In a lot of businesses, there is a significant gap between those members of the workforce who experience HSEQ risks first hand and those who make the overarching, impactful HSEQ business decisions.
Often it will be workers on the ground who see safety issues and are tasked with ensuring safe work practices, but it’s the senior leadership teams who determine the business’ HSEQ strategy and investment levels.
See the problem?
There’s a significant risk that those who are making the decisions won’t have access to the first-hand knowledge that those on the ground possess. And this can lead to a disconnect, creating solutions which don’t accurately address on-site HSEQ issues resulting in an increased level of risk.
That’s not to say that senior leadership teams aren’t proactively trying to do everything they can to keep their workers safe. But, as businesses grow and become increasingly complex, they don’t have the time or capacity to visit sites and gain that first-hand knowledge.
This is where a robust HSEQ system can help.
A simple piece of software can act as the bridge across this divide, bringing employees closer together – whether on-site or in head office. And it can even deliver a greater understanding of what’s happening on site when compared to being there in person.
When HSEQ is truly ingrained in an organization, those on the ground are proactively contributing data from worksites as much as those in senior management are drawing data out of the system for analysis. This means that senior leadership don’t just get the experience of one person on site, they are seeing what’s happening in these high-risk environments from every view point. Capturing a full understanding of each identified risk and getting a birds-eye view of all site activities.
This allows senior leadership to build a strong relationship with each site’s workers through data while also giving the workers the opportunity to proactively contribute to bigger business decision making that will keep them and their co-workers safe in the long-term.
Data isn’t the only way that HSEQ systems help to build relationships internally. They can also play a crucial role in communicating important company information making every remote employee feel as close to head office as those who are situated there every day. But you’ll have to check back later in next month’s ‘Send to CEO’ for more information on that.