While regulation has reduced the rates of workplace injuries and deaths in recent years, you’re likely still seeing costs pile up for these incidents. The National Safety Council (NSC) reports that, on average, businesses spend $1,100 per injury, and the total cost spent on these injuries in 2020 was nearly $164 billion.
Staying in compliance with safety regulations saves you from fines and reduces your risk of paying high costs to injured workers. Advances in technology also improve visibility and allow you to anticipate risks before an injury occurs.
how can technology assist with construction safety compliance?
Commercial contractors have a variety of new tools that help improve safety compliance with basic features like checklists and complex features like detailed risk analysis. These three resources are especially helpful.
1. ProCore: A construction project management tool with safety management functionality
ProCore is a software platform with features for managing every aspect of your project from pre-construction to execution. With this tool, you can estimate and manage budgets, schedule your workforce, and even manage invoices.
It also offers quality and safety risk insights in a clean, easy-to-read dashboard. You can see incidents by hazard and location, identify areas where you may need to train your staff more thoroughly, and look for trends.
ProCore has an inspection checklist where you can add notes and assign tasks when an inspection item fails or requires follow-up. Your project managers can upload site photos and add notes to alert team members about potential site hazards. And your field team can create real-time incident reports for actual incidents or near misses.
Rogers-O’Brien, a premiere construction company with multiple large-scale projects, used ProCore to revamp its quality program. This allowed every project manager to use the same quality and safety checklist and process. Each project manager could capture and record metrics consistently, saving the company over 200 hours per project without compromising quality control and safety.
2. SafetyCulture (formerly iAuditor): An inspection, issue capture, and corrective action platform
SafetyCulture is a mobile-first app that digitizes your operational information. It lets you provide safety protocols and information directly on mobile devices so your field team can access them whenever necessary. You can create standardized procedures and use the software to train your team.
SafetyCulture allows you to automate job descriptions and create checklists so every project manager follows the same inspection protocols every time. You can also use multiple risk assessment templates to start a new assessment for anything from fire hazards to a generalized site assessment.
Trippas White Group, an Australian company, uses SafetyCulture to improve communication between management and staff at multiple venues. The company created a standard inspection checklist anyone could use to assess each site at the beginning of an event. With improved visibility into site activities and better communication, the company’s incident reporting increased by 17x in a month.
3. Safety Reports: A software that simplifies the reporting processes
Safety Reports is a software suite with multiple features that go above and beyond mere compliance. With it, you can perform inspections, offer consistent safety training, assess sites for safety concerns, and simplify reporting.
Safety professionals designed this mobile app to be easy to use on smartphones and tablets, even offline. Your field managers can create incident reports or site inspections with their phones. Its templates provide consistent information for running reports and analyzing safety trends on your job sites.
Accurate reporting is crucial for compliance with guidelines and regulations because it allows you to trace the source of safety incidents and show your process for fixing issues. This app gives your team the tools they need to create detailed reports as soon as an incident occurs rather than taking notes and having to make a full report later.
how safety consultants help with construction safety compliance
Safety consultants often have access to the latest technology. They can create detailed site assessments and prepare in-depth training resources to help reduce incidents in your business. These professionals also stay on top of regulations from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and other governing bodies, so you can be sure your training is current.
When you’re looking for the right safety consultant, find one with experience in commercial contracting so they know what to look for on each site. Check their references and ask about their methodology for evaluating hazards and creating mitigation plans.
is investing in tech tools worth it for general contractors?
You may be hesitant to implement new technology across your company, but investing in tech can actually be more cost-effective than working without it. Some tools charge a monthly fee per user for smaller companies and offer custom pricing for large companies. Full-service resources like ProCore customize pricing but can cost more than $6,500 a year, depending on how you use them.
On the other hand, you risk penalties if OSHA or another governing body finds that you are out of compliance. In 2024, the maximum penalty changed from $156,259 per violation to $161,323. Even if you’re not violating regulations, according to the NSC, you could still be paying $1,100 per incident to injured workers and much more if a worker is fatally injured.
By investing in tech, you reduce your risk of incidents and have accurate documentation to prove compliance.
investing in tech pays off
Current project management and safety technology can help you create a consistent safety program. You can easily create checklists and reporting templates your field team can access onsite. With mobile devices, team members can easily access training tools and notify one another of job hazards.
Although it may seem like a big investment, these tools help you improve safety and protect your workers.
