How Safety Spreadsheets are Costing You Money, Especially at Multisite Operations
Spreadsheets are a simple enough tool, easy to come by, and inexpensive. The problem is that they were designed for accounting purposes, not incident reporting. Spreadsheets are not always user friendly, and reporting styles may be inconsistent across sites. When a multisite operation has a safety incident spreadsheet at each location, it creates multiple problems for the folks at corporate and ultimately costs the company in the long run. De-centralized incident reporting may lead to fines, lawsuits, equipment loss, work stoppage, and lives lost.
Online Incident Management Software Prevents Fines
It’s totally feasible for OSHA to cite a violation at one location without the other locations knowing about it. Later, when OSHA inspects another location within the same company and spots the same violation, it’s a repeat offense. It doesn’t matter that the violations happened at two different locations. It matters that the same company had the same offense more than once. OSHA fines are simply not a budgeted line item. The best incident management systems are centralized so that communication is streamlined and the entire company sees incidents and violations in one system. This type of online management makes reporting easy and keeps the entire company on the same page.
Safety Spreadsheets Do Not Help Build Legal Cases
If it’s not documented, it didn’t happen… until the lawyers say it did. In a litigious society such as this, legal cases are part of business life. Whether it’s your attorney building a case against an employee for harassment or your company defending itself in an injury or property damage lawsuit, you’re more likely to win a case when you’ve documented all the details surrounding it. Having documentation increases your chances of settling out of court, saving additional legal fees.
Incident Management Should Include Monitoring Equipment Damage/Loss/Theft
Tracking assets on multiple worksites is a challenge. Spreadsheets don’t keep track of where things are. There are times when a site manager doesn’t know if a vehicle is misplaced, on the road, or stolen. Such incidents result in work stoppage at best and a delay in reporting a crime to law enforcement at worst. Similarly, if a piece of equipment is damaged but the damage isn’t properly recorded where all workers can see it, they may use the equipment, creating a safety hazard for themselves and additional damage to the equipment.
Safety Spreadsheets Do Nothing to Prevent Work Stoppage
If equipment is missing or damaged or a worker is injured or killed, work stops. Work stoppage leads to delays which result in missing deadlines. In short, work stoppage costs money. The goal is to prevent incidents from happening in the first place. Safety spreadsheets do nothing to aid in accident prevention. Online incident management software provides better reporting opportunities and an ability to identify patterns in incidents company-wide, not just on one site. The ability to identify patterns enables a company to deploy additional training or safety initiatives to prevent future incidents from occurring, eliminating the work stoppage and financial loss associated with such incidents.
Subpar Incident Management Results in the Loss of Life
Incident management is more than simply reporting incidents. Ultimately, safety measures and incident prevention initiatives exist to protect people and property. It’s a matter of life and death. Incidents point to areas where additional training is needed. That training could save lives. There are legal matters to settle after a worker is injured or killed, but those costs pale in comparison to the tragic loss of an employee and its impact on team morale.
Verity Incident Management System Provides Efficiency and Savings
Verity is an online incident management software that streamlines incident reporting, manages data, and keeps multisite operations on the same page. Created by developers for a multisite organization, Verity users enjoy:
- Third party integration that enables you to connect directly with local law enforcement when the need arises
- Functionality that makes it easy to identify incident patterns
- An easy-to-use interface
- Centralized communication across all sites
- Online incident reporting that can be accessed from anywhere
- Efficiency and cost-effectiveness