Colin Yates, chief support officer at data capture solution WorkMobile, reports that not all businesses are complying with health and safety standards and may be putting their staff in danger.

Of course, workers in hazardous industries, such as the construction and installation sector, will often be faced with a high number of risks in their profession – more so than someone who works in an office or shop, for instance. Often, staff in these dangerous industries will be tasked with handling heavy-duty equipment and hazardous materials on a daily basis.

With this in mind, it would be expected that companies within these sectors take health and safety more seriously to help minimise the risk of staff injuring themselves whilst on site.

Why are fatality rates so high within construction?

Workers should never be put in unnecessary danger, but of course, when tasked with working with hazardous materials and equipment on a day to day basis, they will be exposed to a higher risk of an accident. But, our recent‘ Work- Safe’ report found that not all businesses are complying with health and safety standards and may be putting their staff in danger. In fact, the research found that almost two-thirds of employees( 65 %) haven’ t

been supplied with an operations manual upon starting their jobs, and for those who have received a manual, only a quarter have seen it updated every time a new piece of equipment or legislative change was introduced. Almost a fifth( 19 %) said their manuals had been updated once and 13 % admitted it had never been updated.

While the onus is on employers to provide the necessary health and safety guidance to employees, it is also up to workers to ensure they’ re following the correct procedures. However, almost half( 48 %) of workers admit to not reading the health and safety materials they were provided with, and as a result, almost a fifth have put themselves at risk of injury by not following the correct practices.

It is clear that more needs to be done by both businesses and employees to help improve health and safety and make for more compliant working conditions.

How can health and safety practices be improved?

Traditionally, when we think of health and safety compliance, we think of big, thick paper books that detail how employees should operate. Not only are these health and safety manuals daunting and unappealing for employees to read, in today’ s digital age, they are unnecessary and very expensive.

Most people now have access to a smartphone or tablet, which has made mobile devices one of the most convenient platforms for communication.

By using mobile devices, businesses can transform their paper-based health and safety manuals into digital versions that can be accessed in an instant from anywhere. Digital documents are much more

reliable than paper forms as they can be updated easily should any new regulations come into effect, without any additional time or monetary costs. With paper versions, new copies would have to be printed off every time the manual needed updating, and these could become redundant very quickly should any new regulations come into play.

As digital documents are stored in the cloud, this means they can be accessed anywhere and at any time. Instead of having to hand out employee handbooks to each and every staff member, digital copies can be sent out to workers’ mobile devices at the click of button via the cloud.

When employees have received their digital employee handbook, bosses

will also have the ability to track who has read the documents – something which can’ t be tracked when using paper copies. Each employee could be assigned a unique login code or digital signature that can track their progress. For employers, this will help identify staff who haven’ t read their materials, so appropriate action can be taken to address this.

Ultimately, the enforcement of health and safety policies needs to be a high priority for businesses, especially those that operate within hazardous sectors where the chance of an accident occurring is significantly greater. Technology, such as mobile devices and cloud storage, are just two possible solutions that businesses should be adopting to make working conditions safer for staff. The number of fatal accidents happening in the workplace must be reduced, and employers have a responsibility to keep their staff out of harm’ s way.

For more information, please visit: http:// www. workmobileforms. com / wpcontent / uploads / 2017 / 05 / WorkSafe-report-. pdf