May 12th, 2021
6 mins
The past year brought challenges and changes to the working environment on a scale we’ve
never seen before. As we prepare to bring all employees back into work, health and safety must
be top priority. BFFF partner, SafetyCulture, sets out some of the biggest trends and challenges
across health and safety today:
A dispersed workforce
A return to the workplace is imminent for many businesses, but having your complete workforce
back to the office or on-site full-time seems less likely. Remote and hybrid working
arrangements are here to stay, but with this comes distance. We must embrace these new
models and accommodate accordingly, embedding new approaches such as virtual learning and
training. We must make a conscious effort to stay in touch with our dispersed workforces.
Embracing technology
The best way to ensure communication and processes are upheld is through the use of
technology in health and safety. While technology will inevitably produce new ways of working, it
can help control risk and spearhead accountability.
The uncertainty produced by the pandemic has transformed many businesses and forced new
ways of working upon us. Technology is clearly the solution to help us answer this change
effectively among the new normal: whether that’s for communication, completing checks, raising
issues or assigning actions, or continuous development.
Frontline empowerment
Our frontline employees make up over 80% of the global workforce: we need to ensure
technology works for them. When it comes to COVID-19 processes, employees are also more
than likely the ones charged with ensuring we’re compliant. This means that ever-changing
guidance needs to be accessible and easy to implement for them, rather than being perceived
as an additional burden on already-stretched time and resources. Digitised checklists can
combat process fatigue and drive frontline empowerment: helping our teams rise to the
challenge.
Cultural shift
It’s time to move beyond seeing health and safety as purely compliance: we need to build
cultures centred around empathy and empowering our teams.
However, a dispersed workforce complicates our ability to create a culture change. Accessible
technology can help bridge this by empowering our teams and removing communication
barriers.
Our teams can create real-time visibility through digital inspections, photos, messaging, and
more. The essential feedback loops this creates help build strong cultures where employees are
able to speak up and take action. Not only does this reduce risks and improve your processes, it
drives accountability. When our teams can take ownership for their workplaces and
management can see what’s really happening on the ground, we can drive real, meaningful
change. That’s what our ‘new normal’ demands.
Get Ready…
Get ready for your workforces return by visiting BFFF’s dedicated dedicated partnership page
and get started for free. You can also discover more about ‘How to build strong EHS Cultures
in 2021’ in SafetyCulture’s free eBook.
About Safety Culture
SafetyCulture is the operational heartbeat of working teams around the world. Its
mobile-first operations platform leverages the power of human observation to identify
issues and opportunities for businesses to improve everyday. More than 28,000
organisations use its flagship products, iAuditor and EdApp, to perform checks, train
staff, report issues, automate tasks and communicate fluidly.
SafetyCulture powers over 600 million checks per year, approximately 50,000 lessons
per day and millions of corrective actions, giving leaders visibility and workers a voice, in
driving safety, quality and efficiency improvements.
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