Mastering workplace safety: the power of WHS software

Workplace health and safety (WHS) software has emerged as a powerful tool in promoting organisational safety — helping to enable a shift from simply achieving compliance to undertaking proactive safety and risk management. But there is more to WHS software than meets the eye.

On the surface, WHS software appears to merely help organisations achieve their compliance obligations. Of course, regulations exist for a reason, but today’s WHS software providers offer so much more than just ticking boxes. With systems that are entirely integrated to offer all staff one single platform for all their safety needs, organisations can enhance their staff engagement, transform their communication across the board and achieve the WHS gold standard of a stronger safety culture.

Ultimately, the value of WHS software is that companies can move from a net zero, compliance-based focus, to a synergistic, organisation-wide transformation in culture, mindset and wellbeing. This article explores the five key areas where WHS software shines.

1. Software’s role for data and trends

One of the key aspects of effective safety management is the collection and analysis of near-miss and event data. While incident data is fairly obvious to collect and assess for weak spots, near-misses are arguably more important, especially for proactive risk management. Near-misses are incidents that nearly caused harm, but did not result in injury or damage. They’re the close calls, where something could have gone wrong — but didn’t.

Near-misses are data goldmines. High-quality WHS software can use data input from near-miss events to help identify where significant risks lie, before the harm occurs. Using software to spot trends — eg, frequent occurrences of people slipping on a patch of floor — helps managers notice the weak spots and fix them, before someone is seriously hurt.

WHS software plays a crucial role in this process, facilitating one centralised platform to which staff can report all incidents — making it faster and easier to input data. It also empowers organisations to adopt a proactive approach to risk management, helping to support the implementation of risk controls, by providing a systematic framework for recording and tracking their effectiveness. This negates the need for outdated Word documents and complicated spreadsheets.

With WHS software, safety leaders can simply and easily monitor the status of their imparted risk controls, ensuring that they are in place and functioning as intended. 

2. Proactive engagement

When workers find their WHS software platform accessible and easy to use, they will engage in more proactive reporting, completing the lifecycle of risk management. Any platform that’s a hassle to use is instantly off-putting, and detracts from the process of entering data.

An easy-to-use, enjoyable platform built with the end-user in mind, means that workers are more likely to want to record near-misses and incidents. With the tap of a button, useful data is inputted, and the business is better for it. Improving the user experience is a critical part of why WHS software helps to transform organisational safety. If data entry is a job that takes hours, then it detracts from other work that staff could be focusing on, and is far less likely to be completed.

3. Transforming the risk management lifecycle 

Risk management in any organisation is a continuous process — a feedback loop, using controls set in place, to help monitor, record, track and review risks of varying degrees within the workplace environment.

The beauty of WHS software solutions lies in their ability to offer tools and frameworks that help to conduct comprehensive risk assessments within the workplace. These tools and frameworks aid risk management by helping organisations to track and monitor the effectiveness of their implemented risk controls over time.

By streamlining the entire risk management process, WHS software seamlessly helps organisations maintain a genuine, proactive approach to safety, and offers the opportunity to continuously improve safety measures.

4. Moving beyond compliance to positive contribution

While compliance with safety regulations is an essential and noble pursuit, solely focusing on compliance limits what an organisation can achieve by investing in health, safety and wellbeing. Compliance is centred on box-ticking to achieve certifications and meet standards, but health and safety is inevitably more than this.

WHS software encourages and facilitates a proactive, safety-oriented culture. If employees are engaged with the platform available to them, they’re more likely to actively participate in safety initiatives, thus improving the overall safety climate.

Using seamless, smooth systems helps the holistic functioning of the organisation too, with lasting positive contributions to the business in the form of reduced turnover rates, increased employee satisfaction and productivity.

Employees who feel valued and safe are more likely to be engaged and motivated, leading to not just compliance with ISO standards, but improved organisational performance.

Transforming safety

WHS software unlocks significant value in transforming organisational safety. By leveraging the capabilities of WHS software, organisations can move beyond mere compliance and adopt a proactive approach to risk management. The collection and analysis of near-miss data, the engagement of employees, and a positive safety culture are all cornerstones of effective safety management.

Without a doubt, it’s imperative that organisations embrace WHS software as a proactive tool, to sustain improvements across the board in workplace safety.

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Case study

As businesses grow, a centralised platform is essential for safety leaders to keep up. xLam, a manufacturer of sustainable building products, noticed that an effective WHS software solution was paramount to maintaining stability and structure during a rapid growth phase of the business.

As xLam expanded to the Australian market, its safety needs required more than a fragmented, siloed system. Now, using a WHS software that proactively improves its risk management, the team boasts an organic, yet effective safety culture, where reporting has increased tenfold.

Several initiatives were started as a result of integrated incident data. The team realised that a trend was forming, with an influx of near-miss data involving forklifts. With insights derived from the specifics of the recorded near-misses, they decided to put blue lights on all their forklifts. These lights would shine when the forklift was five metres away from any machine, helping to alert workers about increasing risk. It was no surprise that the company’s near-miss rate dropped soon afterwards.

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