Several key factors are driving this rapid evolution in the Health & Safety space:

• Changing Work Environments: Thanks to everyone’s favourite pandemic, the world was forced into remote work (where applicable). This changed everyone’s perspective on work-life balance and flexibility and introduced more hybrid working schedules. For us safety professionals, however, hybrid work brings new challenges and risks that some may not have experienced before.
• Regulatory Changes: Recently, updates to compliance and safety regulations have pushed us toward a more holistic approach that focuses on well-being and inclusivity. Examples include The WHS Amendment (Review) Act 2020 in New South Wales including stricter requirements around psychological health and hazards, the Bill C-65, An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code to strengthen protections against workplace harassment and violence, and UK’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) increasing its emphasis on mental health in the workplace.
• Increased Advocacy and Expectations: As younger generations become the predominant workforce, there is a noticeable increase in expectations for holistic safety. These generations, especially as they step into leadership roles are starting to advocate for better practices and more services to support overall wellbeing.
• Technology: Tech is really the key tool in our toolkit for ensuring we have the data insights needed to understand trends and identify issues that require action and even begin to predict issues before they become just that. The days of multiple-point solutions that do not communicate with each other and work in siloed manners are over in this safety revolution. It is time to empower employees to self-serve safety and automate processes for safety teams to streamline operations and make data-driven decisions.

 

We have already mentioned employee expectations—is it really that significant?

Absolutely. The modern-day employee is shaping the way Workplace Health & Safety is evolving, and as we know, our people are our most valuable assets. Isn’t it refreshing to see more companies investing more in their People & Culture? If organisations invest in their people’s well-being, they’ll be better employees and teams, creating a more dynamic and vibrant culture. This in turn also increases their productivity and enhances innovation, which leads to the organisation’s long-term success.

So, why not offer simple services to enhance their investments in themselves and show that, as employers, we’re in it with them? Do your employees know how to access your EAP services? Are there company discounts with external vendors they can take advantage of, like gym memberships? Can you run workshops or sessions? Many of my clients offer wellness days, and paid days off, and maintain hybrid/flexible work arrangements to suit their employees.

When we look at our younger generations such as Gen Z, we can see the shift towards a more technologically dependent workforce. Think about the world of apps these generations have access to in their personal lives—Netflix offers a world of viewing at your fingertips with personal recommendations; Amazon lets you shop globally with same-day delivery and personal picks; Uber calls rides within minutes, with options to choose your car type and ride preference. To cater to this population, technology is going to be your secret sauce. 

Our employee and safety technology and solutions need to be just as accessible to improve convenience the way these hugely popular applications have very successfully done. By doing this, we can promote a reporting culture, providing a repository of policies and procedures for self-service, and offering natural language conversations when searching or needing help. And if an employee does happen to be injured, we need to ensure a seamless experience from start to finish. They should know the progress, and what’s needed from them, and feel our duty of care with a 360-degree view of their journey as an employee.

Real-life Scenarios, Challenges and Solutions

In the technology space, we spend majority of our time developing our Health & Safety solutions with our product directors, based on the use cases and problems our clients are facing. Let’s look at some of these use cases:

Public Sector Client:

• Issue: Bullying and employees going on psychological stress leave. No central location for data, with limited access to performance analytics to understand where the issues lie.
• Solution: Cross-departmental collaboration with our Health & Safety and HR solutions, providing a 360-degree view of employee journeys to see incidents/cases raised by or against them, allowing us to cross-reference before promotions or transfers to identify issues early. Performance analytics with leading indicators for early intervention.

High-Risk Client:

• Issue: Multiple siloed systems to manage Safety and injuries, no centralized location or one source of truth, leading to manual and tedious work for the safety team, and no collaboration across the organization.
• Solution: Consolidation of multiple systems into one Health & Safety solution within the ServiceNow platform. Centralized location for all incidents, hazards, observations, and JSAs, with automatic actions sent to site leads for first-level investigations. Integration with HR, Payroll, and Legal for collaboration when someone is injured. Leading indicator dashboards for continuous safety performance.

 

Shaping the Future: Accelerating Workplace Health & Safety through Technology Partners 

Technology is something to embrace, using these powerful tools, platforms and solutions to connect with employees and meet them where they are, empowering them to access everything health, safety, and well-being related. This leads to true automation and cross-departmental collaboration. We can even take this to the next level with AI — predictive intelligence, assisted ergonomic assessments, and IVR lines where people can raise issues by voice and have a natural language conversation. 

In addition to having the right technology and solutions, consultants with the right expertise are invaluable, leveraging best practices and experience from various industries. They are also able to communicate with multiple customers to bring insights from previous implementations, and knowledge of specific challenges and opportunities within the health and safety landscape. As each organisation is unique, the right consultants can tailor solutions to meet the needs of each business – which is critical for success. 

The future we want is one where our employees feel safe, empowered and cared for. Where Health & Safety are embedded in the organizational culture. Employees are provided with easy and intuitive access to report incidents, are equipped with health and safety resources, and receive real-time updates effortlessly.

The organization of the future is one which is not just compliant, but a leader in safety innovation, with a workforce that is actively engaged in maintaining and improving workplace health and safety.

We can however say that the future is not something that awaits us but is here in the decisions and actions we take today. 

The future really is now.