How an Auditing App Can Transform Your Workplace Safety Strategy
Safety strategy in the workplace is way beyond just compliance. Safe workplaces are productive ones – it benefits from fewer disasters, which results in reduced occupational health costs, less employee downtime, and better employee retention.
About Workplace Safety
Workplace safety pertains to the provision of a safe environment, safe equipment, and safety procedures in the workplace in order to ensure workers' health and safety. This can be achieved by doing the following:
- Identify all the workplace safety hazards
- Define safety policies and procedures
- Provide workers with safety training and instructions
- Foster a culture of safety
- Build a safety strategy and audit program
- Designate a health & safety representative
- Enable easy access to safety materials and documentation, and other content relevant to one’s job roles
Ensuring Workplace Safety with the Help of an Auditing App
Safety audits help companies determine the effectiveness of their safety programs. Even though safety audits are not required by law, it is considered to be a requisite for a successful safety program. It is a tool that helps in assessing safety compliance in the workplace, and in identifying and correcting the gaps in workplace safety.
With the unprecedented scale of disruption that’s taking place across industries, digital auditing applications have found a foothold in workplace safety audits and overall operations. However, some businesses still stick to manual auditing methods that rely on paper checklists and Excel spreadsheets due to a lack of awareness.
Digital audits offer several advantages over manual audits. Here are some of the benefits of implementing an auditing app:
- Accurate Records & Better Data Collection – An auditing app eliminates the use of paper/manual audit forms and spreadsheets. It leverages tools such as digital audit forms, image-capture, and annotation capabilities to capture every detail easily and efficiently, ensuring that safety hazards and safety concerns are thoroughly reported.
- Better Visibility and Insights – Given the speed at which risks emerge and become a bigger problem, timely auditing and reporting are critical to preventing accidents from happening.
Manual audit reports can often take too long, and consequently diminish their value. This is one of the things that an auditing app addresses. Since audit reports can be viewed instantly, auditors, managers, and other authorized users can get full visibility on the safety hazards and track how teams and sites are performing.
- Consistent and Frequent Audits – Having multiple facilities and job sites can be a challenge in maintaining consistency in conducting audits. However, with an audit app, audit teams are able to implement standardized digital checklists, and conduct an assessment of hazards and risks across multiple locations consistently and as frequently as needed.
- Easier ISO 45001 /Safety Compliance – Preparation for audits can consume so much time without a proper auditing and recordkeeping system. In addition to that, many companies do site audits well but they don’t have good document control. With a digital auditing app, you can ensure that the site audit records are secure and centrally managed.
- Reduced Accidents and Illnesses – Ultimately, the main goal of conducting audits in the most efficient manner possible, is to prevent accidents and illnesses from happening. Quality data, accurate and timely reporting, and risk-based data analysis lead to a safer workplace and productive workforce, which in turn, translates to higher profits.