Canadian Safety Reporter

4 Canadian HR Reporter, a Thomson Reuters business 2017 CSR | August 2017 | News greater-than-100-per-cent re- turn on investment in safety tech- nology systems. A range of devices To collect better data — and put it to effective use — employers are using a combination of de- vices and software systems. The proliferation of mobile phones and tablets — as well as employees' comfort levels with the technology — makes them an obvious choice in many situ- ations. "Giving employees the ability to whip out their phone or tablet and very easily report an incident or even just a safety ob- servation allows you to increase the employees' adoption," says Omar Amlani, account execu- tive with Intelex Technologies. "The tech in our pockets is evolving so quickly now, with capabilities like speech-to-text, location tagging, or using the camera on your phone to very quickly take a picture for evi- dence. All of that — and the fact that employees can readily adapt to and learn those technologies — is a really huge advantage," says Amlani. Other devices such as wear- able tech to monitor health are becoming more popular as well, says Josh LeBrun, presi- dent and COO of eCompliance. "They can have wearable tech, for example, in helmets that will alert an alarm if there's a heavy impact, and send information about that impact to a central- ized location," LeBrun says. The use of remotely managed technology such as drones to in- spect dangerous areas is on the rise as well, says LeBrun. Once information is collected, software helps to make it useful right away. "The ability to have that information automatically and immediately available to your safety team to analyze and make faster, more informed de- cisions, is incredibly valuable," says LeBrun. "That's the biggest change over the past few years: the ability to capture and man- age all that information in real time," says LeBrun. How an organization makes the best use of all that data can be adapted to its specific needs. "Many technologies can be in- tegrated within an enterprise safety management system," says Amlani. "Beacon and GPS tech- nologies, for example, can be used to automatically push safe- ty briefings or communications to employees based on their lo- cation. If you wanted to remind a worker their personal protec- tive equipment is required when they enter a specific job site, that is something you will be able to integrate into the system." Traditional safety measures: Mind the gaps Technology solutions can also solve some of the problems in- herent with more traditional safety management methods. LeBrun says one key advantage to technology is software that can help turn passive data into actionable information. "Com- panies need to understand all the information about the hazards that exist in their worksites; they need to know what corrective actions need to be completed in order to reduce risk, whether those corrective actions are still outstanding or not, and whether they need to do inspections of equipment, worksites and other locations," says LeBrun. Once a management system has data, it can analyze to see where highest areas of risk are and prioritize what needs to be done. With pen-and-paper meth- ods, there's a significant risk of missing problem areas altogeth- er. "Often, organizations focus on their lagging indicators of risk," says LeBrun. "The trouble is, you could be doing an incred- ibly poor job on something, but positive lagging indicators in that area might simply reflect your good luck at avoiding any serious incidents, even though you're doing a really poor job at proactively managing your safe- ty practices." If that's the case, an organiza- tion could be ill-prepared to deal with the real risks. "They could find themselves on the wrong end of a severe safety incident without having had any prior knowledge that the risk actually existed," says LeBrun. "That's an inexcusable thing for a safety team and even worse for an ex- ecutive team because ultimately it's up to the executive team to prioritize these types of initia- tives and if they have no idea where risk exists in their compa- ny — and if the reason they don't know is because they're not us- ing effective technology — that's just not a good excuse." "It's in our nature to be reac- tive; to try and identify what's happened rather than what might happen in the future," says Amlani. "With pen and paper, it's difficult enough to capture what has happened, never mind perform analysis on what could happen. Technology can help tremendously with that." Technology can also help to strengthen a culture that actively supports safety, says Amlani. Many of the technologies in the marketplace give employees the autonomy to use mobile devices to report safety concerns and observations. "The biggest risk in using pen and paper is that it doesn't really do anything to drive behavioural change, and we know that an employee's per- ception of safety in a company is really closely correlated with that company's incident rates," says Amlani. "So, empowering every employee with the ability to participate in your safety cul- ture is critical if you want to drive that safety change." Investment over cost Despite the benefits of embrac- ing technology for safety man- agement, many organizations resist. Cost is not necessarily the chief roadblock. "I think the idea that it's expensive is going away," says LeBrun. "Five years ago, when people were talking about technology they were probably worried about the cost of it, but I think now they're seeing it as an investment, rather than a cost, and realizing that there's a return on that investment." Instead, says LeBrun, even though many organizations rec- ognize there is a better way to manage safety, they may have leaders who haven't prioritized the effort and resources required to make the shift. Adopting an entirely new and comprehensive system requires change manage- ment competence. "We find that companies who do a really good job with change management for the rest of their business will do a great job implementing technol- ogy to help them reduce risk in their safety practices," says LeB- run. "The companies that don't have the executive level sup- port, that don't have processes in place to help them to effectuate change in a professional way — those are the ones that will strug- gle through it." Technology in safety is a multi-phased project. "To adapt to a technology-based work- place safety management system requires an investment of time and manpower," says Amlani. "If you're coming from a pen- and-paper safety culture it's easy to imagine that that first step of getting a system in place is the last step, as well. In reality, that's just the first phase of complying with what's required." Amlani says over time clients leverage the technology more and find ways to positively impact perfor- mance and even revenue. Where to start? When adopting tech solutions, Amlani suggests starting small, but keeping the larger goals in mind. "In my experience the most successful organizations are the ones that develop a strong understanding of how a safety management system can help them long term, but who also gain adoption and derive value earlier by focusing initially on the most pressing pain points." Getting employees on board right out of the gate is neces- sary for success, says Amlani. "If you launch a system and you say, 'Moving forward we're go- ing to be reporting all incidents, managing audits, managing sup- pliers and doing all our analysis, through this technology,' you're going to scare people," he says. Safety leaders also need to understand what's best for their business. "They need to do some research, have conversations with the executive team and start speaking in their language, about benefits to the organiza- tion, including reduced costs and reduced risk," says Amlani. "Once you have a system in place you have a framework for con- tinuous improvement, and that's going to put you on a path to suc- cess." Time for tech < pg. 1 Traditional measures can miss problems

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