/ By Laura Stupple / Risk Management/ 0 Comments

How To Create A Risk Management Plan For Your Project

When you’re managing a project, having an effective risk management plan in place is essential. Not only will an effective plan protect your people from unnecessary risk, it will ensure that you remain compliant and are doing your best to keep your workplace safe.

In emergencies, a risk management plan can stop things escalating and getting out of hand, as well as putting your mind at ease prior to an incident occurring. Take a look at how to create a risk management plan for your project in our handy article.

What Risks Could Take Place?

The first stage of any risk management plan is assessing what could actually happen. Once you’re more aware of the risks that are present, you can start to plan and prepare for them. Sometimes this process takes thought, as risks can be quite hidden. However, ensuring that you know what series of events could be putting your business at risk is a sure fire way to minimise them.

To uncover the risks that your business faces, there are some questions you need to ask yourself, and your staff. These are:

  • What might happen in this environment?

The environment is often one of the most common areas of risk. Take into account what your people have to do within the work environment and identify any dangerous areas where risk could be heightened.

  • Who would be at risk?

If something were to happen, who could be at risk and how are they protected at present? Are they aware of the risks that they face at work? Could more be done to educate your people on the risks within the environment? 

  • What would the impact be if the worst case scenario did happen

If something terrible did happen, it’s important to work out what the worst case scenario would be and how you would manage it if it did happen. Impact is an important indicator of how urgently you need to manage that risk.

  • What is the probability of this risk happening?

Within your project, it is good to predict the probability of the risk and whether the likelihood of it happening is imminent. If so, you’ll need to take immediate action, however in most cases the risks are not imminent and therefore you can create a risk management plan to prepare ahead of time.

  • Mitigation: how can you mitigate the risk?

There will be things that you can do to mitigate the risk to your people and your business. You may assess whether you have adequate training, software and staff to manage risks within your business.

  • Contingency: can you reduce the impact?

If you can’t mitigate the risk, you may be able to reduce the impact. There will be a level of risk that you simply can’t avoid, however you should be able to minimise the impact if that risk were to happen.

Discover The Assumed Risks And Exposure

Exposure needs to be considered within the risk management plan – that is, the amount of risk you can’t avoid. This can also be described as threat, liability or severity. 

By figuring out the assumed risk you can work out the costs vs costs savings of implementing certain risk solutions. Assumed Risk is reduced to a dollar value which is then used to calculate the profitability of the end product.

This is often a simple cost vs. benefits formula. You might use these elements to determine if the risk of implementing the change is higher or lower than the risk of not implementing the change.

Create A Risk Management Plan In 10 Steps

Once you have those risks assessed, it’s time to get on top of the risk management plan for your project. Here’s how.

Step One: Define The Project

Define the project, your objectives, and the risks that come with each objective. You should measure your risk in terms of impact and mark the risk and impact in terms of high medium and low.

Step Two: Ask People What Risks They Face

If you’re creating a risk management plan, it’s likely that you’re not on the ground facing the risks day to day. In order to cover all bases, you will need to collaborate with the people who face the risks. Ask people who are familiar with the project what the risks are and how they feel risks could be mitigated.

Step Three: Look At The Consequences

With a risk management plan, the idea is to always plan ahead. What would happen if the risks materialised? Planning this out will ensure that when/if something does happen, you will have a plan in place and be aware of the consequences and the potential spiral effects.

Step Four: Assign Probability Of Risk

Which risks are most likely to come true? For each risk element on your list, determine if the likelihood of it actually materialising is High, Medium or Low. 

Step Five: Assign Impact

In general, assign Impact as High, Medium or Low based on some pre-established guidelines. 

Step Six: Determine Risk For The Element

Often, a table is used for this. If you have used the Low, Medium and High values for Probability and Impact, the top table is most useful. If you have used numeric values, you will need to consider a bit more complex rating system similar to the second table here. It is important to note that there is no universal formula for combining Probability and Impact; that will vary between people and projects. 

Step Seven: Rank The Risks

List all the elements you have identified from the highest risk to the lowest risk and compute a total risk. 

Step Eight: Develop Mitigation Strategies

Develop mitigation strategies that reduce the possibility that a risk will materialise. 

Step Nine: Develop Contingency Plans

Contingency is designed to reduce the impact if a risk does materialise. Again, you will usually only develop contingencies for High and Medium elements. 

Step Ten: Analyse The Effectiveness Of Strategies

How much have you reduced the Probability and Impact? Evaluate your Contingency and Mitigation strategies and reassign Effective Ratings to your risks.

An Effective Risk Management Plan

This is a very simplified version of the process that you might go through to create a risk management plan for your project, however it should help to point you in the right direction.

For more information,  you can take a look at our risk management solutions that help you assess and register risk.

 

/ By Laura Stupple / Incident Management/ 0 Comments

The Importance Of Incident Reporting System

When we talk about incident reporting, we often think about the ways that we can react after an incident has occurred at work. Whilst the initial response is important, there are also other elements that need to be considered, beyond just the immediate actions that need to be taken.

This article will look at the importance of incident reporting and having a system in place that can help your workplace be as safe as it can be. 

Incident reporting helps you answer important questions

An incident reporting system not only allows you to keep on track of any incidents that occur, it helps you to prepare and track the near misses too.

An incident reporting system helps you answer questions around how safe your workplace is and how well prepared you are to deal with incidents, so that if anything did happen, you would know that you are doing the most you can to remain compliant and minimise risk.

Being able to track and trace your compliance is very important, as it allows you to cover yourself in the event of an incident. This is especially important in high risk industries such as construction, oil and gas, power plants, roads and buildings and hazardous sectors.

Incident Reporting is a requirement of any health and safety management system and when not carried out efficiently, the knock on effect may result in excessive costs to the business.

How does an incident reporting system help your business?

 

Above and beyond ensuring that you remain compliant, an incident reporting system ensures that you take a systematic approach to managing safety that is likely to minimise incidents in the first place. This will save you money, save you reputation damage, and keep your people safe.

Incident reporting systems enable you to maintain an attitude of continuous improvement – including the necessary organisational structures, accountabilities, policies and procedures to create a Continuous Improvement Cycle.

Incident reporting systems enable you to:

  • Protect your employees 
  • Maintain a working environment that is safe 
  • Minimise risk
  • Ensure that employees know how to report an incident 
  • Ensure employees take care of the health and safety of themselves and others.
  • Help you identify trends and incident types
  • Help you predict incidents and prevent them
  • Helps your business remain compliant
  • Conduct periodic reviews to assess risk

What are the key benefits of incident reporting?

A well designed incident management system has some key benefits. These include: 

  • Incident reporting systems prepare your business to deal with incidents

One of the key benefits of an incident reporting system is that it encourages employees to be prepared for an incident.

It also helps you understand how and why incidents occur and keeps the entire organization aware of their actions in real-time. The platform enables other employees to offer guidance or advice and lets critical stakeholders see the specific actions that were taken and how the incident was resolved.

  • Increase communication within the organisation

Often, incidents occur because of bad communication within an organisation, however a reporting system helps to minimise this risk. The increased safety procedures for employees, clients, and contractors allow effective communication channels at all times. 

With cloud-based technology, incident reporting systems can be accessed from any computer or mobile device with internet access, meaning that people can communicate in real-time in the event of an incident.

In an emergency situation, incident management software provides a timeline of communications so that senior managers can track the flow of communications and see whether the incident was escalated or resolved, and how. This gives you real-time situational awareness.

  • Increased safety for employees, clients and contractors

With better incident reporting systems in place, you’ll be able to provide a safer environment for anyone you interact with.

Risks to all parties can be minimised and managed, meaning that your business should see less incidents and improved compliance.

How can incident reporting systems be implemented?

Implementing incident reporting systems needn’t be difficult. Beakon’s system can be configured to report, investigate, analyse and proactively action issues across all work disciplines with ease.

If you’d like to learn more about incident reporting systems and how they work, you can take advantage of our free trial to give it a go.

 

/ By Laura Stupple / Risk Management/ 0 Comments

Incident Reporting In The Workplace: A Step By Step Guide

So you’ve encountered an incident in the workplace? The initial response is usually one of panic, but an incident reporting system and response plan can help ease that sense of stress. There’s a few things that you are required to do in order to make sure that the incident is reported quickly and accurately, however a surprising amount of businesses get this wrong.

Ultimately, reporting an incident properly can be the difference between making a major legal error and conducting yourself properly. It’s essential that you know how to deal with an incident at work and educate your team to respond properly.

To help you out, we’ve put together a step by step guide to incident reporting to keep you on track the next time something happens on site.

What are the four main types of incidents?

People often think that an incident has to be a big, catastrophic event. This isn’t the case. Incidents can also refer to the events where nothing much happens but they are indicative of a bigger problem that could lead to incidents in the future.

The four main types of incidents are:

  • Near misses
    Situations where people could have been injured, but, luckily nothing came to pass.
  • No harm events
    Operational risks that all staff across an organization should be made aware of.
  • Adverse events
    Adverse events are related to medicines, medical devices, and vaccines.
  • Sentinel events
    Sentinel events are unexpected events that result in any type of harm

1. Take action

As soon as an incident happens, the natural reaction is for people to panic. To quell this response, it can be helpful to have allocated team members who take responsibility for acting in the event of an emergency.

This action might be anything that is necessary to minimise damage – be it calling emergency services, getting medical attention or containing spills or leaks as much as possible. Whatever the incident – it is important that appropriate action is taken straight away.

2. Report the incident

The next step is arguably the most important and ‘official’ of all the steps and ensures that the immediate manager and any authorities are informed about the incident. You need to make sure that it is immediately reported so that people can remain protected from any knock-on damage that might occur. 

An incident report will likely also include reporting the incident to the applicable authorities in order to act in like with statutory requirements. It is essential that the following are reported to authorities by law:

  • Fatalities
  • Injuries that require hospitalisation
  • People exposed to chemicals
  • Major spills or environmental hazard

3. Ensure the incident documentation is safe

Once you’ve reported the incident in the most effective and legal way, the next stage is to make sure that the documents are kept safe.

This is where an incident reporting system comes into play in order to store and manage all documents associated with the incident. All documents should be stored in a secured centralized repository as opposed to the usual paper-based safety statement that many businesses still use.

Paper-based reporting systems can cause administrative issues for medium-sized businesses and make it impossible for businesses to report incidents as they occur. With a paper-based approach, the onus is on employees to complete this work and any lapse could result in significant fines and/or legal wrongdoing.

4. Investigation – assess root causes

After looking at prevention and how to better report incidents and manage them in the short term, it is essential that your business looks at the root causes and carries out investigation.

The idea behind root cause analysis is to identify any underlying issues that might cause further problems in the future.

Once you’ve assessed the root cause, you can then effectively 

5. Develop corrective actions

Incident reporting can be categorised into lagging actions and leading actions. The lagging actions refer to the times when an event happens and the response lags behind, whereas the leading actions ensure that you are one step ahead and are prepared for the next incident when it happens. Corrective actions look at what could have been done better in order to pre-empt and protect against the next incident.

Lagging actions are:

  • Near-misses – events where no actual harm occurred.
  • Accidents resulting in personal injury
  • Equipment or property damage

These are all examples of lagging indicators – you’re looking in the rear-view mirror, reporting what happened and seeing what you can learn from it.

Leading actions are:

  • Safety walkthroughs – you can study the length and frequency of walkthroughs.
  • Training effectiveness and the frequency that training takes place.
  • Management safety meetings and the frequency with which they occur.

Leading indicators are more like looking out of the windshield and seeing what problems could arise. Some organizations view near-misses as leading indicators, although they are events that happened and just didn’t lead to actual harm or injury. 

In the event of an incident, many businesses report in hindsight and then forget all about it. This doesn’t allow the incident to be investigated and worked upon in order to refine a better response.

Looking at the corrective actions that could be taken to better predict and prevent these kinds of incidents occurring is an essential part of an incident reporting process.

What Next?

Incident reporting is the first step in a much longer process. Reporting is usually thought of as what happens after an accident, dangerous condition, injury or near-miss has taken place. However, the real challenges begin once you start looking at why the incident occurred and assess what can be done to prevent these incidents in the future.

To help you with this, an incident reporting system is one of the best ways to stay on top of all workplace incidents and make it easier for your people to report accurately.

/ By Laura Stupple / Safety Management/ 0 Comments

Work Solutions To Visitor Management

Work solutions to visitor management are becoming more and more important to all organisations. From schools, to government institutions, to construction sites – knowing who is on your site and ensuring that they comply with set legislation can be essential to keeping everyone safe.

For many businesses, paper-based visitor management systems such as guest books and nametags are the only visitor management system they ever operate. These systems have been around for years, and for the most part can provide an accurate account of visitors. That is, until something goes wrong.

In the event of change or disruption, paper-based visitor logs can be hard to keep track of which can cause serious issues.

These outdated, manual systems lack the type of protection your organisation requires when it comes to managing unwanted visitors. However, a modern visitor management system, like Beakon’s work solutions to visitor management, can quickly fix these problems.

What Is The Work Solution To Visitor Management?

When assessing the best work solutions, a visitor management system is one of the best things you can implement to make building security and employee safety easier. The main work solution to visitor management is a system that is able to keep up with the security demands of your business.

Implementing this kind of visitor management software will increase your organisation’s efficiency and help you operate in an agile way. Visitor management software leverages your facility’s cameras, scanners and other identification software you currently use to screen all your visitors, register and badge them automatically. 

Your lobby staff will also be notified of any visitor’s arrival, thus saving time and keeping all the data in one place for easy access. This is much more effective than a manual, paper-based system.

What Are The Benefits Of Implementing A Visitor Management System?

There are so many benefits to implementing a visitor management system, take a look at some of the main benefits of this work solution:

  • A visitor management system offers Improved security and employee safety

Security and safety are essentials for every organisation, and using a software-based visitor management system for your company helps with proper identification of visitors quickly, effectively and accurately.

  • A visitor management system offers financial savings

A good visitor management system is a great work solution in terms of cost savings. Reducing operational costs is a significant factor in the growth of any company. While not immediately obvious, having a poor visitor management system will cost you money.

Breach of security, identity theft, paper documents and files are all examples of operational costs of a paper-based visitor management system. However, Beakon’s visitor management software will help you streamline and automate the entire visitor registration process.

  • A visitor management system is a great work solution for visibility and accountability

Knowing where people are and where they have been, can be an essential on site. 

Our visitor management software provides a detailed log about who has visited your site and where they visited so that you can track movement and detect any odd behaviour. This information will come in handy in the event of any catastrophic event, and closes any gaps that paper-based systems often miss.

  • You’ll be able to grow and remain flexible

One of the main benefits of a visitor management system is the way in which you can grow your business, whilst maintaining safety as a priority. Flexibility and scalability are the hallmarks of any excellent visitor tracking system. A good visitor management software can easily be customised to fit your organisation’s needs.

Beakon’s visitor management software is a great tool that does all that more. With a simple to use interface, our visitor management system gives you the flexibility to make changes as fast as you want.

 

/ By Laura Stupple / Audit Management • Audit Software/ 0 Comments

5 Audit Software Features To Look For

So, you’ve finally decided to invest in audit software – good on you! After years of doing paper based audits, you’ve probably realised that there is a much simpler way to maintain audit records and follow up on corrective actions with an audit software.

The basic principles of any audit software are that they enable you to collate and analyse data as well as identify processes and procedures that need attention. Keeping on top of your audits is essential to the smooth running of your business, however it’s surprising how many businesses opt for paper based systems, or choose audit software that is difficult to implement or ineffective.

When looking for an audit software that will work for your business, there are some must have features that you need to look for. We’re running through the top audit software features that you need to look for to ensure accurate audits, smooth integration and a long lasting solution that boosts your business. 

It Integrates Nicely With Your Existing Processes

There’s one way to ensure that your audit software is a hit with everyone who needs to use it, and that’s by making sure that it is easy to use and syncs up with the existing processes that your people are currently working with.

Ideally, you want the software to integrate nicely with your existing workflows and blend with your organisation’s sector-specific, individual requirements. This way it can be implemented quickly and easily without distracting you from your business.

It Is Customisable 

To meet the ever-changing needs of your business, it’s important that your audit software is customisable. There’s no one size fits all approach when it comes to auditing – managers need to be able to customise environmental, health and safety audits as they see fit.

Our customizable dashboard allows you to customise a number of factors when it comes to your audit, and means that you’re able to allocate responsibilities to each employee depending on the information they need access to. This keeps security tight and ensures the right people have the right access, without compromising on data safety.

It Has A User-friendly Interface 

With customisable dashboards, Beakon’s audit software is the best in class when it comes to a user-friendly interface that your people actually want to work with. The trouble with buying any old audit software, is that unless it has a user friendly interface, your people simply won’t use it.

Unless the interface helps prevent errors, enables faster training and support and helps people get things done quicker than they would with paper, you can assume that people simply won’t want to use it.

This is why it’s so crucial that you look into the user interface and how user friendly the software is, before you invest.

There Are Great Reporting Options

Reporting is one of the most important parts of any audit, so ensuring that the reporting functions are up to scratch should be a priority.

Auditing software should provide the audit closure and reporting options that suit the style of audit that is being undertaken. Audit reports should enable analysis, and software should make it easy for your people to collate information and understand what the outcome of the audit is.

This is where software trumps paper based systems time and time again, as the reporting function is able to gather feedback and accurately report in a way that paper can’t. 

It Can Be Accessed Remotely

In the modern world, people need access to their work at their fingertips. When looking for audit software, you should take into account how the technology can be accessed and whether people will be able to use a tablet or smartphone rather than a clipboard and checklist. 

To be able to perform the audit directly in the system, look for a software system that allows you to log in remotely from any device instead of writing everything on a sheet of paper and manually entering it later. Look out for good digital storage options and a cloud based system if you’re looking for rapid deployment and top security.

 

If you’re looking for an audit software system that offers full functionality across an array of devices and allows you to consolidate data, Beakon have the solution for you. To discuss what an audit software solution could do for you, get in touch.

/ By Laura Stupple / Audit Management/ 0 Comments

Auditing Your Business: Why Use Audit Software?

If you’re toying with the idea of using audit software to help you audit effectively and remain compliant, there are probably a few questions you’re asking yourself. “Is audit software better than a paper-based system?”, “Why should I invest in audit software?” And “how will it help the company reach business goals?” might be amongst those.

Auditing is an essential business activity that involves monitoring, recording and calibrating the operations of different departments within the business. Without an effective audit, it’s very difficult to know how efficiently your business is running and is hard to identify any weak spots.

There can be no doubt that audits are incredibly important, yet so many businesses fail to carry them out in a streamlined and easy way. For this reason, even the mention of the word ‘audit’ can send employees heads into a spin and create a sense of tread that is avoidable with a good audit plan and method. This will likely involve an audit software, depending on the size and needs of your business.

If you’re wondering why you should use audit software, take a look at the best things you can expect from class-leading audit software.

Why Use Audit Software?

1. Your Audit Will Be More Accurate

Paper records can mean things get lost and are very tricky to manage. The idea of an audit is that you can tune in to the finer business details and analyse where things are going well, or not so well.

However, without the correct information, your audit will not be accurate and therefore you risk non-compliance if your records aren’t up to date or fully completed.

As well as helping you keep records safe, an audit software program will notify you when an audit needs to be renewed, which allows you to schedule audits as frequently as is required. 

2. You’ll Benefit From International Integration

Depending on whether your business operates internationally, this can be a game changer. Many companies who work overseas will need auditing software in order to consolidate records and keep everything up to date no matter where in the world you’re working from.

International integration means that anyone can use the software, no matter where they are based. It includes multiple languages, time zones, APIs and integrations into other systems that make life a lot easier.

3. You Can Use Audit Software On All Devices

One of the main reasons that people opt for our audit software is the way that it uses cloud technology in order to ensure the system is up and running from anywhere in the world. 

When you use audit software, you’ll benefit from full functionality on PCs, tablets, and smartphones including the ability to process data collection and consolidation and schedule and document management all from one easy to use platform. This kind of consolidatory system means that everyone can stay up to date with what’s going on, and receive instant feedback and sign off when you’re working remotely.

4. You’ll Save Time With Audit Software

There’s nothing more frustrating for your employees than having to gather together all of the necessary paperwork for an effective audit. Paper based audits are slow, difficult to maintain and make it impossible to follow up on corrective actions, which is where an audit software gives you quick wins when it comes to time saving.

Unlike a traditional audit, with audit software you won’t need to traipse through all of your records to collate and analyse data. The customisable dashboard on an audit software system makes it easy to see all of your data in one place, meaning that you can easily identify errors, as well as the processes and procedures that need attention.

Are You Ready To Invest In Audit Software?

Beakon Audit Software is used by some of the world’s leading businesses, including highly regulated, high-risk industries. If you think your business might benefit from better and more efficient auditing processes, contact Beakon today to discuss how our Audit Software can help your organisation grow stronger and safer.

 

 

 

/ By Laura Stupple / Learning Management Software/ 0 Comments

How to manage contractors effectively

With everything that’s going on in the world, the way that we manage our people has really been put into perspective. This is especially true for those who work within our organisations on a contractual or remote basis.

A lot of work within construction has been ground to a halt as we try to navigate the situation, however with things beginning to open back up and operations returning to normal, there are some lessons we can learn from the current period.

From people management to safety procedures, the current times have really allowed us time to reflect on how we manage our teams. We’re looking at how you can manage contractors effectively, during coronavirus and beyond, in order to get the most from your people and uphold compliance at all times.

Find the right contractors

Naturally, a big part of managing contractors effectively, is ensuring that you have the right people to start off with. 8% of the Australian workforce are contractors, meaning that there is some great talent out there to choose from.

The first step is to ensure that you’re working with the right people. When looking for contractors, it’s important to verify who they are and what their experience is. Looking for things like insurance details, permits to work, previous contracts and important documentation is essential. 

This is where a contractor management system can come into play and ensure that best practices are met when signing a contractor on. It’s not only the legal implications that need to be met, but the professional ones too. Ensuring that you have the right contractors for the job is the first step to a successful contractor management plan.

Ensure they are onboarded correctly

Traditionally, onboarding is thought of as something that is essential for long-term, full-time workers, but potentially not as important for contractors. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Contractors need to be effectively onboarded too, in order to make sure that you get the most from your people and remain compliant at all times.

The stats that you normally hear about onboarding are to do with employee retention, which isn’t always as essential when you’re working with contractors. What is interesting though (and is commonly missed off the list of stats) is that onboarding effectively can improve performance by up to 11%.

Investing in your onboarding process is well worth the time, effort and financial cost when it comes to getting the payback from your people. You’ll find it a lot easier to manage your people if they’re fully onboarded, know exactly what is expected from them and are comfortable in their surroundings.

Keep them in the know

When it comes to working with contractors, it’s sometimes hard to predict what information they have to hand. In this sense, it’s a good idea to establish early on what kind of knowledge they have and where they might need to freshen up before they begin.

Keeping them in the know is a crucial part of managing contractors, and will increase their value contribution ten-fold. This starts by keeping them as up to date with the scope of the contract from the beginning of the project and throughout, and means updating them with any of the need-to-know information that might be important.

There are some great ways you can do this, even if your contractors are working remotely. E-learning audio and video content is a sure fire way to ensure that contractors are well educated, and allows you to tick that compliance box without having to move from the comfort of your office.

Give them ownership 

Remember that although contractors are working for you on this project, they actually work for themselves. This means that they’re probably independent-minded people who are happy to take care of business where appropriate.

Giving your contractors the space to own their work and manage it effectively within reason, is a great move. With a contractor management system, this step becomes a lot easier. All of your contractors will have a log-in to the contractor management software, which removes any and all complexities associated with paper-based systems. It will also ensure that your contractors supply you with the relevant information.

Data-entry is significantly reduced and contractors can take ownership of their administration. This saves you time and money, and gives the contractor full ownership of their project – it’s a win win.

Check in regularly

Did you know that 40% of the Australian workforce feel lonely at work? This can be especially true of contractors. Keeping in touch helps to combat this, and keeps everyone happy and productive whilst they work for you.

A check in doesn’t have to be face to face, it can be via email or call but it just means that they know you’re there for them. Checking in regularly also means that you can keep on top of everything that is going on and report back to stakeholders accordingly.

Having a handle on the day to day operations isn’t always easy when you have a million and one other things to do, but having a contractor management system helps to combat this.

Contractor Management Systems That Work For You

At Beakon we don’t believe in a one size fits all solution to any business challenge. Your business and your contractors are unique, and therefore your needs are unique too. Discover how you could optimise your contractors with a contract management system that saves you time and money and boosts your level of compliance.

Get in touch today to learn more!

 

 

 

 

 

 

/ By Laura Stupple / Safety Management • Safety Management Software/ • • / 0 Comments

What Are Safety Management Systems? 

Safety management in the workplace is an important part of running a business, from both a compliance standpoint and a general business operation point of view. Without safety in the workplace, it can be impossible to run your business smoothly and can cost time and money.

Workplace incidents can be disastrous for the safety of your people, your business reputation and your bottom line. Ultimately, having safety under control is an essential part of business and should be a priority for your organisation, no matter what industry you work in.

We’re running through the main questions that you might have about safety management, so that you can have the best chance of success when it comes to safety in the workplace.

What is safety management? 

Workplace safety is the collective responsibility of your team members and your managers, and effective safety management helps to keep everything under control. However, without this management to create a plan of attack and delegation of responsibility, your business will struggle to handle workplace safety properly.

Your safety plan might cover anything from hazards, to injury reporting, risk assessments and action management. Essentially, it is putting the procedures and guidelines in place to manage any business risk when it strikes.

Why is health and safety so important?

Effective health and safety is in place to ensure that your people and processes are up to scratch in order to keep business activities safe. Putting a framework in place to ensure that risks are minimised is essential to ensure that safety remains a priority.

Evolving legal policies mean that businesses are being forced to take action to remain compliant, and safety management is a key way that businesses can demonstrate that they are making a concentrated effort.

Why is a safety management system so important?

A safety system offers a structure and format to help businesses manage their accountabilities, policies and procedures to keep safety at the forefront of your business processes, no matter what size your business is.

From a compliance point of view, safety management systems are able to alert your team to any risks or dangers and ensure that your business is acting in accordance with the law. Safety management systems might include management of things like safety policies, safety accountabilities, emergency response planning, hazard identification, risk assessment and much more.

Safety management software should feature a clear, simple, and user-friendly interface that allows you to open workflows and keep up to date with what is going on within your business. With automated reminders and dashboard reports that help you stay on top of workplace safety, safety management systems often become the backbone of any workplace safety initiative.

What are the benefits of the Beakon Software?

Our safety management software helps you understand the cause of incidents, associated costs, and gives you the tools to reduce the chance of a repeat incident. 

Our management system enables employees and contractors alike to take charge of their incident reporting and classify any incidents across the whole business, reducing stress and increasing accuracy of reporting.

Without an effective safety plan, your business could be risking reputation and staff welfare. Contact Beakon today and find out how Safety Management software can help protect your business.

 

 

 

/ By Laura Stupple / Learning Management Software/ 0 Comments

How can companies manage business risks?

If the past few months have taught us anything, it’s that business risks are very real. The good news is that now we’ve all had to manage certain business risks, we know how important it is to have a procedure in place and ensure that we are able to effectively manage the risks that our businesses may face.

We’re taking a look at how companies can manage business risks in order to remain compliant and minimise damage.

What kind of business risks should you be aware of?

First things first, there are many different kinds of business risks. Some of these are easier to manage than others, but all of them should be considered when creating a risk management plan.

  • Compliance risk: this includes risks that a company is required to comply with by law. These may include things like minimum wages and health and safety regulations.
  • Strategic risk: this is the kind of risk that is normally dictated by the market and external factors, such as the demand for the product or the economic state of affairs.
  • Financial risk: this kind of risk refers to the financial state of affairs of a business and their risk of struggling financially.
  • Operational risks: These are the risks that occur in the day to day running of the business and may impact profit. For example if some essential piece of equipment breaks.

1.Ensure that you’ve effectively identified risks

One of the first steps towards managing any risk is accepting that it is there. Carrying out a full risk assessment on your business will help you identify where your business could be vulnerable and minimise the likelihood of notable events occuring.

Remember that risk triggers can be both internal and external, and it’s important to think about any external influences that come into contact with your business. That includes contractors and visitors to sites, who can often present some of the greatest risks.

2. Ensure that measures are set out to manage those risks

It goes without saying that compliance is key, so ensure that you understand how to comply with your legal obligations when it comes to risk. You will need to keep records and ensure that you can prove that you’re effectively managing risk, so sitting down and working through how each risk is to be taken care of is essential.

A good place to start is by looking for an effective safety management software that will help you get a grip on how your risks evolve from day to day. You should take measures to manage risk such as:

  • Report risks, incidents and injury
  • Record actions taken following a risk
  • Create automated workflows and reminders to keep everyone notified
  • Create dashboard reports to keep on top of what risks the business might be exposed to

3. Delegate and share the risk responsibility

Once the risks have been established and you have decided how they will be recorded, it’s time to decide who will have responsibility and authority to manage those risks. This is an essential step, as everyone needs to take responsibility for risk and it’s important that the responsibility for recording those risks is shared.

4. Update risks in real time

In order to manage business risk, it’s essential that you’re able to provide real time data. A software solution that allows you to synchronise safety management systems with staff ID and card machines will allow you to keep up to date with exactly what is going on and who is moving around your organisation each day.

Having a risk register that configures your risk in an ISO friendly framework and allows you to create customised rules and workflows will be essential to help you keep your risks updated and managed.

Are you ready to manage your business risks more effectively? Discover our range of software options that will help you discover and report your business risks effectively!

 

/ By Laura Stupple / Learning Management Software/ 0 Comments

The dangers of incomplete permits to work

Work permits are an essential part of maintaining health and safety measures and providing your team with a safe place to work. Not only that, but they help you remain compliant and stay on top of the ways that people are working within your organisation.

Non-routine tasks normally always require a work permit, whereas more routine tasks may not. The need for a permit can also depend on the person carrying out the task and the ways that these tasks might impact health and safety. 

The goal of a work permit is to outline what is expected of the individual and ensure that more hazardous tasks are always carried out by people who know what they’re doing. From both a health and safety and a legal perspective, permits to work are essential to the day to day running of a business. Take a look at the main dangers of having an incomplete work permit, and what that could mean for your business.

1. Your people won’t know what is expected of them

One of the main benefits of a work permit is that you can provide documented work instructions including details for specific locations, departments, time of day etc and get these signed off by the employee or contractor.

In this sense, a permit to work provides a kind of guide that is agreed upon before work is completed. Without a complete permit to work, there is nothing to go back to and pull up as a kind of contractual agreement of what work is expected. If you don’t complete your permits to work, you put your business at risk of working with unskilled people who don’t know what they’re doing. 

Plus, if it does backfire (eg – they make an error and it costs your business) you won’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to claiming on insurance because you didn’t fully confirm that the person was able and they didn’t sign off on what is expected of them.

2. You won’t be working in a compliant manner

Compliance is a major reason that permits to work exist. If you don’t issue them correctly and fully, you put your business at risk of operating outside of legal requirements. Safety policies are put in place to keep everyone safe – stakeholders, workers and visitors included – and without a work permit your business is essentially ignoring guidelines.

Working in a non-compliant manner can have all kinds of implications on both a legal and moral level. Ensuring that permits to work are complete will give you the best chance of working compliantly and minimising the risk of error.

3. Without permits to work you put your team at risk

Permits to work exist primarily to keep people safe on the job, and without these permits you put your people at risk. This is not only morally problematic, but it makes you liable from a legal and insurance perspective too.

Without a complete work permit, you put your team at risk of:

  • Material hazards, such as Hazardous Substances and Dangerous Goods
  • Temperature risks, including being ill-equipped to work in hot or cold locations
  • Dangerous fumes
  • Electrical hazards
  • Mechanical energy hazards
  • Hazardous areas
  • Height dangers
  • Radioactive substances
  • Many, many more risks that can be posed

What should a permit to work include?

In order to ensure that your permits to work are complete, it can be beneficial to have an online system that notifies you of where you are in the process. This way, you can avoid any miscommunication, loss of paperwork and general difference of completing permits to work.

With a simple to use permit to work software, you will be able to define what your permit to work will cover, describe the precautions necessary and ensure that the individual carrying them out understands what is expected of them. You’ll be able to issue permits to work, deal with permit approvals, audit history of permits and allow sign off on any device including smartphones and tablets.

For more information on how your business could benefit from a permit to work system, get in touch today!