After many years of running a small construction business, safety had become one of the biggest time-consuming aspects, and the most important one! Every one of our team members expected we would provide a safe working environment, so they could go home safe each afternoon.
Writing Safe Work Method Statements (SWMS), Risk Assessments, Toolbox Meetings, Safe Operating Procedures, policies and procedures, the list was endless, and we just could not afford an extra admin to keep up. Working late nights and weekends whilst missing out on precious family time, that is when we decided to work smarter not harder. There had to be an easier way, safety was far too important to sweep under the rug.
Taking a hard look at the current system, it was very time consuming, a little broken, and clearly not going to save any lives by being done in the office and left in the ute. No matter how hard that person at a computer tries, they just cannot see the dangers that lie ahead for the team onsite. Turning to technology seemed to be the best way to combat a very broken paper trail.
A lot of research was required, working out how to take safety out of the office and put it back in the hands of the tradesman onsite. The tradesman had their own ideas about what they needed:
- It had to be simple to use and made for big fingers
- Safety is complicated, make it a quick, step-by-step process
- Everyone had to have access to it, including the apprentice and the admin staff
- As little writing as possible
- “oh, and we didn’t become Tradies to do paperwork” argument come up a lot
Keeping all the requests in mind we created Projects One Safety Online (POSO). This now meant we had a system that streamlined our safety documentation process, the SWMS, Toolbox meetings and Risk assessments were now being recorded in less than 5 minutes, by the tradesman who can see the dangers.
Wendy Bishop
Founder and CEO, the guru of all things organised, the lists, the data bases, the tick boxes, the folders, and clipboards, it didn’t matter how it was organised the tradies still turned their noses up at paperwork.
However, discovering that when you give a tradie a phone and only 5 minutes to do their safety paperwork it suddenly looked a lot more attractive!
Relieved there would be no more lost SWMS and Risk Assessments, the headaches subsided, the workload decreased rapidly, calm reigned once again in the office.
