Businesses need to keep working on improving safety systems and technology can help to deliver robust safety systems for workers and cut out risks.
There are many employees working in conditions where they may be vulnerable to potential accidents, and businesses should be looking to consistently monitor and minimise these risks. Not only will this prevent any potential injuries, but it will also make insurance policies easier to determine and reduce the likelihood of potential damage costs.
Advances in technology mean that there are now a wide range of products on the market that go much further than the traditional health and safety methods, which businesses could consider to boost their risk prevention strategies. Such technology could be used on top of traditional compliance and safety protocols, bolstering efforts to track and prevent risks efficiently.
One form of technology that businesses could make use of to support employee safety are risk assessment applications. These kind of apps can help to assess risk in industries and workplaces that are more likely to encounter problems such as leaks to fires, for example. Depending on a business’s needs, these apps can be customised to include topics and scenarios that suit the company, making it a convenient and more effective way to keep up with health and safety.
The apps can also be designed to calculate the impact that an accident would have on the surrounding area of the workplace. This could have numerous benefits such as helping to work out a business’s insurance premiums or determining best practice health and safety systems for the workforce, based on the known risks. Not only will this help to increase staff safety by ensuring that they are aware of potential accidents and how they may play out if they occurred, it can help to significantly reduce accidents from happening.
Some apps in the market work by uploading a unique blueprint of the workplace and allow personnel to monitor and assess the effects of a potential accident so they can create strategies to prevent it from happening. This has helped businesses to add depth to risk assessment procedures and boost employee safety as a result.
Employees who are particularly vulnerable are lone workers. Estimates have shown that over 60 deaths and 14,000 serious injuries can be attributed to lone workers in just one year. Businesses who have lone workers should therefore consider investing in specialised technology that helps them to better monitor their safety and compliance. There is technology available that can help to track employees’ locations to make sure they are in the right areas and can be easily found should they need assistance. Businesses could also look to create apps that feature tools that improve lone worker safety such as a checking in button, which could enable employees to confirm that they have arrived at or left areas safely, or distress buttons for if they encounter any problems.
One of the most helpful aspects of safety and compliance technology for businesses is being able to calculate risks before they have the chance to come true. This can sometimes be beyond human capabilities, so making use of safety apps and technical tools will help employers improve the level of detail in risk assessment and prevention, to protect themselves and employees against the potential problems.
By Matt Hunt chief executive officer at Apadmi Enterprise
