Risk and safety professionals at organizations across industries are united by a common goal: Ensuring workers return home safely at the end of their shifts. 

Doing so is no small feat. As many as three out of every 100 full-time workers will have an accident on the job, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Employer-Related Workplace Injuries and Illnesses, 2021-2022, based on the 2022 total recordable cases (TRC) incidence rate. 

While most workplace accidents are preventable, one of the biggest challenges to reducing TRC is a lack of resources for effectively monitoring job sites. What if there was a way for risk and safety professionals to pinpoint potential problem areas in real time and effectively intervene to create a safer, more productive working environment? 

One possible solution can be found in the palm of your hand. 

Mobile app technology can serve as an extension of risk and safety teams  across multiple facilities and jobs. Risk and safety professionals can track, view, and assess situations as they unfold, almost in real time. 

For one construction firm highlighted in the case study found at the conclusion of this blog the use of risk and safety mobile technology helped reduced TRC by more than half — from 3.8 TRC to 1.82 TRC — within two years of implementation. 

6 BENEFITS OF EHS MOBILE TECHNOLOGY 

Risk and safety mobile apps promote convenience, efficiency, and productivity in the workplace. Organizations that adopt mobile apps as essential tools for supporting safety programs can expect to reduce reporting lag, improve safety culture, and gain better insight into live hazards that jeopardize their workplaces. 

The following are six benefits of using risk and safety mobile technology: 

1. Real-time Data 
Risk and safety mobile technology enables employees to input data on site. Reducing reporting lag allows safety and risk professionals to obtain faster access to crucial details that inform better decisions, allowing preventative measures and corrective actions to be put into place sooner. 

2. Heightened Engagement 
Conducting inspections and reporting incidents is faster and easier using a mobile app. This encourages greater employee participation and promotes collaboration, which can help foster a safer workplace and culture. 

3. Increased Efficiency 
Using risk and safety mobile technology eliminates the need for pen and paper documentation, which reduces administrative workloads and redundancies.  

4. Greater Accuracy 
Employees utilizing risk and safety mobile technology don’t have to rely on their recollection of events; instead, they can input text or capture photos to illustrate details as they are unfolding. This provides more accurate data — information that helps to risk and safety professionals form a clearer picture of their organizations’ risk and safety profile. 

5. Standardized Data Entry 
Mobile apps have structured input fields. These allow data to be more easily entered and, once input, more organized. Organizations gain greater insight into hazards and risks without having to spend time and resources sifting through data — to uncover and correct inconsistencies — gathered using other collection methods and the inconsistencies between them. 

6. Proactive Risk and Safety Initiatives 
High-quality data collected using mobile apps can be used to drive innovative strategies that lead to an overall reduction in hazards, incidents, and injuries. 

MOBILE TECH PROMOTES SAFER OUTCOMES 

Organizations that increase reporting with the assistance of mobile technology recount having greater success with establishing preventative measures that reduce risk, promote safety, and have real financial impact. When companies utilize mobile technology in their risk and safety efforts, they can expect contributions to: 

• Improved workplace safety that boosts employee morale, attracts top talent, and improves retention. 
• A reduction in incidents, which leads to a decrease in claims, litigation, insurance premiums, and citations. 
• More focused employees, who, because of the ease of use of mobile technology, are freed up to devote more attention to tasks at hand. From improved production times for frontline workers to more proactive safety team initiatives, the added value is far-reaching.
• A decreased risk of reputational damage due to improved prevention and mitigation strategies.  

CASE IN POINT: CONSTRUCTION FIRM TRC REDUCED BY MORE THAN HALF

The Challenge: A global construction firm struggled with underreporting of near misses and a high TRC. Their manual tracking process for near misses recorded fewer than 100 incidents per month and TRC was above 3.8.

The Solution: The firm had users adopt a mobile app to track near misses and corrective actions. 

The Result: Near miss reporting increased to 1,200 incidents per month. TRC was reduced by more than half to 1.82 within the first two years of implementation. Employees avoided injury and the company saved an estimated $30 million in claims costs as a result. 

Data captured using mobile technology allowed the construction firm to determine the riskiest jobs and the scenarios with the highest likelihood of severe repercussions. This data equipped EHS safety supervisors with the knowledge needed to implement preventative structural and behavioral changes that stopped the occurrence of many potential incidents. 

These efforts didn’t go unnoticed by employees and were embraced by over 95% of their workforce. The positive changes attracted safer, more consistent new hires and their turnover rate dropped by 25%. Overtime hours decreased significantly as well, as there were fewer occurrences of employees needing to work additional hours to provide coverage for injured workers. 

To learn more about the adoption of risk and safety mobile technology in your organization, visit origamirisk.com/mobile or contact us to request a demo.