Achieving HSE compliance is essential for any industry, especially those with workers that drive as part of their job.
There are around 1.35 million fatalities every year from road accidents.
This means HSE compliance is vital for industries like oil and gas, transport, mining, renewables, transport and any others that involve driving long distances through rural and remote areas.
The safest journey is the one not taken.
But the essential journeys for work need to have tight HSE compliance and safety support like the Journey Management System (JMS) app which provides management with the compliance tool they need to monitor a mobile workforce.
How to ensure your business meets HSE compliance standards
Every business has different HSE, HSSE and OHS standards that they need to adhere to.
This is important not only to keep employees safe in the line of work but also to ensure businesses are compliant to avoid heavy penalties and sanctions.
To ensure your company is fully compliant, it is vital to research and understand the legal obligations for your specific industry.
There is also a range of other ways you can achieve compliance, including:
- Consultation: Involving workers in HSE, HSSE and OHS policy-making should always be encouraged as they are the ones on the coalface and can help identify hazards that management may otherwise overlook.
- Communication: All HSE compliance documents should be circulated regularly, easily accessible and specific rules for different jobs and stations should be clearly visible where the hazard is most likely to occur.
- Training: It is vital that staff, new and existing, have regular safety and compliance training for all of their duties to ensure they understand their responsibilities.
- Maintenance: All machinery and vehicles should be serviced and maintained on a regular basis. There are sensor technologies available today that can also help alert you when a failure is about to occur before it actually happens.
- Review: HSE compliance should not be a set and forget process. Monitor how these policies and procedures are working, assess how they can be improved and make changes to maximise safety.
- Risk assessment: Every task a worker carries out should be assessed for any safety issues or hazards. This is especially crucial when it comes to workers who travel as part of their job because this is the most dangerous activity they will be asked to carry out.
Automated risk assessment to ensure HSE compliance on the road
Driving and operating machinery is already a dangerous task for workers across all industries. This is amplified for those in the resources and transport industries (as well as many others) when they have to cover large distances through rural and remote parts of the country.
While risk assessment at static job sites makes identifying and analysing potential hazards a relatively straightforward process. On the road, however, there is less predictability.
Drivers can be instructed on the dangers of fatigue and spending too long on the road, but who is there to enforce these policies when they are a lone worker travelling to a job site?
Hazards on the road can be identified and outlined, with measures put in place to try and avoid them. But despite your training efforts and stringent maintenance of vehicles, accidents, malfunctions and break downs will still occur.
It is vital to factor this into your risk assessment with automation to help protect workers on the road.
JMS ensures HSE compliance for all company travel
Knowing where your workers are and providing rapid support and emergency response is vital when they are driving.
JMS automates this process with preset checkpoints that drivers must reach along the journey.
If they do not reach these checkpoints in a designated period of time – or adhere to fatigue management stops – then alerts are sent to management via SMS, push notification and email.
This entire process is completely hands-free so the driver does not need to manually operate their device while driving which is dangerous and can lead to fines, loss of licence or worse.
And JMS automatically disengages when the journey is complete to ensure complete privacy for all employees outside of the journey time.
