Safety Management Systems Paint a Bigger EHS Performance Picture

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Integrated safety management systems offer a centralized means of tapping into safety processes, training status, compliance requirements, hazard data and incidents to provide up-to-the-minute, accurate data that identifies important trends and monitors incidents.

A safety management system or SMS is an environmental, health and safety (EHS) software solution that no organization today should be without. 

Safety management software provides organizational tools to develop, plan, measure, analyze, and control the overall safety performance of a company, and guide decision-making for choosing safety assurance activities.

Pressure on companies to maximize productivity and drive revenue in the face of challenging economic headwinds can lead to a tension between business objectives for growth and profitability and the health and safety practitioner’s priority to mitigate risk and keep people safe.

To deliver against this safety objective, safety management software is used to gain greater visibility into incidents and near misses and to shorten the time … Read more...

What is Incident Management in Safety? (And How Does It help Your OSHA Recordkeeping?)

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Incident management, the process of identifying, documenting, responding to and eliminating workplace injuries and illnesses, is a fundamental obligation for many employers. An important aspect of incident management in safety is OSHA recordkeeping and determining what incidents should be tracked and what data needs to be collected and reported to regulators can be confusing.

Say you reported to your manager that you had a headache. You’re not sure what caused it and are given three acetaminophen capsules. Is this considered a first-aid case by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) or is it a recordable injury incident that must be tracked? What if you were only given one capsule? Is it still first aid or should it be recorded by your incident management system? 

An employee goes on one day of light duty at work. Is that a recordable? What if it lasts two days? A worker sprains an ankle … Read more...

It’s Not All Bad News: How ESG Management Is Meeting the Challenge of Climate Change

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Why Your ESG Management Program is a Good-News Story
Many organizations are innovating to become more sustainable. From leading brands to small businesses, everyone can make a contribution to building a better world.

In the fight against climate change, the news reports can be dire reading. This summer alone, an unprecedented heat wave in China is impacting the global supply chain, creating hydropower shortages and providing conditions for devastating fires. The American south is grappling with weather that shifts radically between drought and severe flooding. In the UK and Europe, a brutal heatwave has killed hundreds and caused significant property damage as a result of rural fires. 

It would be easy to say that this is simply fearmongering by the media, but regular reports from climate science support the thesis that man-made climate change is having a significant impact on severe weather events. No matter where we look, the news about climate change seems all bad. 

However, the truth … Read more...

Late-Stage Cancer Is the Top Driver of Employer Health Care Costs

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Employers continue to have concerns about such issues as health equity and the affordability of health care, and plan to continue to invest strategically in their health and well-being offerings.

Cancer has overtaken musculoskeletal conditions as the top driver of large companies’ health care costs, according to the Business Group on Health’s 2023 Large Employers’ Health Care Strategy and Plan Design Survey.

While the top three conditions fueling health care costs remained the same from last year – cardiovascular disease, cancer and musculoskeletal conditions – 13% of employers said they have seen more late-stage cancers and another 44% anticipate seeing such an increase in the future, likely due to pandemic-related delays in care.

The research uncovered that as employers continued to have concerns about such issues as health equity and the affordability of health care, they plan to continue to invest strategically in their health and well-being offerings.

“Survey … Read more...

Look for the “Believers” to Evangelize Your Safety Culture

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Occupational health and safety, like anything, needs to be imbedded into culture and culture is created by the employees.

Safety cultures should be created by employees for each other – empowered, invested and supported by the company – as opposed to forced down and then begrudgingly adopted or ignored.

That’s the view of Neil Bedwell, a council member of Forbes magazine who heads up a consultancy that focuses on culture called Local Industries, based in Atlanta. Employees represent the most important stakeholders in any workplace initiative, he says. In the context of health and safety, guidelines may be created by a small group of senior people, but it is the employees on the floor who bring these principles to life day-by-day and minute-by-minute.

“Occupational health and safety, like anything, needs to be imbedded into culture and culture is created by the employees,” Bedwell says. “Health and safety … Read more...

Learn How Leading Brand Estée Lauder Succeeds with ESG Management

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The world of ESG can be intimidating when it comes to regulations, reporting and executive support. How does leading brand Estée Lauder achieve ESG management success?

The Environment and Energy Leader Solutions Summit took place online on July 19, 20 and 21, 2022. Leaders from many different industries came together for a series of candid conversations on the importance of ESG in creating a sustainable future and the challenges that come with meeting increasingly complex reporting requirements around the world. There were discussions about the ESG regulatory environment, ESG management software, the importance of data for ESG reporting and many other topics that are at the forefront of today’s strategic business discussions.  

The opening keynote session featured Aleksandra Dobkowski-Joy, VP of ESG at The Estée Lauder Companies. The conversation began with a look at how organizations are managing the rapid advance of ESG as a critical strategic priority over the … Read more...

EHS Software and Technologies Help Businesses Keep Pace with Transforming Work

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The speed and the pace of work is creating new challenges and opportunities for health and safety in the massive volumes of data that can be captured by EHS management systems and how it can be used to improve performance.

Technology is the driving force behind workplace transformations and will be the engine powering environmental health and safety or EHS management to ensure it keeps pace with the ever-changing and increased speed of work.

An article in the Houston Chronicle (CHRON) reports that technology’s impact on work has exponentially increased the rate of production and speed at which business occurs, adding that, “technology in the workplace has helped workers become more efficient than ever before. What used to take hours now can take minutes.”

The World Economic Forum’s 2020 Global Risks Report says 73 percent of executives predict significant industry disruption in the next three years due to technological changes, … Read more...

How ESG Management Builds Resilient Organizations

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While many organizations view ESG and ESG management as simply another reporting obligation, ESG principles and frameworks provide better understanding of people, processes and tools. 

Organizations need to do more than know their product lines, research their customers and balance the books. They also need to understand the threats and opportunities that are part of the world in which they operate. Understanding the nature of risk might not be the most exciting part of running an organization, but it’s the one that will help to ensure you have an organization to work at in the years to come. 

The last few years have completely upended our ideas of what is required to build a resilient organization. In 2019, no one was thinking about how to react to a pandemic that would shut down the entire world, a supply chain that threatens to crumble under the weight of constant disruption, the … Read more...

Is an EHS Management and Sustainability Approach Right for Your Business?

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Sustainability and EHS software may be just the thing your organization needs to help keep your workers safe and protected.

Keeping workers protected and workplaces safe needs the commitment and involvement of all divisions within a business. It also requires an integrated approach to what might be described as EHS&S or environmental, health and safety (EHS) and sustainability. One that includes:

  • Steps to define and prepare for risk,
  • Aligns a stronger and safer workplace culture,
  • Maps EHS and sustainability goals and objectives, and,
  • Consolidates for consistency across all business segments.

An EHS&S information management system may be just the thing your organization needs, but how would you know? Check out this four-phased approach, below, for answers and guidance.

Phase 1. Step Back and Evaluate Your Needs:

Are you only managing permits and compliance deadlines? If so and your business is small, simpler could be better.

“You can have a process … Read more...

Leaders 2 Leaders The Network: Successful Mobile Rollout 

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The adoption of mobile technology allows Wizz Air to immediately report on and record flight information and incidents, even when employees are off-line.

Akos Steigervald, System Administrator and FDM manager, is the main point of contact at Wizz Air for Intelex Technologies. Wizz Air, with its 6,400+ employees, is a Central-Eastern European airline with its head office in Budapest, Hungary. The airline, which carried 21.7 million customers in 2021, serves many cities across Europe, as well as some destinations in North Africa and the Middle East. 

Steigervald recently shared information about Wizz Air’s successful mobile rollout during a Leaders2Leaders The Network session with other Intelex customers. These sessions feature a series of interactive, customer-led sessions that encourage best practice sharing, networking and collaboration with our Intelex European customers. The sessions – for users by users – offer insight, pro tips and more to help you get the most from our … Read more...