In the era when more and more people are working digitally, when we can order almost anything delivered to our doorstep and communicate instantaneously with people across the globe, there are few corners of life that technology hasn’t touched.
The safety field is no different. Whether you’re addressing health and safety in IT or any other industry, technology has changed safety for the better.
The joke may run “better living through technology”, but in safety, that really is true. Here are three ways that technology can improve your approach to safety.
Monitoring
Let’s be honest: try though we might, humans are bad at monitoring. It’s inherently boring and repetitive, and humans instinctively use cognitive shortcuts to reduce cognitive overload when dealing with an onslaught of sensory data.
In short? When we see a lot of repetitive data, we start looking for what we expect to see, rather than spotting abnormalities. This means that humans often sift out essential data without even realizing it.
This is worsened by the sheer volume of data that we now collect. While all that data can create an informative picture of your safety program, but the reality is that human brains are not ideally equipped to deal with it.
This is where technology has humans beat. Monitoring programs can sift through huge quantities of data and look for trends and patterns that humans would otherwise overlook.
Access to Information
Because information technology can sift through so much data, it still needs to give humans the capacity to read that data and make informed decisions. That’s why access to information is another critical benefit of health and safety in IT.
When all your data lives in Excel spreadsheets, it’s static. You can’t find data unless you happen to know what you’re looking for.
Smart workplace safety software, on the other hand, can identify trends and patterns and make it easy to see where that data came from. It also makes it easy to access that data, regardless of where you’re accessing it from.
Improving Communication
What happens when you bring together smarter data monitoring and improved information access? In short, far better safety communication.
As an EHS professional, you know that communication is the heart and soul of everything you do. If you don’t have strong communication, you don’t have a safety program, plain and simple.
Technology makes it easier than ever to access information and share information, which in turn makes it easier to communicate safety issues and resolve them. In short? It’s a way to empower your EHS team.
Supporting Health and Safety in IT
Health and safety in IT (or any other industry, for that matter) is a journey, not a destination. Technology makes it easier to navigate that journey, ensuring you take the right turns at the right time.
At EHS Insight, we’re proud to provide safety technology that changes the way you think about EHS. Our safety management software is a smarter approach to safety, allowing your team to focus on what matters most: your workers. Sound like the right fit? Then get in touch today to learn how our software can strengthen your team.
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