The benefits of investing in EHS software

Environmental, health and safety (EHS) software is a purpose-built solution that allows companies to manage all of the data they generate that’s related to compliance with applicable regulations, sustainability efforts, and enterprise risk. 

Using EHS software allows for every employee that needs it to easily access vital information, along with adding any important data they may generate. 

Deciding to invest in EHS software solution will radically transform how your business handles health and safety information. However, the cost of EHS software solution is often a deterrent for businesses that would benefit from it. Truthfully, the price tag of EHS software solution should be seen as a direct investment into the safety of your employees and ensuring ongoing compliance with relevant regulations, ultimately leading to a safer and healthier workforce.

OSHA estimates that every $1 invested into improving worker safety returns $4 to $6 to the business. There are several factors that go into this incredible ROI, one of which being that workplaces with fewer accidents have happier and more productive employees.

It’s time to explore how EHS software can help your business, along with a deeper examination of the vital question: what is EHS software?

What is the purpose of EHS management software?

An EHS management system is designed with the ultimate purpose of creating a central location for all of the vital documents that relate to health, safety, and compliance for the entirety of your company. 

During setup, the software will gather every piece of relevant data, documents, and permits and store it in a centralized database. It’s possible that some of this information may need to be manually uploaded depending on your previous data storage policies. Data may also be pulled from other systems, such as CEMs and financial systems, although this functionality may not be available in every EHS solution.

The EHS solution proceeds to organize this vital data in a dashboard that creates a complete and thorough picture of your company’s safety metrics and compliance information. The dashboard and drill-down reports and analytics can be made available to any employee or needs access. 

Quality EHS solutions go beyond being a centralized location for documents with a potent dashboard. Several administrative tasks can be entirely automated, such as generating reports, triggering preventative actions, and notifying safety managers of areas of improvement. All of these features save a significant amount of time for employees, freeing them up for more important tasks. Additionally, EHS management software allows for the efficient assignment and tracking of corrective actions, helping to eliminate workplace hazards and reduce risk in the workplace, including workplace incidents, audit management, and quality management.

Much of the information fed into an EHS solution has traditionally been stored in a spreadsheet. There’s plenty of reasons why this is problematic, one of which is that 88% of spreadsheets contain errors. Considering this data is related to regulatory compliance and the safety of your employees, errors can translate to significant problems for your business.

What are the business benefits of investing in EHS software?

Now that we’ve explored the purpose and function of EHS software, what’s the reason behind investing and embracing it? 

It’s time to explore the important business benefits that your company may receive after investing in EHS software. Take note that the significance of these benefits will vary based on your company and how thoroughly EHS software is integrated into company policies and workflows.

Enhanced digital organization of important audit data

One of the most notable benefits of EHS management software is the ability to have thorough digital organization of all the important data related to health, safety, and compliance in one place. This includes incident management, risk assessment and management, audit and inspection management, corrective action tracking, regulatory compliance tracking and reporting, and EHS training management. This enhanced digital organization of important data, including identifying and managing workplace hazards, and safety management processes, is crucial for the success of any EHS program. It enables teams and employees to effortlessly share data across the organization, along with base their decisions on the same data. Additionally, EHS software simplifies the management of safety regulations, making it easier for companies to comply and prove their adherence through reporting, inspections, and audits. This is crucial for companies looking to improve their Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) strategy and create a strong safety culture, ultimately enhancing their environmental health and safety program and training management.

EHS software also creates a standardized location for employees to collect and add new information. Having a formalized process for these tasks can save a significant amount of time, since they will already know exactly where to go and how to complete the task.

One of the biggest reasons why EHS software is worth the investment is that it makes complying with relevant regulations exceedingly simple. Having all of your important data in a central location allows compliance officers to produce any documents required to prove that they are complying with any legal requirements.

Significantly reduce time spent on administrative tasks

Employees with responsibilities related to the health, safety, and compliance of the organization are usually drowning in data management and countless menial tasks when there isn’t a proper solution in place. 

After an EHS solution is put into place, finding a specific document will take a matter of seconds instead of a journey into dusty filing cabinets or confusing file storage hierarchies. Additionally, generating meaningful reports will also take seconds, rather than struggling for hours with a spreadsheet. These reports generated by an EHS solution will be a real-time snapshot of the company, rather than creating a report that doesn’t take into account data generated since the last time the spreadsheet was updated. This significantly reduces the time spent on administrative tasks for all stakeholders involved, allowing them to focus on more important aspects of their job.

Additionally, many tasks that would otherwise be accomplished manually can be entirely automated with the right EHS solution. For example, instead of having an employee generate a report and email it to a safety manager everyday, it can be done entirely automatically. 

Of course, time is money, so saving employees time on these tasks directly translates to cost savings. The hours that would’ve been spent trying to make sense of a spreadsheet can instead be put into more meaningful safety projects.

Reduce the business cost of workplace injuries

Having an EHS solution in place will directly impact the safety of every employee. The availability of real-time safety data will allow C-level executives and safety managers to make data-driven decisions that will have a significant impact in the lives of their employees. 

Fewer accidents means fewer disruptions in production, fewer days missed by injured employees, and fewer worker’s compensation claims paid out. Ultimately, that means increased productivity and profit for your company. 

Considering that the cost of injuries due to working conditions in the U.K. was £15 billion annually, reducing the occurrence of accidents will certainly have a meaningful impact on revenue. 

Easier access to essential health and safety information

Employees throughout your organization will need access to the company’s health and safety data. It can be difficult for employees to locate the information they need without a centralized location. Even if there is a network drive with the information they need, it can still be difficult to access, let alone ensure that the data is accurate.

EHS compliance software creates a way for employees to easily find and access the data they need. As long as they have the right user permissions to view the data they need, it will take a matter of seconds to find what’s needed.

In a similar way, C-level executives and safety managers will always have access to an accurate dashboard that allows them to always know where they stand. This can be helpful for many tasks, ranging from making company-wide policy decisions or being made aware of an uptick in near-miss incidents in the production line in real time so that it can be addressed through effective risk management.

Identify and resolve safety risks with increased speed 

It doesn’t matter how advanced the algorithms are in your spreadsheet, it’s never going to notify you of an unusual increase in injuries on the factory floor, especially when it just happened. EHS software, conversely, can be configured to directly alert the right people when any predefined conditions are met.

Quickly responding to concerning safety trends has plenty of obvious benefits, such as preventing further accidents. However, a less obvious benefit of using an EHS system to alert safety managers about problems is that the software will also have the relevant data needed to conduct a root cause analysis. 

Safety managers won’t simply be made aware that accidents are happening more often, they’ll have quick access to related data to enable an investigation into why the uptick happened at all. Being able to look deeper into accidents further increases employee safety by continually eliminating risky procedures.

Increase worker safety and company compliance with an AI-powered EHS solution

Simply put, the time has come to stop managing important safety and compliance data and documents in spreadsheets and network drives. While those solutions helped in the past, EHS solutions create a vastly superior alternative. 

Embracing an EHS solution will empower decision makers with accurate safety data, make audits painless with easily accessible compliance documents, and save a substantial amount of time for employees. It’s clear that investing in an EHS solution is a sound business decision.

Are you ready to see how monitorQA, an award-winning EHS software, can help your company increase safety, save money, and streamline compliance tasks? Contact us today to speak with a workplace safety expert and discover how our solutions can help you achieve operational excellence.