Author Archives: Graham Freeman

About Graham Freeman

Graham Freeman is a content writer and editor at Intelex Technologies in Toronto, where he writes on topics relating to quality management. You can follow Graham on LinkedIn by clicking here: www.linkedin.com/in/graham-freeman-aa5a575b/

Workplace Accident Rates Still Aren’t Low Enough: What You Can Do To Reduce Fatal and Nonfatal Injuries

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Workplace accident rates across the United States have been in decline for many years as a result of the dedication of health and safety professionals. However, those rates seem to have bottomed out over the last few years, stubbornly refusing to move any lower. This blog looks at those areas that have the highest rates of workplace accidents and what you can do to improve safety in your organization.

Workplace Accident Rates Still Aren't Low Enough: What You Can Do To Reduce Fatal and Nonfatal Injuries

Highlights

The Role of Data and Leading Indicators
The Role of the Frontline Worker
Takeaways: What You Can Do To Reduce Workplace Accidents
How Intelex Can Help

Today’s U.S. workplaces are safer than they’ve ever been. Thanks to the tireless work of safety professionals creating strong safety cultures supported by cutting-edge technology, fatal and nonfatal workplace accidents have declined drastically over the last few decades. In addition, strong enforcement actions from regulatory agencies like the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) … Read more...

Understanding ESG Materiality: From Definition to Implementation

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Materiality is an important concept in ESG. However, many organizations struggle to understand what it means, how it relates to their business and how to act on it. This article will look at what materiality is and what you need to do to incorporate it into your ESG Strategy.

graphic of three people standing in front of windmills, buildings and the world.

Highlights

What is ESG Materiality?
What Are the Different Types of Materiality?
What Are the Common Material Topics in Different Industries?
Is Materiality the Same in Different Industries?
Are Materiality Assessments Mandatory?
How Does a Materiality Assessment Benefit Decision Making?
How Do I Conduct a Materiality Assessment?
How Can Technology Help with Materiality?
Conclusion

What is ESG Materiality? 

In the last few years, ESG has moved from a nice-to-have element of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) programs to a critical component of corporate strategy. With mandatory requirements from the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) in the United States and CSRD (Corporate … Read more...

What is ISO 45001 and How Can Your Organization Benefit From It?

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ISO 45001:2018 is the international standard for occupational health and safety management systems (OH&S). Its purpose is to provide the requirements for organizations looking to assess conformity of an existing OH&S management system, to create a new one or to integrate one into another existing management system. It defines the responsibilities for protecting the physical and mental health and safety for workers and anyone else affected by the activities of the organization.

What is ISO 45001? Intelex blog article

Highlights

What is a Management System?
What Are the Benefits of ISO 45001:2018?
Fundamental Elements of ISO 45001:2018
– Key Success Factors
– Plan-Do-Check-Act
– Risk-Based Thinking
– High-Level Structure
How Can Technology Enhance ISO 45001:2018?

What is a Management System?

A management system is not a software application. According to ISO, a management system is “a set of interrelated or interacting elements of an organization to establish policies and objectives, and processes to achieve those objectives.” … Read more...

Intelex EMEA User Conference – Closing Day Summary

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Day 2 of the Intelex EMEA User Conference in London ended with more great discussions and insights from our customers, partners and Intelex experts. To catch up on the Day 1 proceedings, be sure to read our summary blog here.

For those of you who didn’t make it to London to catch up with us, here are a few items we explored on the final day of the conference.

AI and the Future of Safety

AI is dramatically changing the way we work. With more data from frontline safety inspections and observations pouring into our management systems, AI is going to play a critical role in analyzing it to identify leading indicators and prevent incidents before they happen.

Scott Gaddis presents how technology can help create a great safety culture. 

One of the most significant contributions AI can make is eliminating the variables in observations and incident data. While … Read more...

Intelex EMEA User Conference – Day 1 Summary 

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Big ideas, engaging discussions and deep customer insights: that was the agenda for the first day of the Intelex EMEA User Conference in London. With a packed house of customers and partners, we dug into the big topics like safety culture, the increasing demands of ESG compliance and the role of cutting-edge technology in making the world a safer and more sustainable place. Here are three important themes that came out of Day 1.

Intelex President Melissa Hammerle kicked out the EMEA User Conference with an inspiring welcome message about our vision to make the world a safer and more sustainable place.
Intelex President Melissa Hammerle kicked out the EMEA User Conference with an inspiring welcome message about our vision to make the world a safer and more sustainable place. 

We all love big data, but it’s not easy

Data might be the most commonly used word in the world today, or maybe it just seems that way. Everyone is talking about the power of data to identify trends, produce leading indicators or reveal hidden insights. Data can … Read more...

Why Human Error Isn’t to Blame: Understanding Variability in EHS Systems 

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Scapegoating workers and accepting the limitations of human judgement does nothing to reduce injury and fatality rates or to improve the efficiency of the EHS management system.

When we say that human error was responsible for an incident, it’s tempting to be comforted by the idea that one person’s poor judgement was to blame. If that person was doing something they shouldn’t have been doing, that seems to be a fairly obvious root cause that couldn’t be anticipated and doesn’t reflect the overall integrity of the management system, leadership or workplace. “Humans will always make mistakes,” we might tell ourselves, “and you can’t make a system foolproof when humans are involved.”  

Yet scapegoating workers and accepting the limitations of human judgement does nothing to reduce injury and fatality rates or to improve the efficiency of the EHS management system. People operate within the constraints provided by the culture and management … Read more...

ESG Reporting and EHS Management at Day 2 of the Intelex User Conference 

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Day Two of the Intelex User Conference in Nashville on Nov. 4 continued the discussions about the current state of EHS management, the growing role of ESG reporting and how best to support the frontline worker.

With experts from various industries in every breakout session, the discussions were rich with insights into how Intelex and its partners can continue to foster the innovation customers need to keep workers safe on the job and create a sustainable future for everyone. 

Managing an OSHA Inspection

When an incident happens in the workplace, an OSHA inspection frequently follows. 60 percent of inspections take place in construction, manufacturing, retail and health care, while almost 40 percent of all OSHA inspections are at organizations with fewer than nine employees.  

While your organization and OSHA both have the goal of keeping workers safe and ensuring the continuous improvement of the safety management system, it’s important to … Read more...

Intelex30: How ESG Reporting and EHS Management Systems are Responding to a Changing World 

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Some organizations will face the reality that spreadsheets and manual methods for collecting data will not be able to keep up with the requirements of ESG reporting and EHS management.

The world has changed a lot over the last three years. In many ways, it’s become more unpredictable, with supply chain disruption, economic concerns and geopolitical volatility becoming part of our daily existence. Yet through it all, frontline workers are there to keep the machinery of the global economic engine moving, so keeping them safe while improving the way they work has never been more important.  

With that in mind, the Intelex User Conference returned in Nashville, Tennessee from November 3-4. For two days at the Gaylord Opryland Resort, we met with customers, partners and industry experts to dig into the present and future developments of EHS to see how we can support the needs of frontline workers everywhere. Since … Read more...

The Everyday Work of ESG Reporting

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Many have no idea where to start when it comes to ESG reporting responsibilities. Here are a few ideas to help get you moving in the right direction.

Environment, social and governance (ESG) principles have become a monolithic presence in the strategic thinking of today’s organizations. Consumer demands, investor concerns and mandatory regulatory reporting have taken ESG from the vague public relations exercises of corporate social responsibility (CSR) to the rigorous reporting requirements coming into force in many jurisdictions around the world. 

One of the difficult things about monoliths is that it can be tricky to get a handle on them. Their sheer size and complexity can be overwhelming for those who are not used to dealing with them. ESG is a monolith that has arisen relatively quickly to become a critical concern for organizational leadership. If you’re confronting the reality of having new ESG reporting responsibilities and you have … Read more...

How Document Control Software Helps You Meet the Requirements for ISO 9001:2015

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ISO 9001:2015 eliminates the distinction between records, processes, and manuals. Intelex Document Control Software helps you meet ISO 9001:2015 requirements
ISO 9001:2015 eliminates the distinction between records, processes, and manuals by using the category documented information to describe all of them. Intelex Document Control Software can help you meet the requirements of ISO 9001:2015.

Unlike previous iterations of ISO 9001, ISO 9001:2015 does not prescribe specific approaches to document governance. Instead, it is up to each organization to determine its approach to the maintenance, retention, and disposition of documentation.

ISO 9001:2015 eliminates the distinction between records, processes and manuals by using the category “documented information” to describe all of them. The phrase maintain documented information describes working documentation that requires regular updates, such as procedures and work instructions. The phrase retain documented information refers to document types such as records that provide evidence of past conformity with requirements.

ISO 9001:2015 has requirements for documented information throughout the standard. The table below collects all the references to required documented information.

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