Occupational health and safety in the UK may have improved since the 1974 Health and Safety at Work etc. Act came into effect, but it is still an ongoing effort. For example, over 620,000 cases of non-fatal workplace injuries were reported to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in the period 2015/2016.
The latest report also shows 144 lives were lost on-the-job and another 100 (members of the public) were killed due to a work-related incident in 2017/2018. Compared to 2014/2015, HSE sued 6% more businesses and fined more than double £38.3 million compared to £18.1 million in 2015/2016.
As a business owner, you cannot overstate the importance of health and safety practices in the workplace. They are crucial as they are a prerequisite. So crucial that great talent can quit your company and join another that pays much attention to its HSE management system.
This post aims to walk you through the process of choosing the best HSE software that will help reduce incidents, and increase workplace safety.
How to choose the best HSE software for your company step-by-step
So how do you select the ideal health, safety, and environmental software from the plethora that floods the HSE software market? How do you even pinpoint the best software that will enhance your business's key performance indicators (KPI’s)?
Here are a few things to consider or have on your checklist:
1. Define Needs
Perhaps the most crucial undertaking of all is defining your “Why”. Why do you need to employ the use of this software in your workplace? Clearly defining your needs will offer a solid foundation to base your HSE software vendor comparisons.
For example, how do you want to improve the safety of all employees to boost their work morale, productivity and job satisfaction?
- Is it by ensuring the company is always HSE compliant through the use of automated email, text, mobile app notifications or call alerts?
- Or, is it by making health and safety information readily available to employees at all times in a digital, easy to revise, and update manner?
You want to establish a strong case for making the HSE software investment – justifying your need for the program to improve your health, safety, and environmental key performance indicators.
2. Establish Requirements
Based on what you define as your firm’s occupational health needs and priorities, checklist the features you need in an HSE software solution to make it acceptable, capable, and a valuable investment for your company. Remember, you want the software to meet your core needs and objectives.
3. Establish Budget
You want to strike the balance between feature-rich and affordable. The more featured a solution is, the likelier it is to function better even become useful for your company (but also highly priced compared to less featured solutions in the HSE market).
4. Acquire Approval
The trick here is to sell the benefits of HSE software to the decision makers and other shareholders. Keep in mind that if it makes financial, reputation and competitive sense, it will sail through.
5. Compare Potential HSE Software Solutions and Short List the Best
With a green light, you can bolt on and start the process of choosing the best HSE software for your previously outlined workplace safety needs. Then round up the top three health and safety software vendors for selection.
6. Conduct Selection
This is where you want to make considerations such as which solutions offer the best value in terms of:
- Price and discounts
- Customer support and usage training
- Risk assessment and reporting features
- Incident detailing and rehabilitation notes, and more
The last step in the selection stage is to engage the vendor in a demonstration of how the solution will work in your perceived use cases. Not for just any other company.
7. Close
After assurance, the HSE software is actionable for your company’s health and safety needs, you can go ahead and take advantage of a free trial before purchase. If, after the trial run the software feels like the real deal for your company’s needs, you can then commit to long-term, paid usage.
Following these simple steps will help you choose an effective HSE software that works for your specific needs. However, you equally need to comprehensively evaluate what your company’s needs are toward an incident management system such as HSE prior to investing in one.