Imagine you're sitting on the board of a large organisation. You have in the vicinity of 3000 staff and are manufacturing a highly sought after commodity, demand is high, production is peaking, and business is good! Each month you are given a report of Safety metrics, pages of graphs, statistics, and a commentary from your Safety lead, giving you a rundown on the business's current safety positioning. Now imagine you are not a safety professional. The report says your company is following a safety 2 philosophy. Your LTIFR is holding steady; apparently, this is good and very progressive, well, so the report says. But you can't help but notice that the back page has a notation that twenty reported injuries went through to the insurer for workers compensation and rehabilitation; apparently, this is less than last month, so this is good, right????

My question is, are your leaders fully grasping the true underpinning issues in the business from a safety perspective? How does such a report convey a sense of ease and ensure the board and Executive that they are fulfilling their due diligence obligations? Before joining the SAFE365 team, I used the product extensively in business to revamp safety reports and reporting metrics for the sole purpose of providing an easy to read and authentic picture of how a business was faring. The Multicoloured starburst, coupled with commentary on improvements, areas of weakness and plans to remedy these, always set the scene for the rest of the report.

Followed by a commentary of the status of Critical Risk areas, audit actions, etc., ensured that not only Directors and the Executive understood where they stood concerning their safety obligations, but that the report aligned with the advice given by the Institute of Directors. (Here's a link to the IOD's Health and Safety Guide - a great piece of info for any Safety lead LINK)

A welcome side effect of employing SAFE365 is that, when utilised properly, it will force safety teams to interact with the workforce. The age-old fundamentals of Safety - Communication - Cooperation - Consultation - are necessary to ensure that the system performs as designed and that you will see the greatest impact in its usage. Having workers undertake quick 5-minute maturity surveys linked back to SAFE365 at set intervals not only engages workers and gives them a voice, it gives the business real-world feedback on which to focus safety resources for maximum impact.

Would you like to find out more about how SAFE365 can improve Safety Governance in your business? Can we show you how to leave old school lead and lag metric reporting behind and progress into a new, more impactful method of reporting the true standing of health and safety maturity within your organisation? Contact me now to organise a free trial and show you how SAFE365 can be used in real-world scenarios. nick.engelmann@safe365global.com

Nick Engelmann is the Operations Manager and Lead Moderator for Qualify365 and has over twenty years of experience developing and implementing health and safety systems within business.  

Safe365 works with businesses to achieve occupational health and safety success. Read more about our work here.