Before reading this post it is key that you have read the previous 3 PaT posts as they “set the scene” to explain why PaT’s H&S module is so effective.
Many of you know I am a part owner in WSAS Ltd (Work Safety Advisory Services), WSAS is a H&S consulting and training company I launched with a H&S specialist in 2015. At SCS we have a huge focus on H&S and we saw an opportunity to share what we knew with others and make a dollar. WSAS now employs 6 staff including 3 trainers. As this business grew we identified a key issue almost every company had managing their H&S was a lack of good systems, they were all struggling with paper based forms, XL registers, email task requests, trying to keep SOPs and Polices current, track who had had what training etc…not only can non-compliance end you up in deep trouble, running brilliant systems actually saves lives – it was a no brainer to adapt the power of PaT to this need.
The result of which is a module in PaT we call WSOL (Work Safety OnLine).
WSOL takes advantage of some powerful functions in PaT:
- The training module takes care of competency (under the new act companies need to prove this).
- The tasks module takes care of audits and creates an audit trail (also a legislative requirement).
- The Strategy Documents module manages the H&S meetings and all of the related tasks within it, for many NZ companies minuting H&S meetings and proving you are addressing issues through a committee is also now a legal requirement if PCBU’s (People Conducting a Business or Undertaking) want to avoid hefty fines and jail time in the unfortunate event of a serious incident.
…plus we added some specific functionality such as Evidential and Quality Assurance Audits (for SAFE walks and H&S reviews), Hazard Identification and management capability which ties into the Task Management module, Accident reporting which also ties into the Task Management module and a live Hazard register (explained a bit more below).
WSOL has a number of key features that we have not seen in any similar software:
Hazard Identifications are converted to tasks that are automatically assigned to HSR level 1 and 2 staff for Root Cause Investigation and Corrective Action implementation. These tasks leverage the full power of PaT’s task management module and the Performance KPI metric. Progress of these tasks are monitored and non-compliance is automatically escalated. Hazards that are identified to be above a level 15 in severity are automatically alerted to the the H&S committee and senior staff members which has eliminated surprises.
- Hazard Tasks are all Auto Escalating, this provides immense peace of mind to staff that are in the “go to jail chair” and of course guarantees that issues are dealt with or the CEO (or Senior Staff nominee) find out.
- We have seen H&S systems with escalating tasks but they have the same downfalls:
- The tasks are not part of a commonly used business tool therefore they are used infrequently so they are usually ignored.
- There is no measurement applied to the task compliance, a business 101 rule is if you want to manage it you have to monitor it. PaT does this brilliantly.
- There is no consequence if the escalation is not followed.
- They usually only escalate one level. Unlike PaT which ‘climbs’ through an organisations structure until it gets to the CEO.
So the escalations end up ignored and impotent.
- Accident and Near miss reports are also converted to tasks and behave in a similar fashion to Hazard Tasks.
- Hazard Identifications above a score of 15 are also immediately added to the Live Accident register, there is no delay or risk that a piece of paper that was supposed to copied onto the register went missing anymore.
- Hazards and Accidents can be recorded in real time using the PaT smartphone app not only a cool feature it saves a lot of time and who wants to fill out manual forms nowadays. Manual systems inherently incur delays, errors and forms can get lost…PaT solves all these problems.
- The live Hazard Register is available (by site) on the PaT smartphone app.
And here’s the proof. In the SCS business you can see we elevated our compliance from the mid 60 percentile to the mid 90 percentile in just two weeks when we turned on the auto escalating function, even more importantly you can see how all of the automated tasks have ensured we maintain this. Achieving this using traditional methods would have required us to hire additional staff, other PaT customers are all reporting similar results. WSOL makes it very easy to manage H&S across branches, departments and roles, clicking on the graphs you can drill down into the groups of people they represent and see who is performing, you can then drill down further into individual people and see what specific modules they have passed (and when), failed or not yet attempted. This report provides complete top down visibility.
In building WSOL we referred to the new H&S act to ensure it ticked all the boxes.
At the time of writing this post we don’t have a demo site up and running yet however this is due to be released for Go Live in Q1 next year, in the meantime if you’d like to learn more about PaT or you’re interested in understanding how specifically PaT could assist your business drop me a line at brad@peopleandtasks.com I can arrange to run you through the software and demonstrate the functionality using Team Viewer or get one of our team to come and present it you in person. Whilst PaT is in soft launch phase (Go Live is planned for Q1 2017) we are offering preferential pricing in perpetuity as a founding customer and if you are an SCS customer we are offering brilliant deals as a special thank you for your custom and support.
Cheers
Brad