Safety first: the benefits of EHS software 

The perils of business not adhering to safety protocols comes with not just the harm from accidents to the bottom-line and its employees, but legal penalties as well. 

The benefits of implementing an integrated Environmental, Health and Safety software system are innumerable. 

Risk assessment and reporting 

Tracking near-misses, unsafe conditions or incidents are vital in ensuring that a workplace is a safe environment for its employees. Using an EHS system, ensures that all of these are logged and where required investigated. 

This data can be analyzed and root causes can be identified. Using these insights, potential risks can be identified and averted. 

EHS software also assists businesses with maintaining regulatory compliance with local, state or federal agencies. 

Employee safety and training 

Ensuring that employees have the correct training and certification is essential, but in large organizations, especially those that work across different geographies, tracking and maintaining these schedules are a cumbersome and ineffectual task. EHS software is able to complete a training schedule as well alert management when certifications are about to expire, ensuring continuous compliance.

The scheduling function also ensures safety audits and inspections, including templates and checklists, so that all inspections are completed as well as that the data is accurate. 

The proof is in the execution 

South Jersey Industries (SJI) delivers safe, reliable and affordable energy to over 700,00 customers in New Jersey. The company’s wide range of activities is supported by the Safety team which develops, plans and implements extensive industrial safety programs across SJI.

This includes conducting safety audits of buildings, facilities, tools and equipment; analyzing loss control and accident reports; and maintaining all required safety manuals.

In 2019, SJI’s strong commitment to safety led to the American Gas Association recognizing the business as an Industry Leader in Accident Prevention, citing their low DART rate within the utilities industry. To achieve this award, the business embarked on replacing its existing software with an EHS system that better suited its needs. 

The EHS system that SJI implemented allowed them to be more proactive. Instead of wasting time on manually entering safety data, the team is freed up to work on proactive tasks such as developing job safety analyses and new safety training.SJI now also has greater visibility across the organization. 

Drill-down visuals have been added to corporate SharePoint dashboards, so there is now greater access to safety metrics and performance across the company. 

They have also implemented the rollout of a formal “Near Miss” program. Using Pro-Sapien as the key tool, SJI is seeing a positive impact from capturing near misses, investigating the causes, and sharing lessons learned. 

The benefits of an effective EHS system are immeasurable. EHS software doesn’t just prevent losses from safety incidents that could have been avoided, but also allow for the organization to operate more profitably.