How to reduce your workload with EHS software

As an EHS professional, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Not only are you trying to keep everybody safe, but there’s also a ton of pressure from upper management to cut costs. Investing in EHS software is one of the easiest ways to manage and reduce your overall workload because it replaces many manual administrative tasks.

Set up automatic reminders

One of the hardest parts about compliance is keeping track of due dates. For example, employees require training refreshers at different times, depending on when they initially receive the training.

Instead of managing a calendar or spreadsheet of all these due dates, use your EHS software to schedule important tasks. If you schedule everything in the system, then you can set up automatic reminders for all sorts of things:

• Training requirements
• Inspections and audits
• Action items
• Project deadlines
• Progress reports

Upload your training content

Another benefit of EHS software, specifically learning management systems, is that you can upload all your training content to them. But not everyone takes advantage of this opportunity.

The reason I’d recommend uploading everything to your software platform is because it ensures that trainers all use the same information to conduct classes. One of the problems with safety training is that it’s not always consistent. But using the same content materials, regardless of who’s conducting the training, eliminates some of this inconsistency.

Another advantage of hosting training materials on an LMS is that you can easily update and organize them. If you want to update a PowerPoint presentation, you just need to replace the one in the system with the new one. That way, you don’t have to email it to all your trainers and hope everyone uses it.

Manage EHS documents

One of the most time-consuming parts of EHS compliance is documenting everything. This includes things like training, incident reports, inspections, audits, and continuous improvement projects. If you haven’t moved these documents to your software tool, then you’re missing out.

Here are all the things you can do with your data in a software platform like Frontline ACT:

• Update EHS event details (even once they’re completed).
• Add attachments like diagrams, photos, and videos to action items.
• Keep a record of who completed action items, incident reports, and more.
• Upload and manage contractor agreements.
• Manage employee training records, employment documents, and more.

With software, you can easily organize and sort these documents to find what you’re looking for. This eliminates the headache of physical document storage and file management.

You also don’t have to ask coworkers for the latest version of a file. Instead, just go into the system and find the most recent version of that incident report or safety plan you need.

Track your workload digitally

Most EHS software providers offer an action tracking tool. The best way to take advantage of this is to make it part of your standard work. In other words, get in the habit of tracking everything digitally and you’ll find new ways to reduce your workload.

Here are just some of the questions you might be able to answer if you use software for all your tasks:

• How many days does it take, on average, to complete an incident investigation?
• Which processes or work areas account for the most incidents or near misses?
• How many incidents do you respond to each week and month?
• Which members of your team are falling behind on their tasks?

With this information, you can address those areas of EHS management that take up the most time. For example, if you notice that a specific process accounts for 72% of your site’s injuries, then you can put more effort into improving that process. By lowering injuries in this one area, you can greatly reduce the amount of time you spend each month on incident reporting.

In EHS, efficiency comes down to this: “Are you spending your resources on incident response or incident prevention?”

The fastest way to free up your resources is to not spend time doing things like filling out incident reports or managing injury cases. And you can only do that if you remove safety hazards and implement effective control measures.

EHS software not only takes over much of the administrative processes you do behind the scenes, but it also gives you performance insights that a manual approach can’t. Utilizing all the tools and features in your software system will help you make progress faster, reducing stress and anxiety and making your workload much more sustainable.

To learn more about the Frontline EHS software suite, schedule a demo with our sales team.