Family business reduces its WHS paperwork to one piece of paper

Francene and Michael Mountford of Mountford Plumbing Services have been in business for over 30 years. As a commercial, industrial maintenance business, they do a lot of work with local government and industrial businesses, so in Francene’s own words: “WHS had to be first, with everything else after that.”

Mountford Plumbing adopted the Donesafe WHS management platform seven months ago to help them deal with the mounting complexity of safety management.

“We used to be completely paper driven with a bit of management through Excel… We were literally running out of paper. We filled out our 12-page Safe Work Method Statements (SWMS) every time we had a high-risk job — every time we even looked at a roof we had to fill one out.”

Francene had been looking for affordable WHS app solutions for years to help her manage the administration of the business.

“I’m a one-person office, and it was not easy to get information to the customer. You’d be scanning and printing — it was just so cumbersome. It was too much when you had to consider all the other paperwork that we needed just for the day-to-day.”

Since adopting the Donesafe WHS compliance software, however, she’s been able to systemise and automate large amounts of her WHS management process.

“We’ve phased all paper out, bar one A4 piece of paper. It’s so much easier. We don’t have to carry physical manuals, our code of practice or safe work method statements with us anymore. We used to have big plastic crates with all of our materials in them in every van. It’s so much easier to have all of the information at our fingertips.”

Francene has also found that switching to a software WHS management system has helped keep her team safe, while adding a great deal to their brand.

“We had a university job and the boys were able to fill out the SWMS right in front of the customer on their iPad. They got the client’s email address and it was instantly sent to his phone. The client was really impressed with us; it made us efficient. I’m actually upgrading our advertising at the moment and I will be focusing on having Donesafe as one of our attributes.”

Francene and Michael are now looking towards the future and growing the business. They’re now developing the QA and environment aspects of their business in Donesafe in order to get accredited and gain some government work. With a sizeable reduction in paperwork and admin, Francene is now in a position to start investing in the business again.

“At one stage, all we were doing was paperwork. Now we can concentrate more on marketing and getting more customers rather than being bogged down with admin. That’s a really important thing. We’re trying to focus on the future because of our son. We want to make sure that the business is there for him.

“Donesafe is the complete package regarding ease of operations. We don’t miss or lose any information because it’s in the cloud and easy to edit in the app. Donesafe is comprehensive and a massive time saver.”

Donesafe is an end-to-end OHS safety software system that automates health and safety management. It’s cloud based, jargon-free and works seamlessly whether you’re on a computer, a tablet or a smartphone. To learn more about Donesafe, visit www.donesafe.com.