Safety Management
How to Convince Your Site Manager to Use Safety Management Software
Because construction is among the most dangerous industries for workers, it is imperative that construction companies invest in cost- and time-efficient ways to protect their employees and their business. Safety management software can significantly enhance risk analysis, compliance, and safety management responsibilities by streamlining planning, coordination, and safety training.
U.S. Department of Labor research for 2019-2020 revealed workers in transportation, material moving, construction, and extraction occupations accounted for 47.4 percent of all workplace deaths. High injury and fatality rates make managing site operations and employee welfare even more challenging.
If your company has not yet employed safety management software, you may fall behind in the industry as competitors enhance their safety and project management capabilities and start moving with more accuracy, at a faster pace. While you may recognize the need to start digitizing processes, your superiors may not. Here are some tips to convince your superiors to get on board with safety management software.
The most important factor when formulating your request to superiors is highlighting current pain points and challenges, backed by facts and statistics. To sell this as a beneficial solution, include pain points that affect them directly. Here are some scenarios you can use to strengthen your motivation:
Effective communication is one of the core components of operational and project success. Construction projects involve a host of variable factors that are constantly changing. Between organizing contractors, workers, equipment, schedules, and budgets, a single setback can throw off every element in the chain. This requires timely, clear, and accurate communication among everyone involved.
When all parties are not effectively kept in the loop, critical stakeholders may not be aware of changes, leading to unforeseen expenses and project delays. A tool offering real-time communication with all relevant parties, regardless of their location, can streamline operations, improve accuracy, and prevent miscommunication.
With construction companies having workers, contractors, and subcontractors in various locations, it can be challenging to coordinate schedules, progress, compliance certificates, sign-offs, incidence reports, and financial data amid other operational duties. This requires exceptional organization.
Using multiple apps and programs to collect and manage information, documents, and data can complicate the process and make it time-consuming, confusing, and error-prone. When data is not recorded, relayed correctly, or made available to various finance and project teams, it creates substantial gaps between actual costs and estimated budgets and can completely throw off scheduling and timelines.
The construction industry accounts for a large proportion of workplace fatalities and injuries leading to missed workdays. Hazard and compliance management cannot be underestimated as a significant role player in the success of any business. Not only do fewer safety incidences result in improved workplace morale, worker commitment, and schedule maintenance, but they also decrease costs and improve timely project fulfillment, which positively affects your bottom line.
To bring urgency to your proposal, include relevant statistics and, better yet, refer to incidences within your own company that can be avoided or improved by adopting safety management software. This increases credibility and validates your message.
Your boss is looking for one thing: a return on investment. Unless you can sell the software solution as a significant way to improve business operations and the bottom line, they’ll see you as asking to change the current way people work, which is inconvenient. Everyone on the team will need to adopt a new way of working to reap the benefits of the software.
Skip the technicalities and explain in simple terms what the software does, why it’s unique, and how it can solve company pain points and inefficiencies. Mention the price but, more importantly, mention the worthwhile return on investment.
For example, Salus has a digital form feature letting construction managers collect, access, manage, and share important documents in real-time. This simplifies and fast-tracks safety compliance, subcontractor management, and audits, and it allows you to respond to client requests instantly, whether you’re on-site, on the road, or in the office.
Salus also features automated preventable maintenance reminders and facilitates necessary inspections with asset logbooks. This allows for real-time reporting and instant repair notifications to the relevant parties to minimize delays and prevent more serious problems from developing.
Again, business owners are most concerned with the bottom line, return on investment, growth, and security. Reiterate that a big benefit of using safety management software is how it can help the business reduce expenses and increase completion time.
For example, real-time communication between employees on the job site and those working from the office facilitates data-driven decision making. When finance teams have access to real-time on-site spending, they can identify unnecessary spending, detect and prevent fraud risks, and ensure budget compliance across projects.
Construction management software stores historical data, which helps project managers and finance departments set realistic and accurate budgets. The software also decreases standard insurance policy costs — especially workers’ compensation premiums — by digitizing the process.
Building an internal network supporting your idea will make it more compelling. Chat informally with co-workers about the campaign and its benefits to them. Pitch the idea to meet their needs and pain points and show how it benefits the team as a whole. You can even use examples of past incidences that may necessitate such a change. Make sure you know the facts so you can confidently answer any questions they may have.
Be clear that you aren’t merely asking their opinion on the matter — you’re asking them to support your cause. Follow up with those who don’t want to support the implementation of new software and find out what obstacles they foresee that would possibly override the benefits it has to offer.
Business owners are primarily interested in opportunities that will make more money and reduce expenses. They want to avoid expensive lawsuits and find simple ways to fund business growth. Your pitch should target how the software can meet their needs and ensure the return they can expect will be worth their time and money.
With Salus, a single dashboard displays real-time progress and figures, letting business owners and managers see what’s going on at any time from anywhere. The safety management software streamlines tracking, improves accuracy, reduces costs, and improves productivity by providing real-time communication with all relevant stakeholders. It offers on-demand access to important documentation and facilitates instant problem-solving.
With streamlined communication, secure document accessibility and storage, improved safety, and reduced errors, Salus simplifies and transforms the way construction projects and safety are managed. Schedule a demo today to learn how digitizing safety management can transform every aspect of your construction business.