monitoring turned on for your company, please contact SafetySync support desk. It could be the driver that takes your safety program to the next level!

I have started to see a theme develop that is interesting when working with online safety management systems; they make safety managers a little uncomfortable… at first.

Originally I thought companies were hesitant to put their safety programs online because of the overall anxiety of pure change, working with new technology, and data security issues (which are not really issues, since online service providers like SafetySync have similar data security systems as major banks).

I now realize that some companies fear having an online safety management system because it could potentially expose holes in their safety. Huge piles of paperwork and forms make it difficult to monitor a company’s compliance levels, providing managers with a “safety net” in case certain elements are incomplete or poorly implemented.

Systems like SafetySync make it difficult (if not impossible) for companies to take short cuts when implementing their safety programs. For example, management can no longer sign off on a fifteen minute orientation that covers 3 days of content, and an employee can no longer acknowledge a 130 page safety manual after 30 seconds of reading.

The obvious downside to a comprehensive system is that things take time to do right the first time. The upside is that it is done right the first time, which saves lives and law suits.

Our clients that have completed this experience have found that discovering and filling holes in their safety program is a big job. In the end, they are rewarded with the comfort of knowing that their safety management system works, and that they have the documentation to back it up.

On Monday I read an article in OHS Canada Magazine about a 22 year-old worker being killed while replacing an industrial tire, while his co-worker was seriously injured.  This article especially hit home for me as my 19 year-old nephew did the same task last summer while working at a tire shop.
 

The article states, “The subsequent investigation found that the two workers received very little training on the proper procedures for replacing a truck tire, and received no written instructions at any point.”

Although it is obvious from the above statement that safe job procedures training would have helped prevent this accident, it begs the question, how you do you present this information to a young worker so that they want to review it?

Most (well, actually all) of the safe work procedures that I have reviewed are written in a binder in black and white… no pictures and no color… boring.  Not something that would encourage a young worker to stay focused; particularly when compared with the multimedia content young people are accustomed to seeing on the Internet.

There are a few things that we are doing at SafetySync to make safe work procedures a little more interesting for all workers (especially young workers) to review:

1. Pictures – We have added the capability to of add a picture to each step of the procedure.  A picture can show at a glance what might otherwise take paragraphs of long-winded text.  Visual memory is also better for long-term recollection of tasks, objects and situations.  
2. Color – In each step we use colors to give visual clues to ensure the worker understands the material (i.e. hazards are red and the controls are green).   A risk matrix also pops up for each step which presents a risk level in a visual format, ranking the hazard’s probability and severity.
3. Mobile Access – Our software runs on an internet browser, so workers can reference a company’s entire inventory of safe operating procedures right from their smart phones (like the Blackberry Storm or Apple iPhone). Inexperienced employees can spend a few minutes reviewing the task on the way to the job site, or immediately before they perform the work.  

We see technology as a great way to effectively involve workers in safety program requirements, such as reviewing safe work procedures. Not only does it track due diligence, but also is a more interesting and effective way to present the information.

I had lunch today with my friend Murray Sunstrum. He recently started a new job with a major producer that is an owner-client of ISNetworld. He responded to a couple of our blogs in the past about how ISNetworld and the Certificate of Recognition programs can be complimentary… I was sceptical.

I spent years running an energy services company that had satisfied it’s COR requirements, I had not been a fan of the ISNetworld system for the following reasons:

1. ISNetworld is making most of their money off of the service companies, who are being forced to use the software by their clients.  These subcontractors have little input into the process and usability of the ISN system.
2. The process for energy services clients to become compliant is a lot of work, and it may not even improve their safety program. There are questions in ISNetworld that often have nothing to do with a company’s business.
3. ISNetworld’s standards are not determined by the industry and are partly driven by their internal process. (Read the comments in our blog for more ISNetworld complaints)

A few things have happened in the last week that softened my stance about ISN.

Earlier in the week, I read an article about a young person who was killed the second day on the job, which reminded me why I am constantly driven to improve safety. Ten years ago my cousin died from injuries in a drilling rig accident after spending 10 days in a coma. Those 10 days changed my life.  I watched his family arrive at the hospital for the first time, and I will never forget the fear in his mother’s eyes.  It has always being my belief that his death could have been prevented if a better safety management system had been in place on his worksite.

Yesterday I was talking with the new CEO of the energy services business our family used to own.  Just a few months ago she had been frustrated at having to update their safety policies and answer the endless questionnaire.  Having now completed that exercise, she feels that ISNetworld will give her company a business advantage moving forward; their safety program is now getting recognized by producers. (In the past, we had always been frustrated that the work we had put into our safety program was not being acknowledged by our clients.)

Finally, after I got back from lunch with Murray, I got a phone call from my brother-in-law.  He owns a small energy services company (5 employees) that also happens to contract to Murray’s company. He has no safety background and little safety education, except Enform’s Safety Program Development course that is required to initiate the COR process.  At different times over the last few months I had encouraged him to move forward with his safety program development. Although he is concerned about the safety of his employees, other pressing issues of a new company indirectly caused safety to get pushed to the back burner. Today, he was in a panic because he needs to get his company ISNetworld compliant before June 30!  We quickly mapped out a plan to get his company SECOR compliant, which I am confident from the fear in his voice he will complete. (He decided to go with SAFETYSYNC… good choice!)

[Note: If I didn’t know better, I would have thought Murray set my brother-in-law up to phone me to reinforce his point at lunch.]

Safety should be a business’ highest priority, at least equal to all other activities.  But we all know that important tasks, like safety, are often put off at the expense of urgent tasks, like making sales or processing payroll.  ISNetworld provides a system for prime contractors to track their service companies’ safety system, which results in an incentive (remaining on the vendor list in this case) for the service company to get serious about safety. If it is going to force companies to implement or improve their safety programs, which will make worksites safer and prevent accidents like the one that caused my cousin’s death… maybe ISNetworld is a good thing after all.

Unfortunately, revising safety policies to meet new standards can be an onerous task. For many companies it means a complete overhaul of their safety manual. There are logistical and corporate issues that need to be addressed when creating new policies. Here are a few points to consider when updating your safety manual:

First, ensure new policies work for your company’s structure, work conditions and corporate culture. Having a 10 page policy may meet every standard and regulation in the world, but if the policy does not apply to your company, the policy is not going to work. 

Second, as Brian mentioned in July’s blog, you need to ensure that these new policies are being communicated to your employees. In the past, sub contractors believed that their job was done once the policies were written. Unfortunately, this is only half the battle; the second phase is to ensure that these polices are communicated to and acknowledged by your employees.

Prime contactors are getting wise to the fact that some of their service companies are simply sending in polices that meet their standards. A least one major producer has started to implement an audit process where they visit their sub contractors to ensure employees are aware of the new policies. The audit results have not been entirely positive.

Communicating new policies to employees was a problem that Action Health and Safety Services faced after renewing their safety manual. Sandra Minifie, CEO at Action, was spending thousands of dollars printing safety manuals and then trying to distribute the binders to employees in the field who are often in remote locations. She described it as a “logistical nightmare”.

Sandra now uses SAFETYSYNC’s policy acknowledgement system to communicate policies to Action employees. The system tracks who has acknowledged the policies, when each policy was acknowledged and what policy version was acknowledged.

Finally, you need to have a policy management system that can adapt to changes in the industry. No longer can you print, bind and distribute a safety manual and expect it to be relevant a year later. Regulations, industry best practices and client directives will inevitably evolve and your manual will no longer be up to date.

The old-school policy change system was to send out a piece of paper, an insert, or a safety alert with the modifications. This process was impossible to manage; inserts got lost or misfiled and safety alerts were not always read. Your safety team must have a system to ensure a replacement policy makes it to the worker in the field.

Fortunately, online policy management systems allow your company to respond quickly and cost effectively to changes in the industry, which will certainly happen as regulations continue to increase and prime contractors have more choice in who they hire in the current economy.