While ensuring jobsite safety is a priority at any workplace, maintaining constant compliance with
OSHA regulations can be challenging. It requires staying ready for random inspections, keeping detailed paper trails, educating your team and adapting to changing regulations.
Luckily, technology exists to help you better manage your workplace safety procedures. That’s why we’ve put together a list of five uses of technology to protect your workers and ensure OSHA compliance.
But first, it’s important to understand OSHA’s expectations for your workplace.
OSHA Expectations
A key element of
OSHA’s expectations is that employers must “provide a workplace free from serious recognized hazards.” While each industry has its own unique set of health and safety hazards, it’s important that employees are equipped with the knowledge and tools to be able to
identify,
communicate and
resolve potential dangers on the jobsite.
Whether you’re regulated by
Federal or State OSHA, your team must be efficient in the following areas:
- Accident Prevention
- Hazard reporting
- Incident reporting
- Employee training
Since OSHA or an OSHA-approved state agency may conduct unrequested annual inspections (in addition to inspections triggered by workplace incidents, suspected imminent danger or employee complaints), you’ll want to make sure that you’re always on top of your safety game AND have the documentation to prove it!
This is where the latest digital tools can make all the difference:
#1: Use digital forms to streamline safety inspections
Digital inspection forms allow your team to conduct inspections more efficiently, quickly and frequently. Unlike paper forms, they are fully customizable, easily accessible and allow instant reporting from the field to the office.
Digital forms also help you standardize your inspection procedures, since you can instantly update forms for your whole team without the time-consuming process of copying and distributing updated paper forms.
Additionally, digital forms can have smart features enabled for you to better capture evidence of hazards and streamline data entry. Such features include:
- Photo, video & audio capture
- Geotagging & timestamps
- Auto-calculations
- Dropdown menus
- Pre-populated fields
With the ability to capture rich, validated data with a few taps on a smart device, your team can perform inspections more frequently and report issues with more clarity in real time.
#2: Instantly assign corrective actions from a mobile device
Enable your workers to assign corrective actions as soon as an issue is identified. FastField’s Tasks feature, for example, empowers anyone on your team to address workplace hazards by assigning tasks, such as work orders, to the appropriate personnel with the following capabilities:
- Detailed notes & instructions
- Photos with annotations of the issue & repairs
- Due dates & priority levels
- Custom statuses to track progress to completion
#3 Automate your safety reporting workflow & trigger alerts
An automated workflow will significantly improve your safety reporting procedures because it makes sure that the appropriate personnel are notified instantly of specific issues or submitted reports. Whether it’s an identified hazard in need of repairs, an injury or a low safety inspection score, an automated workflow lets you pre-determine the endpoint and delivery method of reports and notifications.
For example, you could set up an equipment safety inspection form that will be automatically delivered to a manager’s inbox. If there are any failed items on the report, however, the manager could also receive an SMS notification. Specific maintenance employees could also receive automated alerts for identified issues that fall under their realm.
With this capability, workers in the field do not have to spend time figuring out who to send reports to or contacting different departments. All reports and notifications would be immediately sent to the appropriate stakeholders based on your preset triggers.
FastField’s Global Workflow combines this robust reporting capability with a variety of third-party integrations to help you direct your safety data and alerts to the most effective channels for your team.
#4 Monitor your compliance effectiveness through real-time data insights
There are a variety of OSHA and industry-specific metrics that are used to measure the effectiveness of your safety practices and performance. Monitoring these metrics over time will not only let you know if you are in compliance, but can also help you hone in on areas in need of improvement and staff training. These key performance indicators (KPIs) include:
- Detailed notes & instructions
- Total Reportable Incident Rate (TRIR)
- Equipment Breakdowns
- Corrective and Protective Actions (CAPA)
- Average Resolution Time (ART)
- Days Away, Restricted, or Transferred (DART)
The most effective and streamlined method of keeping track of OSHA KPIs is to utilize a software that can automatically translate your reports into customizable data insights. This will let you determine the stats and trends that are most significant for your operations to monitor in real time on a dashboard.
With the ability to quickly view real-time OSHA metrics at a glance, you can make data-based decisions to resolve any trending safety issues. You can also frequently share meaningful KPIs with your team to facilitate safety training and encourage a culture of safety.
#5 Automate your compliance record-keeping
While OSHA requires records of
serious work-related injuries and illnesses to help better evaluate the safety of your workplace, you’ll also want to keep organized records of other incidents, inspections, asset service, employee training records and more.
Since you’ll need easy access to these records for OSHA inspections and data insights, you’ll want a record-keeping solution that doesn’t involve rifling through stuffed filing cabinets full of paper documents.
With FastField’s automated records management solution, all of your reports are automatically and securely saved into the FastField Cloud. This cloud storage allows easy and quick access to your health and safety records with the ability to search and filter your reports.
Additionally, you can create custom Word and PDF reports according to the formatting needs of your company. After customizing your own safety report template, all submitted data for this report can be automatically saved in this format – keeping your reports uniform and on brand.
Elevate Your Safety Game With FastField
When it comes to enhancing your safety practices and maintaining OSHA compliance,
FastField’s got you covered:
- Fully customizable mobile forms for rich data collection
- Corrective action assignment from the field
- Automated workflows and triggered alerts
- Real-time data insights at a glance
- Automated & secure record-keeping
Spend less time on paperwork and more time acting on data to keep your employees safe and healthy with FastField.
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