With many businesses, schools, and public arenas opening back up, upper management and Human Resources departments are left to instate new and stricter safety guidelines in the workplace. New guidelines will need to be transferred over to existing training and then dispersed to employees.
COVID-19 has ushered in the need for updated safety protocol, but those implementations can not sufficiently stand on their own. With a new protocol, there also needs to be updated incident reporting. Now, new incident reporting, including illness reporting, needs to be a top priority for employers. With all of the many changes that your business is facing in the wake of COVID-19, it’s important that your HR department and upper management have a clear understanding of what workplace incident reporting should look like in 2020.
We will be outlining essential areas of concern in incident reporting as well as the protocol that employees and management alike should take to maintain a safe working environment.
Is your business doing its due diligence to protect and train employees during this uncertain time? Not all workplace culture nurture nor fully understand the importance of effective safety training. EHS leaders and safety professionals know extensively, but the key to creating a culture that values safety is successfully communicating the “why” and not just the “What.”
OSHA outlines the “why” very effectively.
Many of us are familiar with watching safety training videos (hopefully, ones that are up to date!) during the orientation process. They educate employees on how to file an incident report with the proper line of management and how to ensure that their rights are protected. Unfortunately, the proper protocol can get overseen or misapplied during times of emergency or high-volume incidences such as COVID-19.
With OSHA regulations constantly being improved and advancements in technology, workplace incident reporting has more potential to improve the longevity of businesses more now than ever. With safety protocol being at the forefront of business owners’ minds at the moment, now is the time to make sure that workplace incident reporting in 2020 is up to the current demands. At Atlantic Training, we work to educate businesses in three mottos. These three standards will help your business recover from the health and safety hardship of 2020 and plan for future roadblocks:
2020 has taught us that businesses need to be prepared for the unexpected to the absolute best of their ability--including a worldwide pandemic. Regulations need to be communicated far and wide to all employees on and off-site. When it comes to training, it needs to be precise and memorable. Keeping your training up to date and relevant means:
An employee should be able to instantly take any safety training courses with either a phone, tablet, or desktop computer. Such courses will often come with all the necessary materials for training implementation, including downloads, quizzes, and a reporting feature for easy recordkeeping. So, why is having a complete library of safety training products more effective? Is there a right-choice in online safety training libraries?
The short answer is yes.
While the right choice of online safety training providers may vary depending on a company’s needs, a valuable provider will have:
Imagine that someone is out on a job site and far from the HR department. They need a quick reminder on safety protocols. Being able to pull up a quick training video right there on their phone makes their job easier and safer. This is what workplace incident reporting should look like in 2020!
Atlantic Training has a whole library packed full of OSHA-approved safety videos with topics covering everything from Forklift Operation to Diversity in the Workplace.
Your workplace incident reporting doesn’t just cover reporting accidents or illness. There are several areas to zero-in on with your safety team and Human Resources department:
You can check out our full list of courses and certifications in our Complete Interactive Library.
Keeping employees updated on ever-changing safety regulations and standards is essential. How can you effortlessly fuse the gap between employer expectations and employee safety? You need training that is engaging, but you also need a smart way of workplace incident reporting.
We believe that reporting incidents in the workplace should be safe and efficient for the employee and employer alike. If your company is scrambling to find a better-streamlined system for incident reporting during COVID-19, then Atlantic Training has a system that can easily transfer over to your business's needs.
Not only were these issues unexpected, but many companies didn’t have a contingency plan in place for illness reporting.
Having a fully functional and well rounded online system is something that everyone can appreciate. Not just learning-based but all-inclusive with recordkeeping and tracking. To help with OSHA compliance and with the rise of COVID-19, we have added Illness tracking to our recordkeeping features.
How does illness record keeping help you? As of January 1, 2017, OSHA’s rule for improving the tracking of workplace injuries and illnesses went into effect. The new rule requires establishments with 250 or more employees to submit their injury and illness records electronically. Our illness tracking feature will help you easily and effectively stay compliant, as well as keep your illness records in one place. Create records in your portal, upload and store any documents involved in each incident, and add essential notes. Access these records as you need them right from your dashboard.
In practice, this is a huge time saver and provides peace of mind when it comes to your employees’ safety. For example, if Joe has a fever when being screened to enter the workplace, then the information can be entered as an illness incident. You would also be able to attach notes of who in the building Joe has been in contact with so that those employees can be closely monitored.
These new features are live and can be added to your company portal upon request.
SafetySoft™’s Easy-to-Use, All-in-One Features include:
✔ Safety Management Software (SMS)– A branded portal complete with recordkeeping, reporting, incident management, training, e-learning, certificates, testing, policy management, and much more.
✔Policy and Procedure Management - condenses cabinets full of paper into a single, searchable online source that disseminates, collects signatures, and tracks your organization’s important policies and procedures.
✔ Course Builder– Create or upload internally-created courses.
✔SCORM-Compliance– Upload your SCORM course right into the portal with ease.
✔Personal Dashboard– An easy-to-navigate dashboard with everything stored in one place.
✔Free Access to Tons of Extras– Get free toolbox talks, group training content for instructor-led training, and 100s of off-the-shelf HR and general compliance topics.
We created a learning and EHS system that will put an end to sourcing safety and HR training material while keeping you compliant.
SafetySoft™ also ensures that you also get:
2020 has been an upheaval for many businesses across the country. As they begin to reopen or simply reassess their safety plans, businesses are left to put better working systems in place. Employees are equally as frazzled by the unfolding events of COVID-19 and doubt that their employers can and will create a safe working environment. The most vital roles to ensure that safety is held by Human Resources and upper management. In order to serve teams well, there needs to be updated OSHA-regulated training and smart, efficient ways to manage workplace incident reporting.
Atlantic Training doesn’t just offer training and certifications, but we offer a smarter way to navigate reporting altogether with SafetySoft™. With illness reporting taking a new format with COVID-19 tracking, now is the time to update your workplace incident reporting.
If you’re ready to see how our software will change the course of safety for your business, then start your free 14-day trial today!