Healthy, wealthy and wise: Why health and safety and operations are natural partners

Did you know that when operations management and health and safety management are integrated, performance in both disciplines improves? Experts have noted that at the safest, most successful companies, safety is at the core of the operations department.

Yet, too often these critical components of an organisation run in parallel but with different goals. This is unfortunate. When company safety deteriorates, product quality and operations performance suffer. In fact, it is widely recommended that safety and operating performance measures should be viewed as one, rather than as competitors.

There is an old saying that goes something like this, “Early to bed and early to rise makes a person healthy wealthy and wise.” In this article, we explain how health and safety management technology makes operations healthy, wealthy, and wise.

Health and safety is now on everyone’s radar— particularly the operations department

Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, health and safety is top of mind for everyone in an organisation. Health and safety is the talk of all parts of an organisation. If you are in operations, it means thinking about the health of employees on plant floors or on construction sites, in warehouses and on the front lines of product and service delivery. It can also mean reporting on health and safety to executives and senior management.

Operations oversees many departments and typically doesn’t have the bandwidth to know every element of a health and safety program, standards, rules and regulations. What happens if a safety professional leaves either temporarily or permanently – any time, but particularly now, operations could be left unsure of what to do until a new one arrives. At the same time, you are probably wondering what health and safety measures will mean to your bottom line.

How Health and safety technology can help

HSE management software can relieve you of many concerns about how to infuse health and safety throughout your operations—ensuring the leadership, engagement, data, informed decision-making, and continuous improvement needed for world-class health and safety.

Health and safety technology and software deliver the digital tools needed to:

• Protect employees from illness and injury
• Keep operations costs down and efficiency and productivity up
• Analyse data to be wise about incidents and trends that affect  operations
  

Software can help you and your teams navigate the changing hierarchy of controls and risk assessment reviews. It can enable you to devise plans for retraining workers on PPE and social distancing requirements. It makes it easy to demonstrate to execs and outside auditors that you have done everything that is reasonably practicable to protect your workforce from COVID-19 and other risks. 

1. Driving healthy operations

In a successful business, everyone is involved in health and safety. Therefore, you don’t have to bear the responsibility of operational health and safety alone or confine it to a small team. The right software puts health and safety is in your employees’ hands.

In addition, health and safety management platforms makes it easy for line, production, and warehouse employees and contractors to report hazards. Flexible, mobile tools enable teams to identify, assess and manage risks every day.

2. Driving wealthy operations

Health and safety incidents, accidents, and illnesses are expensive. The cumulative cost can be hundreds of billions of dollars per year. The good news is that Gallup research shows that successful health and safety programs with engaged employees can reduce incidents by 70%. The characteristics of these successful programs include management commitment and leadership, effective employee participation, integration of health and safety with business planning and continuous program evaluation.

With the right health and safety software, you can implement these kinds of programs throughout operations. It has tools and leader boards to encourage employee participation and the reports and dashboards to engage leadership. It enables you to infuse health and safety throughout business operations planning and makes continuous evaluation simple.

1. 3. Driving wise operations
   

Health and safety data is flowing into operations at an increasingly high volume and rate. Besides filing the necessary reports, what can you do with that data? A lot, as it happens. The right health and safety software ensures that health and safety management is more than tracking and recording by enabling you to use the data you collect to gain insights and take actions that reduce risk across your organisation.

Business intelligence tools provide the accurate insights needed to identify trends, track leading indicators and predict where preventative interventions will be most effective in your operations. Visual dashboards highlight what you and your operations organisation need to know and can easily be shared with others in the dashboards.

Ready for healthy, wealthy, and wise operations?

Why not talk to us about how our software helps your leadership drive health and safety engagement across your entire organisation through technology. Let’s chat and explore how our Assure health and safety software can deliver value to your organisation.