Both general and trade contractors face unique risks that call for custom safety measures. But just about all construction companies with traditional safety programs face a handful of similar challenges—time-consuming paperwork, scattered documentation, as well as a lack of deep insights and visibility into safety performance.
A new report from Foresight Commercial Insurance, “The State of Safety in High Hazard Work Environments,” offers insights into companies’ safety struggles and points to possible solutions. Based on a survey of workers from high-risk industries like construction, the report outlines challenges that are painfully familiar. For example, four out of 10 respondents reported that they have felt pressured to work unsafely in order to complete tasks more quickly or to meet upcoming deadlines.
While leadership deploys safety managers to mitigate risk and improve compliance, the traditional approach faces bottlenecks. It often involves extensive travel, relies on clunky binders and can be hamstrung by missing clipboards and forms. Reporting is time consuming, and performing analytics is never timely—if it’s even possible.
These limiting factors would seem to call for digitizing the program. But do workers agree? Seventy-two percent of Foresight respondents using a paper-based system said that digitization would improve safety performance.
This finding suggests that at least one hurdle toward safety-tech adoption may have already been overcome. Workers generally acknowledge that a digital workflow to facilitate and document safety actions would improve compliance levels.
Now that’s the expectation—but could it be only hopeful thinking? Among those whose companies went digital, an overwhelming majority reported that they indeed had fewer safety-related incidents as a result.
Let’s be clear—going digital alone is not enough. It certainly won’t end all incidents. Even with an innovative solution, companies still need a safety culture with behavior shifts, top-down incentive structures and the regular promotion of safety engagement.
But the data, both internally and in a third-party survey, illustrate that using a digital solution can significantly reduce safety incidents. Not only are companies ensuring that more people get home safely on a daily basis, they also save money by eliminating inefficiencies, becoming more competitive and paying less on their workers’ compensation premiums.
