Health & Safety Software Selection Guide A quick read This guide is for people who realise ‘safety needs sorting’ in their organisation. We’ve found that people often jump straight to looking at solutions without first considering what they really need. This guide will help you avoid this mistake by stepping you through the main considerations you should make when setting out to ‘win the paper war’ and become ‘reform ready’. This guide covers • How do I manage H&S now? • How will the reform impact me? • What options do I have to improve? • Is ecoPortal right for me? HOW DO I MANAGE H&S NOW? H We all know that managing H&S can be a complex and often thankless task. When you realise that ‘safety needs sorting’, the first thing you should do is look at all the H&S tasks you perform. Typical roles and issues Employee/contractor This will help you show management what you need to get safety sorted. It is good to think of H&S as a ‘system’ that includes people and processes. You should consider each person in the system and understand the processes that they manage. For instance, a H&S manager may manage incidents, support processes, co-ordinate reporting, deal with legal, and conduct training, etc. You should also consider how other people in the organisation relate to H&S; for instance how staff, senior managers and the Board are currently involved with and manage H&S and where ACC and Worksafe fit into the picture. Manager/advisor Director/board Those people that actually do the work are at the highest risk. Typically they are asked to wear the PPE provided, attend tool box talks and log incidents when they occur. We have found that they have issues with: The health and safety manager, advisor, or officer or is responsible for a huge range of tasks. These may include following up on incidents, creating reports etc. We find the tasks below often get overlooked: Those people in control of a organisation shoulder H&S alongside a wide range their other responsibilities. We find that the following isses make managing H&S more difficult than other things they are responcible for: • Actually filling in the paper forms provided • Understanding text based instructions • Notifying management of risks and near misses etc. • Maintaining training and competence records • Prioritising and keeping track of risk assessments • Knowing if an injury is a notifiable event or not, etc. • Reports often include old information • Want leading indicators but only have lagging ones • Disconnect between H&S governance and H&S HOW WILL THE REFORM IMPACT ME? The H&S reform will place responsibilities and associated liabilities on those best paced to reduce risk. This includes everyone from workers to directors. Four key changes Risk vs hazard One of the significant changes in the Reform Bill is the change of focus from hazards to risks. While they are sometimes used interchangeably, a hazard is the source of a risk, and a risk is the chance or probability that the hazard will cause an incident. Risk is assessed by identifying the likelihood and severity of a potential incident. This new focus aims to make organisations address the most significant sources of incidents, rather than addressing all hazards. This move is reflected in the change of the requirement of ‘taking all practicable steps to minimise a hazard’ to ‘doing everything reasonably practicable to minimise a risk’. Interestingly, this means that you don’t need to take action if the measures are grossly disproportionate to the level of risk. The important thing is that you have identified and analysed the likelihood and severity of the risk. Tip: You will need a solution that enables ongoing risk assessment to be conducted easily rather than just simply recording hazards. Remember that the reform is just lifting the minimum requirements a little higher. There is nothing stopping you from being excellent rather than just compliant! However, it is worthwhile checking that you are actually operating above the current minimum requirements, so nothing trips you up when the new regulations come into force. While it’s impossible to present an exhaustive outline of the changes here, we have outlined a few of the major changes that could trip you up. For more details check out www.business.govt.nz/worksafe. Worker participation PCBU collaboration Officers due diligence The Reform Bill puts strong emphasis on worker engagement and participation in work H&S matters. Workers need to be effectively involved and given the opportunity to have their say on all aspects affecting their safety and wellbeing. This can be achieved in different ways depending on the type of workplace. Examples are tool box talks, regular training, or direct worker access to the H&S system. Anyone that is in control of a business or undertaking is a PCBU (Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking, i.e. anyone who pays anyone to do anything: a company, department or manager). They have a duty of care, or responsibility, to ensure that everything reasonably practicable is done to ensure the safety of the people that they manage, have contracted or that are affected by their work. They cannot ‘contract out’ of their duty, and have to work together with other PCBUs where duties overlap, e.g. on a building site. This means that PCBUs must think broadly about who they affect through the conduct of their business or undertaking, be familiar with all factors that may pose risks to health and safety, and continuously ensure that health and safety of other people is not put at risk. Anyone who is an officer of an organisation (i.e., essentially anyone that has significant control over the financial decisions of the organisation) has a duty to make sure that the people working within their organisation are fulfilling their duty. This means gaining an understanding of H&S matters, satisfying themselves that the right processes and procedures are being followed and providing adequate resources to eliminate or minimise risks. Obviously, for a large organisation there are a lot of processes, procedures and risks to keep an eye over, so metrics and indicators need to be implemented and kept up to date to help these officers fulfil their ongoing duty of due diligence, which they cannot delegate. Tip: The regulator will look for evidence of ongoing, direct participation rather than just relying on policy documents and written procedures. Therefore your system should allow and manage different types and levels of participation. Tip: You will need a solution that enables PCBUs to collaborate and share information freely where they are working together, such as on a project or construction site. Tip: You will need to make sure that the information flow between incidents, H&S system and board report is seamless and timely, so that officers are kept in the loop and can ensure that everyone is doing their duty. WHAT OPTIONS DO I HAVE TO IMPROVE? We have found that organsations typically need to improve their systems and need support to do so. But, such a wide range of systems and support are available that it can be very confusing! You should be careful to select the solution that completely satisfies your requirements. To help we’ve summarised the main system and support options below. System options Support options Systems include software and other tools that provide the framework and functionality for H&S management. The range of options includes traditional tools and approaches such as paper forms and spreadsheets, conventional intranet-based systems, apps designed for particular tasks, software that manages a specific domain, and enterprise and cloud software systems that cover every aspect of organisational H&S. Generally, each option has benefits and disadvantages which are summarised in the diagram below. Services help fill the gaps in your internal expertise and resources, which may include legal, auditing, certification, training, rehabilitation, etc. H&S specialists can perform specific tasks for your organisation, such as preparing you for an audit. If you’re not already working with one of these experts, you can ask your industry body for the best person to suit your needs. Specialist H&S consortiums and consultancies can provide you with a full range of services that help you satisfy all your obligations under the new regulations, and are a safe, but potentially expensive, way to go. Larger full service consultancies such as the Big Four generally offer H&S services, and while your organisation may already work with one of them, you should ensure that they have relevant experience and a reputable track record in H&S. Paper & spreadsheets • Easy and cheap to create • Adequate for some small low risk organisations • Doesn’t require specialist skills and knowledge • Hard to keep up to date • Hard to access for anyone apart from H&S manager • Hard to drive participation & engagement Point solutions • Easy to buy • Simple workflows • Look good Cloud software • Easy to buy • Easy to use for anyone • Fully integrated systems • Mobile and IT department friendly • The NZ government recommends cloud services for their agencies. • Only do one thing • Hard to link into rest of system • Locked on mobile systems Cost Traditonal software • Existing software providers • Ability to be fully integrated • Don’t support mobiles • Clunky interface • Too specialist and complex H&S specialists Full service consultancies H&S consortiums IS ECOPORTAL RIGHT FOR ME? ecoPortal has the sytems and support to help you become reform ready. Below is our five step reform ready plan and you’ve just completed the first step by reading this guide! The next step is to complete a simple self assessment to see what your organisation may need to do to improve. 2 3 4 5 Self Assessment Expert Assessment Upload Everything Reform Ready Business Case Dr. Logan Wait logan@ecoportal.co.nz +64 21 369 374 Dr. Manuel Seidel manuel@ecoportal.co.nz +64 27 352 8440 Answer 12 questions to see how your current approach to H&S stacks up. You’ll end up with a report that highlights areas for improvement and suggestions on how to improve. Click the link below to start the assessment: www.ecoportal.com/assess Based on our experience working with other organisations we can help point you in the right direction based on your self assessment. If ecoPortal is right for you we can help you build a business case to present to management. We’ll upload all your forms, procedures, spreadsheets and data to ecoPortal. You’ll get a single source of the truth. Workers will be able to participate, PCBU’s will be able to collaborate and Directors will be able to discharge due diligence.
