What Is Safety Management Software?

Safety software is a simple term used to describe a native software program or web application for managing a business's safety and health responsibilities. There are many different ideas about what safety software should consist of, which is why safety software products vary significantly. Some tend to focus only on the occupational safety and health compliance and management procedures; while others include environmental and even quality assurance features. Other terms used to describe the same thing include safety management software, EHS software, safety and health software, and a few others. They usually all mean the same thing.

Simpler safety software products with one to 3 features or tools tend to be favored by small construction or blue collar contractors and companies; while more complex safety software programs and systems are favored by larger - enterprise size businesses. So safety software to one company, might not be safety software to another.

Do I Need Safety Management Software?

If your business resides in the United States and you have at least one employee, you have safety and health compliance responsibilities under Federal or State Employee Safety and Health law. These responsibilities vary from industry to industry and knowing what safety and health laws your business is subject to is really a matter of knowing if you fall under Federal OSHA's jurisdiction or if the state's you operate in have their own state plan with standards that deviate from Federal OSHA standards. Once you know that, you can find the standards you are subject to at Federal OSHA or your state's labor/safety website.

If you've ever tried to visit the OSHA website or your state's equivalent and determine what you need to do as an employer, you know how complicated things really are. The best way to think about safety software's value proposition is to consider the amount of time it could save you in determining what actual safety procedures you should be doing as the employer and the amount of time it would take you to build all of the forms and tools necessary to "do safety". This reality almost leaves no choice but to seek out a safety software product or at least a document resource that contains the forms, tools, and guidance you need.

Where Can I Get Safety Management Software?

There's somewhere around 25 safety software products on the market which are actually designed specifically for safety compliance and management and which are comparable to OSHIFY. Each one has a different philosophy and approach to doing safety. Some try to be "all things" to "all people" by having features to accommodate everything from quality assurance to environmental (which really doesn't demand software in the U.S.). This dilutes the quality of the actual safety and health aspect of their software. Other safety management software vendors focus purely on one aspect of safety such as safety meetings or safety training alone. This type of software is useful, but often leads employers to believe they are doing everything required; which is simply not true in most cases and opens the business up to operational and financial risk. There are a few safety management software vendors who do have a well rounded, more complete safety software product though. We believe OSHIFY is one of these software products. You can sign up for free by registering here.

What Should Safety Management Software Cover?

If you ask 10 people this question, you'll get 10 different answers. Here at OSHIFY, we believe the answer lies in the OSHA standards. That is if you're a U.S. company. Our safety management software was specifically designed to cover the procedures OSHA thinks are important because it is their standards we are trying to meet, and it is their enforcement officers we are subject to. We encourage you to look at other safety software vendors and ask yourself; "are these features really needed?" and "Does OSHA require me to conduct these procedures?". What you will find is, people waste a lot of time doing things that are not required or that simply don't contribute to a safer workplace. The safety management software products that don't do enough are pretty easy to spot.

Here at OSHIFY, we thought long and hard about what procedures employers absolutely should be doing in order to achieve compliance and reduce the likelihood, frequency, and severity of injuries and illnesses. To our surprise, what we came up with was significantly different from other safety software vendors! That's right... The first thing we did was look at ourselves and ask "what did we miss?". But after many conversations and research, we realized that other safety software products in the industry simply didn't agree or did not do their homework. So after the smoke cleared and our research was complete, we decided that safety management software should include; safety orientations, safety meetings, safety inspections, safety training and injury/illness record keeping - at a minimum. All the other safety procedures are really advanced procedures that are not commonly used by all small businesses, so we intend to add those later as advanced features and in a way that doesn't get in the way of doing the most important procedures. When you look at all the things an employer could be doing to achieve compliance and keep workers safe; these are without a doubt the most powerful procedures an employer can do - for most industries. So, each of these procedures has a tool inside OSHIFY. In addition to these critical tools, we also included a safety library and some other features which employers can take or leave. In our opinion, this makes OSHIFY the most complete, yet bloat free safety management software on the market - no frills. If you agree or would like to learn more, register today for free and achieve compliance while protecting your people and business.

OSHIFY Safety Management Software Breakdown.

So you want to know specifically what OSHIFY safety software does? Well, it does the procedures that we believe OSHA wants you to be doing. We've been careful NOT to include tools and features that don't directly impact safety and health. Let's look at each OSHIFY element by user popularity:

OSHIFY Safety Meeting Software

Safety meetings are essential and are also required in some states in the U.S. The OSHIFY safety meeting tool allows any user to conduct a safety meeting directly from their smart phone. Not only are there pre-written safety topics, but we've also included "audio" safety topics which users can play to an audience, before saving the meeting with one click. OSHIFY is the only safety meeting software that allows you to "play" the safety meeting to employees.

Here's what it looks like on a mobile phone using the "audio / mp3 safety topics" from the in-app safety library:

OSHIFY Safety Orientation Software

Safety orientations are common in high hazard industries. Not so much for everyone else. That didn't stop us from realizing the extreme value of new hire safety orientations. OSHIFY's safety orientation software can be used from a desktop computer or any mobile device. You'll orientate new hires or safety violators with just a few clicks of a button.

OSHIFY Safety Inspection Software

Safety inspection software is very common in the industry. However, what we noticed was that most of these products have little standardization or structure.. Most are simply fillable forms that were scraped from the web, leaving you to try and figure out which form to use. This creates work for you. OSHIFY safety inspection software is a simple, standardized form that we built from scores of aggregated form data we had in-house. This leaves no doubt that you're asking the right questions and checking the right boxes.

OSHIFY Safety Incident Recording

When it comes to recording and tracking injuries and illnesses, many safety incident tracking software products fall short by only providing a few fields. OSHIFY incident recording software allows you to manage the work comp claim status, work status, medical status and more. Your workers' compensation insurance carrier will love you for this because it helps everyone keep track of open claims and close them quickly. This tool also allows you to identify hazard trends that are affecting your people and business.

OSHIFY Safety Training Software

Training is an important aspect of employee safety. Because training is often completed by outside vendors, we let you control the "trainer" and our safety training software tracks the events so you can know who needs to train, when. Simply upload your training data from an excel spreadsheet or manually one by one.

That's It!

Next Steps: What Now?

What do you think about safety software? What has been your experience? Schedule a Free Demo today to learn more about automating safety.

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