13 Tips on How to "Go Digital" in Health and Safety?

In order to stay competitive, the transition to digital processes is essential. The digital revolution in health care is speeding up and should be a priority, as well – thought – out health and safety processes allow employees to commit themselves 100% with their mind and body to work.

The more satisfied and healthy the employees are, the more successful the organization is.

Depending on the size of the company, managing occupational health and safety on paper and excel generally takes a disproportionate amount of time.

And not that the time spent on health and safety at work is a waste of time, but that time in general is not expressed in terms of prevention, but in terms of bureaucracy and administration.

Therefore, it is also worth thinking about digital transformation in occupational health and safety.

The first step, of course, is to find a suitable health and safety software solution, and so in order to prevent the digital transition from causing more harm instead of benefits, here are some tips.

Choosing the Right Occupational Health and Safety Software Solution:

1. Identify the needs for which a solution is needed.
   These are activities
   A) That take a lot of time
   B) Have to be solved by many people
   C) There is no overview of the current situation, and so on

2. All people who need to start using this health and safety platform should be involved in choosing and getting acquainted with the selection

3. Set a budget. As there is a lot to choose from, a budget limit will help you make the first choice of possible tools.

4. Do the background work. Examine the websites of different digital health and safety software solutions and write down the questions that are unanswered on the homepage.

5. The IT manager or other person responsible for IT systems should also be involved in the process, as he or she can ask the right questions in terms of technology and data.

6. Have a demo of possible tools for yourself and your team. The demo allows you to see the actual look and feel of the tool and get answers to your questions.

7. Don’t underestimate user-friendliness and intuition when choosing a product. Not all people are technology savvy, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want or aren’t ready to use technology for better results. Therefore it is important that the technology that is being introduced does not cause more headaches than benefits.

8. The possibility of a trial period is linked to the previous point. Be sure to ask and use the trial period option. Let anyone try to use the product during the trial period and let them rate the user-friendliness and intuition of this product. These keywords are also important, especially because when new people join the team, the implementation of the new platform should be as easy and fast as possible.

9. Researching the user experience from other customers. If it seems that there are some suitable solutions left in the selection, then the feedback of other customers can contribute to the final choice. Investigate feedback from some customers that are related to your industry or have the same profile as your company. 

Once a Suitable Solution is Found, Then Some Tips for a Successful Implementation of a New Safety and Health Solution:

     10. Schedule time. Plan a specific time to implement the new solution. Otherwise, day-to-day               activities will result in the system standing and waiting for the right moment and the money             is paid without giving any benefits. 

      11. Deploy step by step. Start new safety and health solution implementation step-by-step, for              example one department at a time. This also reveals possible worries and problems that                can be avoided in other departments.

      12. Share implementation activities among multiple people. It is advisable to involve in the                    implementation those people who will use the system in the future, as the various                            functions will become clearer to them during the data entry and set-up of the system                        and therefore they will be able to use the system successfully immediately.    

      13. Create a guide for the new employee. Once the first implementation round has been                        completed, create a guide for the new employee in parallel, so that new team members                  can join the new tool as soon as possible.        

Finding a new and good platform may be a bit of a tedious process, but if the right choice is made, it will make managing occupational health and safety processes so much more enjoyable and easier.