The Challenge: 14 Systems, One Nagging Problem

The Universal Group has between 200 and 400 active sites on a daily basis across British Columbia alone. Their crews are often in high-speed areas or working at night, so safety management is especially crucial. But Universal’s safety program used to be unmanageable. 

They were tracking safety data in Excel, SharePoint, Google Forms, eCompliance, SiteDocs, Power BI, and a few other systems — 14 in total. Most of their workers were using paper safety forms, and since those workers are remote, 50% of forms weren’t getting sent in on time, if at all. Meanwhile, changing safety regulations were putting pressure on the business and on their Director of Health and Safety, Robert Clark.

The Solution: Game-Changing Safety Workflows

But they didn’t stop there. Robert and Chris Esau, OHS Specialist at Universal, worked with SALUS to modernize and centralize their safety, and realized some impressive accomplishments, including:

• Smart resource creation including a digitized traffic management manual to help workers pull up relevant figure numbers and understand how to set up jobs safely.

• Swift field adoption from ‘Gen Zs’ to ‘Baby Boomers,’ with two ways to submit forms for flexible ease of use: through the app or by uploading a photo of a paper form.

• Data-driven risk mitigation and accident prevention through the analysis of motor vehicle incident stats on custom SALUS dashboards.

Safety culture enhancement and diligent incident reporting among the field workers, many of whom are proud and eager champions of the new program.

The Result: Compliance and Cost Reduction

Since making these changes, Robert, Chris and their team have gone through four audits to maintain their Certificate of Recognition (COR) status, all of which have gone smoothly. Documentation of every safety procedure is easily viewable by auditors within the platform, including tracked corrective actions. 

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Because of these successful audits, Universal has been awarded insurance premium rebates of close to $750,000 in a single year. They’ve also saved a significant sum in man power by eliminating the need for paper chasing and filing.

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“We had 37 inspections from WorkSafe BC last year. But once they started seeing what we’ve been doing, we haven’t heard anything. They know we’re being proactive and they love it. Everything they need to see is full-circle within SALUS.”

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