Compliance and Safety

Analytics and Data Collection | Compliance and Safety | Inspections

How to Ensure Site Safety Every Day

Posted on October 24, 2022November 26, 2024 by Danny Kanev

How to Ensure Site Safety Every Day

Construction site safety is no joke. According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), there are more than 200,000 construction site non-fatal accidents every year. That’s why it’s so important to have a site safety plan in place and follow it religiously.

Below are some general safety guidelines you can follow to ensure site safety every day.

1. Establish a site-specific safety plan.

This is the first and most important step in ensuring site safety. You need to have a plan that outlines the specific risks present at your site and how to mitigate them. Your safety plan should be created with input from all team members, including, but not limited to, management and construction workers.

2. Conduct daily site safety inspections.

You need to make sure your site safety plan is being followed, once it’s in place. That’s why it’s important to conduct regular site safety inspections and safety meetings. These inspections should be thorough and conducted by a designated site safety officer. Pay attention to obvious and potential hazards, and make sure all workers are following the site safety plan.

3. Keep a site safety log.

In addition to conducting site safety inspections, you should keep a site safety log. This log should be used to record any incidents that occur at the site, as well as any near-misses. Keeping a site safety log will help you identify patterns and trends so you can make changes to your site safety plan as needed.

4. Make site safety a priority.

Site safety should be a top priority for everyone on your team. That means taking the time to review the site safety plan regularly, conducting site safety training for all new employees, and being vigilant about safety hazards at all times. It is important to have a first aid kit on site in case of emergencies, as well as, other needed safety tools including hard hats, hearing protection, barricades, fire prevention, fire extinguishers, foot protection, and more.

Construction Safety Inspection Checklists

We’ve put together a few different checklists, to help you ensure site safety

General Construction Site Safety Checklist

Any type of construction site can use the general safety checklist:

Review the site safety plan with all workers before work begins
Inspect the site for hazards before work begins and throughout the day
Ensure that all workers are wearing the proper Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
Prohibit drugs and alcohol on site
Implement a site health and safety log to record any incidents that occur
Make site safety a priority for everyone on site

Residential Construction Site Safety Checklist

In addition to the items on the general construction site safety checklist, here are a few additional items to include on a residential construction site safety checklist:

Inspect the work area for trip hazards like uneven pavement and loose cables
Inspect scaffolding, ladders, and other fall protection equipment before use
Train every construction worker in power tool safety
Secure all site materials to prevent them from falling
Implement safety meetings

Industrial Construction Site Safety Checklist

Here are a few additional items to include on an industrial construction site safety checklist:

Inspect the site for hazards like loose debris and exposed electrical cords, wires, and power lines
Inspect site machinery and heavy equipment for hazards like blind spots and defective parts
Implement a site traffic control plan to prevent vehicle accidents
Make sure all construction workers are properly trained in the use of site machinery

Commercial Construction Site Safety Checklist

In addition to the items on the general construction site safety checklist, here are a few additional items to include on a commercial construction site safety checklist:

Inspect the site for hazards like trip hazards and loose debris
Post signs and barrels around the perimeter of the construction project

Ensure Construction Site Safety with GoCanvas

Following these simple checklists can help you avoid potential accidents and injuries, and keep your construction site safe for everyone involved. GoCanvas provides a mobile app for easy site safety checklist management. With GoCanvas, you can easily record and track site safety incidents, ensuring that your construction site is safe for everyone involved. Contact us today to learn more.

About GoCanvas

Since 2008, thousands of companies have chosen GoCanvas as their go-to partner for seamless field operations.

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Business Operations | Compliance and Safety

How HubSpot can Grow Your Construction Business – GoCanvas

Posted on October 20, 2022November 26, 2024 by Danny Kanev

How HubSpot can Grow Your Construction Business – GoCanvas

Growing Your Construction Business with Better Tech: A Look at HubSpot and Other CRMs

As a construction company, you are always looking for ways to grow your business. But with growth comes more paperwork, more compliance concerns, and more safety issues to worry about. A CRM (customer relationship management) system can help you automate some of the processes involved in running your business in real-time, allowing you to focus on other things.

How CRM Can be Beneficial for Small Construction Companies

CRM systems can be beneficial for small construction companies in several ways.

They can help you keep track of your customer data and prospects. This is important because it allows you to keep track of who your best customers are and what kinds of projects they are interested in.
A CRM system can help you manage your sales tools for your sales team. This is important because it allows you to see where your sales cycle is at and what kind of projects are in the pipeline.
A CRM system can help you track your team members and onboarding. This is important because it allows you to see who is doing what, how they are performing, and who is new to the team.
A CRM system can help you manage your compliance and safety concerns. This is important because it allows you to see where your company is in terms of compliance and safety.
A CRM system can help you manage your finances and invoicing. This is important because it allows you to see where your money is going and where your profits are coming from.

How Growing Your Construction Business Can Affect Compliance and Safety Concerns

The functionality of your business is very important. As your construction company grows, you will have more compliance and safety concerns to worry about. A HubSpot CRM project management system can help you manage these concerns by tracking your team members and keeping track of your compliance and safety records.

CRM and Hubspot Integration with GoCanvas

GoCanvas integrates with Hubspot and other CRMs, so you can manage your construction business forms in a more efficient and tech-driven manner. Our easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface makes it simple to add or remove fields, or even change the order in which they appear. By integrating with HubSpot CRM, you can automatically sync your data and keep everything up-to-date in real-time.

Plus, our templates are mobile responsive, so you can fill out forms on the go from your smartphone or tablet. And because our forms are stored in the cloud, you can access them from anywhere, at any time. This integration allows you to save time and automate your workflow, so you can focus on other aspects of your business.

Optimize Your Workflow with GoCanvas Templates

A CRM system can be a highly beneficial way for a small construction company to scale up in an efficient and tech-driven manner. Optimize your workflow with GoCanvas by integrating your templates with Hubspot. Contact us today to learn how to get started.

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Compliance and Safety | Job Safety Analysis

What You Should Know About Job Safety Analysis

Posted on October 10, 2022October 11, 2024 by Danny Kanev

What You Should Know About Job Safety Analysis

Safety is a vital part of the construction industry. Your construction company has to put measures in place to ensure the safety of workers at the construction site. This requires you to implement the Job Safety Analysis (JSA), which ensures all workers observe all the stipulated safety measures.

Here is everything you need to know about JSA, and why it’s important to the construction industry.

What is JSA?

JSA, or Job Safety Analysis, is a step-by-step procedure that splits each job into manageable training tasks, identifies the safety components in each task, and trains employees on how to avoid safety hazards.

Job safety analysis pinpoints specific areas that have potential safety risks and helps you keep your workers safe. It also helps your company become compliant with safety guidelines thus reducing your employee turnover and instilling trust in your customers. JSA is sometimes referred to as Job Hazard Analysis or JHA.

How job safety analysis works

Job safety analysis works by deconstructing jobs into simple tasks and analyzing the safety concerns in each task. It requires you to compile a JSA report using a series of steps. These steps make fulfilling JSA requirements quick and easy.

Once the report is complete, you can train your employees on laid down safety procedures and make sure they stay safe. This will greatly reduce the risk of injuries during construction.

What are the steps in a job safety analysis?

Since a job safety analysis is a step-wise procedure, there are five steps to get a successful JSA.

Choose a job to analyze

An effective job safety analysis starts by identifying a job and noting the hazards and injuries associated with it. It is important to point out the hazards before they occur. You will need to perform a job safety analysis on every task done on the construction site.

There may be several tasks to be accomplished and a limited time to analyze the safety hazards in each of them. It is important to prioritize the jobs to analyze first using the criteria below:

Accident frequency: You need to perform a job safety analysis on tasks that are prone to accidents or illnesses.
Accident severity: Jobs with fatal or near-fatal accidents need immediate safety attention. They include jobs with high risks of falling from great heights, handling hazardous materials, or risky machinery.
Jobs prone to human error: These are tasks that have complex written instructions, or where one simple human error can cause injury, permanent disability, or death.
New jobs: Jobs that are new to your operation or that have undergone changes in processes and procedures need to undergo a job safety analysis to determine their necessary safety procedures.

Identify job site needs and break down jobs into tasks

After you choose the job to analyze, you will need to break it down into a series of tasks that need to be accomplished for the job to be done. You need to list each task from the beginning of the job to the end.

An example of a job is hoisting construction materials to a high floor using a crane. This job can be broken down into several tasks as follows:

Preparing for the job by collecting the equipment you need.
Turning on the crane.
Loading the building materials to be carried by the crane.
Turning off the machine.
Cleaning up.

This may seem like a laborious process to complete for every job on the site but it is crucial for analyzing the risks associated with using a crane. It will let you compile the safety measures needed and PPEs associated with the job. It is vital to analyze each of the steps that make up a job and get a full picture of any hazards that could occur before they do.

Identify the hazards and risks

This is the main aim of a job safety analysis. Once you’ve determined the steps required to complete a task, you can see the risks in each step. It is important to examine the entire environment to determine the existence of any possible hazard. This means that dangers exist in the task being performed and in the environment in which they are performed.

When assessing hazards, you need to determine the risk and degree of injury associated with each safety hazard. You can do this by addressing the following questions:

What type of hazard is present?
What is the level of risk in this safety hazard?
What is the probability of this hazard occurring?
Can this hazard cause injury?
If yes, how severe can the injuries get?

To get answers to these questions, you can consult employees with extensive field experience. Some professionals use software for risk assessment to determine the levels of risk with each task.

Develop preventive measures and residual risk.

This step involves you coming up with ways to prevent the hazards that you previously outlined. This involved documenting any personal protective equipment needed and measures to mitigate the risks involved with a job.

Once these are taken into account, you need to conduct another risk assessment of each task to find any residual risk or amount of risk remaining. This can be achieved by using the methods you used before to determine the initial risks.

If you see that you cannot eliminate risks, you can try to change the job procedure to limit the risks as much as possible. This includes providing Safety Data Sheets or SDSs that give information on safety protocols and give details on a possible hazard.

Once all risks and residual risks have been compiled, you will be able to determine the overall risk associated with a job. This information will help you identify the jobs that pose the biggest risks to your workers even with preventive measures.

The data collected on this exercise will help you see if additional preventive measures are necessary to further reduce the risk of injury.

Compile a job safety analysis report

Once you complete a job safety analysis, it is important to compile, document, and share your findings with your employees in a report. Every worker associated with the job must be made aware of the risks associated with it and the measures they should take to ensure their safety.

The report should be accessible to every worker and easy to understand. When an employee is training for a specific job, the JSA report associated with the task should be given to them.

The company should confirm that the worker has read and understood the report. This will ensure that the employee knows what to do to avoid injury and provide accountability in case of any incident.

Why is Job Safety Analysis important?

A successful JSA ensures consistent and safe work methods. The safety measures stipulated by a job safety analysis make the job site safe for workers and site visitors. It also makes employees feel confident while working because they know all the risks associated with their jobs.

It reduces the risk of injuries to construction workers by helping them know how to best perform a task without the risk of injury. A JSA form provides official documentation that regarding an employee’s knowledge of the safety protocol associated with a job.

Why do construction companies need JSA?

Construction companies need job safety analysis more than any other industry because of the many safety and health hazards at construction sites. Here are reasons construction companies need JSA:

Meet safety standards and avoid lawsuits

A job safety analysis lets companies meet safety standards stipulated by the Occupational Health and Safety Industry. In addition to keeping your workers safe, a JSA makes your company compliant with national safety standards and helps you avoid negative legal and financial repercussions.

Clear communication

A JSA helps construction companies improve communication through multiple levels of leadership. This is because it needs input from representatives in multiple levels of your employee team.

The review and comment process allows the company to have open communication and get feedback from all its employees. It also lets the company see any safety issues they may have overlooked.

Helps train new employees

Job safety analysis helps train new employees. When you hire a new worker, you need to orient them to the job as soon as possible. A JSA is a quick way to get a new employee accustomed to all your safety procedures. This will greatly reduce human error due to inexperience because of the teaching aids created by the JSA process.

The company can avoid hazardous conditions

A job safety analysis lets a construction company avoid dangerous work conditions as much as possible. It prevents accidents on a construction site. While OSHA standards help avoid many dangerous incidents, they are not enough to avoid every potential hazard on the work location.

Using mobile forms for JSA

The job safety analysis mobile form is designed for construction companies. It covers wide aspects of safety procedures on construction sites, including personal protective equipment, safety training, and machinery safety. The construction safety analysis can be customized to suit your unique company needs.

If you are looking to streamline your processes and push your business to greater levels of growth, you may consider partnering with us at GoCanvas for innovative technology solutions. We will help you to work safer and smarter while saving more through our automated data collection tools that integrate seamlessly with your existing systems.

No fees, no obligations!

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Since 2008, thousands of companies have chosen GoCanvas as their go-to partner for seamless field operations.

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Compliance and Safety | Reporting

7 Immediate Steps to Take After an Injury

Posted on October 8, 2022October 11, 2024 by Danny Kanev

7 Immediate Steps to Take After an Injury

Employee safety matters a great deal and the last thing anyone wants is to see a coworker hurt. However, the reality is an injury can happen to anyone at any time and without notice. The most important thing is to have a plan in place before an incident occurs. It should be easy for your team to follow your safety process. This way your organization can spring into action and help those who are hurt. It’s also important to ensure your organization is in compliance with federal safety regulations. We compiled a seven-step action plan to help get you started:

1. Care for the injured employee

The first step when an injury happens in the workplace is to assist the injured employee and prioritize their immediate needs. You will want to ensure the employee receives the proper medical attention and you will need to determine what type of care is appropriate given the severity of the incident.

Minor injuries like a cut or a sprain may not require medical assistance, whereas more severe injuries may require you to call for an ambulance or provide transportation to a licensed medical professional. You can either consult the medical provider designated by your workers’ compensation carrier, or you can bring the employee to an urgent care facility nearby.

2. Notify management and other team members

Once you have attended to the immediate needs of your employee, the next step will be to contact your management team to communicate that the incident has happened and communicate the pertinent details.

You will want to make note of the location, the people that were involved, the injuries sustained, and the medical treatment that has been administered. Communicating this information to your management team allows them to then notify other team members that need to know, and it allows them to take the proper steps for ensuring team safety going forward.

3. Secure the scene

Once an employee is on their way to receive medical treatment for injuries, you should secure the scene of the incident as quickly as possible. Blocking access to the location of the event ensures the safety of your other employees and prevents a repeat incident from occurring.

Securing the scene of an accident is crucial for both safety and reporting purposes. By limiting access to the area of the incident, you will preserve the scene and this will allow you to have more accurate and thorough incident reporting. With less people on location, you have a greater chance that the scene is left untouched, and this can give you a more accurate picture of the events that contributed to the incident.

4. Complete the incident report

Beyond ensuring individual employee and total team safety, completing an incident report is one of the most critical steps to take after someone has sustained an injury at work.

OSHA requires employers to keep records of work-related injuries and illnesses using their formal documentation. You should complete and file the incident report within 24 hours of the accident. Gathering witness testimony within a day of the accident can help improve the accuracy of the testimony because the incident will still be fresh in the minds of your witnesses.

Additionally, prompt incident reporting produces better outcomes for both the employee and the company. It’s vital that you waste no time in completing the incident report so that insurance companies can quickly process the claims and your employees can receive the treatment they need.

Claims placed on hold because of delayed incident reports typically also cost more than claims that are reported promptly with the completed paperwork. Delayed claims can cost businesses thousands in increased premiums or penalties for late reporting.

5. Implement safety protocols

After an accident happens at work, you will want to do everything you can to ensure it never happens again. Employers hold a unique position that allows them to influence their entire organization for the better and they can cultivate a culture of safety in the workplace by implementing safety protocols and safety education for all team members.

Leadership teams can show employees that safety is paramount to the organization by prioritizing safety, providing education and training, and praising good safety practices. You can use the incident as a learning tool by asking yourself what could have been done to prevent the injury and by asking yourself how the response could have been more effective. By locating the gaps in workplace safety, you can implement changes to address those gaps and prevent other lapses in security and safety.

Including your employees in safety protocols will encourage them to take ownership of their safe conduct and you can provide incentives for following safety guidelines and for taking proactive steps to pursue safety at work. The bottom line is that when your employees are safe, they’re healthy, happy, and more productive.

6. Establish a return-to-work program

Many workplace injuries result in time lost on the job. As an employee spends more time in recovery, the return to work can feel physically and emotionally daunting. To set your employee and the rest of the team up for success, establish a return-to-work program or plan.

If an employee has a long-term injury, you can set up a transitional or modified job so they can return to a work routine sooner rather than later. These transitional roles can be temporary and don’t necessarily need to be the same as before the injury occurred.

Providing a program like this enables workers to regain their footing as an employees while allowing them to maintain an income and continue their connection with the company.

7. Follow up with your employee

At the end of the day, your employee is more than just a number. They are a vital part of your team and you want to communicate the value they hold on a personal level.

A good employer should do more than take care of the logistics after an injury. They should also follow up with employees to ensure they are emotionally and physically healing. Using clear and compassionate communication with your employee can show them that you care and that you can work together to create a realistic plan of return.

This type of care demonstrates to the rest of your team that you value them, and it can help to improve your employee retention rate and worker satisfaction in the long run.

Creating a company culture of safety

No employer wants to see one of their workers injured. But if it happens, you now have an action plan to follow for handling these incidents professionally and with care.

Quick responses, thorough reporting, and compassionate care will build your employer brand and create a company culture of safety that will benefit your entire team. Sign up for our free trial to get started today!

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Jobsite Safety Checklists for Construction – Examples & Templates

Posted on October 5, 2022March 13, 2025 by Danny Kanev

Jobsite Safety Checklists for Construction – Examples & Templates

Compliance and Safety | Forms | Inspections

Worker safety is a top priority for everyone in the construction industry. It’s in the best interest of workers and employers to comply with all regulations set by OSHA and to follow all of the best practices for safety in the workplace.

Having a robust safety program is good for workers, helping to limit accidents and incidents, and strengthening employee trust in the company. Companies with robust safety management programs benefit from satisfied workers, lowered costs, and greater productivity and efficiency.

Construction project management software is widely used in the construction industry as a way to collect important information about different components of the job and tasks at hand. A simple inspection formcan be used by workers on the job to determine potential hazards and mitigate risks.

3 Types of Jobsite Safety Inspection Forms in Construction

A jobsite safety inspection form is an essential tool used in safety management programs and there is a wide range of use cases for safety forms. This article reviews some of the most commonly used safety forms and templates that construction firms and contractors can use to get started for free.

Construction Safety Inspection Forms – The 10 Most Common OSHA Hazards

OSHA shares data with companies that details the top 10 OSHA violations each year. This data is shared to create awareness around the top preventable hazards in the workplace, so employers know where to focus their efforts to address the most common health and safety issues.

In 2020, the top violations included:

Fall Protection
Hazard Communication
Respiratory Protection
Scaffolding, Ladders
Lockout/Tagout
Powered Industrial Trucks
Eye and Face
Machine Guarding

Construction companies routinely use safety inspection forms to monitor these problem areas, with a safety inspection form designed specifically for each type of hazard. These types of safety forms are designed around one specific hazard and the corresponding list of items to review.

In general, safety inspection forms are meant as a way to evaluate tools, personal protective equipment, fire extinguishers, forklifts, work areas, and other elements for potential hazards or mitigators for hazards. These can be checked as frequently as deemed necessary, whether it be on a daily, weekly, monthly, or annual basis.

Examples and Templates for Safety Inspection Checklists:

Fall Protection
Hazard Communication
Respiratory Protection
Scaffolding
Ladders
Lockout/Tagout
Powered Industrial Trucks
Eye and Face
Machine Guarding

Safety Audit Form

A safety audit form is similar to the safety inspection form listed in the previous section, but instead of examining one component of safety, the safety audit form typically examines the entire Jobsite, looking holistically for hazards in the workplace. This type of inspection form is used to understand all of the safety and health hazards so that they can be addressed before an accident or incident happens. Construction firms should update their safety audit forms regularly to ensure that they are keeping up with changing OSHA standards in the workplace. This type of safety audit or Jobsite inspection checklist may only be used on occasion in the workplace, in order to assess the overall safety of a work zone.

Example and Template:

Typically the safety audit checklist will include examine safety threats across the entire Jobsite, including:

PPE
Housekeeping and Sanitation
Trenching & Excavations
Electrical Installations
Tools, Ladders, Scaffolding
Fall Protection
Steel Erection
Precast Concrete Erection
Roofing Work
Aerial Lifts / Scissor Lifts
Cranes, hoists, and derricks
Rigging, Heavy Equipment
Fire Prevention
Flammable Gases
Welding and Cutting
Spray Painting / Fire Proofing Operations
Air Compressors
Confined Space
Lockout / Tagout
Concrete, Masonry
Fueling Area
And More

COVID-19 Workplace Safety and Health Inspection Forms

Many workplaces have started to use the COVID-19 workplace safety and health checklist to ensure measures are in place to protect workers from exposure to and infection with COVID-19.

In the construction industry, workers have had to continue working as an essential business and this means that workplaces need to take the appropriate precautions to limit the spread of the coronavirus.

The workplace safety and health inspection form is designed to help job sites stay in compliance with new safety regulations and restrictions that stemmed from the pandemic.

Example and Template:

covid-19 safety checklist template example

Health screening forms and workplace safety forms will continue to be needed on job sites in the near term to keep workers safe and productive.

Going Digital With Safety Inspection Form

There are many digital tools and forms that can help to formalize your safety program, rather than managing this process on paper forms. The common challenges with paper forms include missing or lost papers, illegible writing, and time-consuming data entry. Using a digital platform like GoCanvas for managing your safety programs will enable your business to gain greater visibility into safety across job sites and make the process seamless for workers to access information from anywhere. The rise of mobile devices has given construction companies the opportunity to leverage apps and forms in the field to both collect and share key safety information with workers.

You can learn more about the benefits of a safety management program managed with mobile apps and forms in a recent article published here. You can also search the GoCanvas Form Template Library for more examples and resources to use for all your safety forms and safety inspection forms. Sign up for a free trial and see how easy it can be to use our no-code platform for mobile apps and forms for construction.

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3 Advantages of Automated Safety Reporting

Posted on September 14, 2022October 11, 2024 by Danny Kanev

3 Advantages of Automated Safety Reporting

Business Operations | Compliance and Safety | Reporting

Creating a Seamless Safety Process through Automation

An unsafe workplace is not an option worth considering. However, creating a safe environment can be difficult and requires a lot of focus and attention to every detail as a simple oversight can lead to disastrous consequences. Although this may seem like a daunting task, you are not alone! Safety Professionals are finding ways to reduce time-consuming tasks, like data duplication with the help of automation and technology across the globe. This allows them to focus their time and energy on more important matters like proper safety gear and clear fire exits with the peace of mind that compliance and prevention records are all submitted, stored, and analyzed exactly how they want them to be.

As the safety industry continues to become more automated, it is important to understand how this might impact your business and how to stay ahead of industry trends. The movement toward paperless companies and automated systems is becoming more and more important. Recently, OSHA passed an electronic submission requirement for forms, like their OSHA 300 and OSHA 301 report. Automation is the future of the safety industry and is already drastically improving the way safety reporting is currently handled on the field now.

Here are three ways automating your safety reporting processes can improve your business:

1. Consistent Reporting & Improved Accuracy

Simple errors such as misplaced forms, messy handwriting, or incomplete submissions can result in significant penalties. By automating the way reports are completed, you’re able to streamline the way the forms are filled as each field tech is submitting the form through the same channel and including the same information. Automating this process ensures you’re receiving every submission and it is stored securely in the cloud where you can quickly search and access it as a pdf or CSV. you can automate your processes even further and have your data populate a backend system such as QuickBooks, Viewpoint, or Sage.

There are plenty of things that could affect the accuracy of the information reported. By eliminating manual data transfer and the potential for illegible handwriting, you decrease the possibilities for human error drastically. It doesn’t matter how many asterisks or underlines are used, forms still come back incomplete, and often, by the time the office gets it back, it is too late to fix. Automating these forms removes the headache of tracking down incomplete information and ensures top-quality information every time. Accurate reporting relies on having the best data possible. By improving the quality of the data you’re collecting, you can make the best decisions for your business.

2. Data Visibility

Time and time again we talk to safety managers who are having difficulty tracing their progress quarter to quarter or even year over year. In the safety industry, being able to track where improvement is needed and what is working efficiently is important to the safety of every employee. Whether your company is interested in getting better visibility into employee behavioral reports or motor vehicle inspection data, it is important to be able to easily pull those reports. Manual reporting can be time-consuming and restricts the ability to pull or find this information easily and accurately.

Automating the way data is collected and where the information is sent allows businesses to make critical data-based decisions within minutes. Whether you’re interested in automating your paperwork to have an easily accessible electronic filing cabinet or if you’re looking to create custom safety dashboards data opens the doors to endless possibilities and is the driving force in creating strategic decisions.

3. Minimized Risk of Safety Incidents and Fines

Safety and compliance are important in every industry and business. You may see it as a chore or a necessary evil but we all know how crucial it is to protecting lives and keeping projects on track. Whether you are in construction or the food industry there are a variety of quality measures that need to be met to keep both front-line staff and customers safe on a day-to-day basis. Not meeting these requirements can result in massive fines resulting in the loss of exorbitant funds, or worse, injury to another person. Therefore, it is critical to maintain accurate and up-to-date records of all reports.

Staying compliant doesn’t have to be difficult or time intensive. By automating the way forms like the OSHA 300, JSA/JHAs, equipment inspections, incident reports, and vehicle inspections are filed, you ensure all submissions can be found through a simple search and that all actionable can be dispatched in real-time. Don’t let simple filing errors or lost forms slow your business.

Compliance will always be a crucial part of any safety professional’s career. As the rules and regulations get more and more complicated, make it easier for your company to stay compliant and improve the data you’re collecting. Take your safety standards to the next level by creating real-time results and solutions with GoCanvas.

Now you can easily modernize the way you are capturing information on or off-site. Whether you are looking to improve your data visibility or simply improve the safety culture on-site, we hope you’ll consider using GoCanvas as your data collection tool. Sign up for GoCanvas free and give our platform a try today!

Interested in learning more?

About GoCanvas

Since 2008, thousands of companies have chosen GoCanvas as their go-to partner for seamless field operations.

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Quality Control vs Quality Assurance: What Construction Companies Should Know

Posted on February 15, 2022November 19, 2024 by Danny Kanev

Quality Control vs Quality Assurance: What Construction Companies Should Know

Business Operations | Compliance and Safety | Inspections

Any reputable company in the construction industry operates on a safety-first basis at all times. The health and safety of its employees are paramount to the company because the company is well-aware of the fact that the employees are the ones who enable the company to do what it does. They are the backbone that makes everything else possible. This makes the processes of both quality assurance and quality control essential. However, there is some confusion about what these terms mean, what the differences between the two are, and why each one is fundamental to the operation of a successful and growing business. We will cover these topics and many more right now.

Quality Control: What Is It?

Imagine a world in which there is a one-in-ten chance that the packaged food that you purchase is expired, moldy, and could make you sick if consumed. If that is the world that we live in, then no one would purchase those foods any longer. Of course, that is not the case, and people can go about buying their packaged foods with relative assurance that they are safe. This is because of the quality control processes implemented by the various food manufacturers. Those same procedures are used in the construction industry as well to ensure that:

Every project comes out the way that the customer expects
There is uniformity in how policies are implemented
The construction materials are of the highest standards of quality
The company can build a good reputation based on the quality of the work it has already performed
There aren’t complaints from customers after the project is done

Quality control is the catch-all term for the various procedures that one implements to make sure there are not any defective materials or practices being implemented at any stage of the construction project.

The Importance Of Quality Control

It is critical to remember that while quality control is typically used to ensure uniformity at every stage of the construction project, there are some exceptions to this rule. Carnegie Mellon University points out:

While conformance to existing design decisions is the primary focus of quality control, there are exceptions to this rule. First, unforeseen circumstances, incorrect design decisions or changes desired by an owner in the facility function may require re-evaluation of design decisions during the course of construction. While these changes may be motivated by the concern for quality, they represent occasions for re-design with all the attendant objectives and constraints.

Adaptations to the construction project may be necessary at times to provide the highest level of quality throughout the entire project. Quality control does NOT mean being completely inflexible, it just means providing the highest levels of quality throughout every stage of the process. Project managers who are able to do this will likely win more business for the firm in the future, given their attention to detail and insistence on delivering excellence to their clients.

What Is Quality Assurance?

Quality assurance focuses more on the implementation of policies to ensure that safety is always at the forefront of all decision-making from the start. The aim of all QA processes is to try to bring a safer environment in which everyone can operate. It is challenging to be certain, but that is why the people who are brought in for this job are expertly trained on what needs to be done.

Juran.com gives a brief explanation of what quality assurance is:

The emphasis of quality assurance is less on the end product, and more on the processes and systems involved in creating it. For this reason, auditing is an important part of the quality assurance function–particularly quality auditing, which examines an organization’s entire quality management system (QMS).

In the construction industry, there is nothing worse than getting towards the latter stages of a project only to discover that certain processes were missed to begin with. That can lead to the derailment of the entire project, and no one wants to see that. Thus, various methods of quality assurance have been implemented to attempt to prevent this from happening.

Types Of Quality Assurance

There are different approaches to quality assurance that work. Companies often experiment with various approaches to the problem. The method that one takes at any given moment often comes down to what is likely to work best given the needs of the project at that time.

Stress Tests

Putting an element of the project to the test before it is placed into the actual project. This allows people working on the project to test for themselves how the various elements of the project may stand up when put to the test.

The idea is to put materials under some of the toughest conditions that they may face while in real-world environments, in order to see if they are strong enough to withstand what the world may throw at them. Working with materials on this scale allows for companies to test various strategies and see what works best for what they are attempting to accomplish.

Changes In Company Culture

At times, companies may consider it to be in their best interests to alter the ways in which they do business. If they can change the culture around how they use and develop the materials that will go into their projects, then they can perhaps create better outcomes. Often, it all starts with a change in mindset among the employees. It is imperative to get everyone to think about the end-user of what they are attempting to build. The more that the focus stays on those people, the better the products produced (for the most part). They say that no man is an island, and no person within a construction company should feel that their role is unimportant. They all need to believe that everything that they do serves an end purpose that is vital to the company’s success.

What Makes Both Quality Control And Quality Assurance Necessary?

Think back to a time when you were in school. Draw your mind back to the days when you were assigned a group project to work on with your classmates. Perhaps you enjoyed this kind of work, or perhaps you dreaded it. Either way, you ultimately knew that getting the project done right would take teamwork, focus, and attention to detail. You could not let yourself or your teammates wander too far off track without risking a lack of progress on the project.

Quality control and quality assurance can be thought of in that way as well. They are safeguards against letting some small aspect of a project derail the larger framework of what you are trying to accomplish.

We actually practice quality control and quality assurance in our daily lives all the time, we just don’t necessarily think of it like that. When you take a few moments to re-read over an e-mail you are about to send, or even when you stop to think about your words before making a comment to someone, you are performing a version of quality control. You don’t want to offend anyone, and you don’t want to send something embarrassing via your e-mail address, so you take a little extra time to make sure everything is perfect before giving it the green light. When this same thing is practiced on a larger scale, we call it quality control or quality assurance.

Preventing Lawsuits And Other Headaches

We should not breeze past the fact that exceptional quality control and quality assurance policies can help limit the likelihood and the damage from any potential litigation levied against the company. Companies are hit with lawsuits every day, and construction companies are frequent targets of those lawsuits. Worse yet, construction companies can be on the hook for lawsuits years after they have completed the project they were assigned to do. Thus, it can almost feel as though they have no escape from the potential for lawyers hounding them over some faulty aspect of their work.

The only way to reduce the chances of a lawsuit being thrown at them is to ensure that the quality of the work is superb from start to finish. Quality control and quality assurance steps are necessary to act as a backstop against poor quality designs and/or work getting through. They are a protective mechanism that can help construction managers rest a little easier at night.

The small amount of extra time that it takes to perform QC and QA steps is nothing compared to the potential for losses stemming from a lawsuit. It is necessary to run a cost-benefit analysis in these situations, and there is no doubt that the benefits of performing QC and QA steps far outweigh any cost of doing so.

Construction managers have enough to worry about without having to take on the added stress of potentially getting sued on top of it all. Thus, the immediate implementation of concrete steps to take for both QC and QA purposes is incredibly important at this time. Companies need to have their policies firmly established and understood throughout the company, and that training process needs to begin immediately.

About GoCanvas

GoCanvas is a mobile platform that makes it simple for any business to automate how work is done, replacing outdated processes and expensive paperwork. The GoCanvas App works on all smartphones and tablets, helping companies easily collect information across their organization, share it instantly with others and gain real-time insights on their business operations. Get started today with solutions for quality control forms, quality control inspection apps, and other workflow management tools built specifically for the construction industry.

About GoCanvas

Since 2008, thousands of companies have chosen GoCanvas as their go-to partner for seamless field operations.

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The Ultimate Guide to Quality Control Inspections

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Analytics and Data Collection | Compliance and Safety | Inspections

How To Prepare for an OSHA Safety Inspection

Posted on December 20, 2021November 18, 2024 by Danny Kanev

How To Prepare for an OSHA Safety Inspection

Plenty of owners of small- and medium-sized businesses find the prospect of having an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) inspection scary, especially since the agency is now inspecting businesses from bakeries and liquor stores, to construction companies, tire stores, and performing arts companies.

But you can be ready for OSHA.

Knowing what to expect, and using some easy-to-use technology, can help even small- and medium-sized businesses without large safety budgets feel like they are equipped if OSHA comes calling. This article will cover four steps you can take to prepare for OSHA inspections, and avoid fines and violations.

Understand OSHA’s inspection priorities and most-cited hazards
Develop safety checklists unique to your business
Put an OSHA inspection plan in place
Know what to do on inspection day — and after

OSHA inspection planning is critical for almost every type of business. Continue reading this article for our guide to OSHA Safety Inspections.

1. Know OSHA’s Most-Cited Hazards

While OSHA doesn’t break down its more than 70,000 or so annual inspections by industry, it does offer a list of its top 10 most-cited violations. Think of these as “trouble spots” you should concentrate on addressing. In 2020, these were the top 10 most frequently cited standards by OSHA.

Fall Protection—General Requirements (§1926.501): 5,424 violations
Hazard Communication (§1910.1200): 3,199 violations
Respiratory Protection (§1910.134): 2,649 violations
Scaffolding (§1926.451): 2,538 violations
Ladders (§1926.1053): 2,129 violations
Lockout/Tagout (§1910.147): 2,065 violations
Powered Industrial Trucks (§1910.178): 1,932 violations
Fall Protection—Training Requirements (§1926.503): 1,621 violations
Personal Protective and Life Saving Equipment—Eye and Face Protection (§1926.102): 1,369 violations
Machine Guarding (§1910.212): 1,313 violations

Three out of the top 10 most-cited violations — fall protection, scaffolding, and ladders — involve construction standards. Not surprisingly, the construction industry remains among the industries most frequently inspected by OSHA.

How does OSHA choose when and where to conduct an inspection?

The agency can’t possibly inspect all 7 million workplaces that it covers. Here is how OSHA decides where to go:

Referrals or tips. Hazard information reported by government agencies, nonprofits, the media, and individuals often prompts an investigation.
Employee Complaints. Employees can request anonymity when filing complaints and such allegations often warrant OSHA follow-up.
Follow ups. OSHA frequently conducts follow-up inspections to previous visits, so stay prepared.

2. Develop Unique Safety Checklists

OSHA may have issued you a “checklist” when you opened your business, but that’s just a starting place.

That’s because the agency’s inspectors additionally develop their own policies for specific industries via the “General Duty” clause. They can then use it to cite workplaces for violations of regulations that aren’t written down. And they do it. It’s clear that as a business owner, you can’t simply follow OSHA’s safety checklist and take a nap.

You’re responsible for creating and maintaining your own safety checklists and procedures specific to your industry and workplace – and then for keeping those checklists up-to-date and following them.

To create your checklist:

Start with what OSHA delivered to you
Take a look at the most cited violations list
Inspect your workplace to find any other potential violations that might likely occur
Create more than one checklist – one for the front office, and other for the primary worksite itself

Then get employees from each area to take turns checking for and recording any hazards they encounter on a regular basis – some items only monthly, others every day. (You’ll want to develop safety inspection calendars to guide inspection efforts in each area.)

Let Technology Help You

Now, this is where mobile application technology comes in.Moving from paper checklists to mobile apps, which can be customized to your company’s unique and varying needs, can make your OSHA compliance efforts much easier and more effective.With mobile checklists, you:

Enter data in real time and that data is not only stored in the cloud, but can be immediately shared with a supervisor or manager, minimizing response times
Create a variety of inspection checklists for various tasks and sites – all accessible from a smartphone or tablet
Update your mobile apps as OSHA guidelines evolve and change to reflect changes and immediately deploy the information across your organization
Your mobile checklists are not only more flexible than the paper versions, ensuring that your business is in compliance with the latest regulations, but employees will never again have to drag around a big binder while doing a self-inspection or making copies of paper checklists.

Mobile data will also offer insight into:

What are your common problem areas?
Which of your safety procedures are redundant?
Which employees are completing safety checks regularly?
Which team members are wearing the proper protective clothing and equipment?
Which employees are safety leaders? Safety violators?

3. Put an OSHA Inspection Plan in Place

Now that you’ve made your checklists and safety self-inspection calendars, you have to prepare for the inevitable:the day an OSHA inspector shows up. What happens and what do you really need to be ready for?

Create a plan

First, you need to put together a day-of-inspection plan. Doing so will give you some control over the OSHA inspection, make a good impression on the inspector, and – most importantly – result in fewer violations. Assemble an inspection team, including:

Representative from management. A member of senior management or your dedicated safety officer. He or she is charged with recording everything that happens, making decisions about where and what the inspector can observe, and answering questions.
Photographer. Always photograph everything the OSHA inspector photographs.
Document controller. To have access to all the documents the inspector might request. This is where mobile form apps are extremely useful. Your document controller will be able to access everything he or she needs with a few swipes of a tablet.

Prep the team in advance

Due to changing priorities and regulations, OSHA may shift its focus to any business or industry at any time. It’s important to prepare your team in advance and here are a few tips:

Practice Interview Questions. Prep your team for likely employee interviews and understand your rights. They should answer questions specifically and truthfully, but not volunteer any additional information.
Hold Surprise Inspections. Try to make these mock inspections as true to an OSHA inspection as you can. Get pushy: For instance, “demand” documents that your team members aren’t supposed to give up.
Create Mobile Checklists in Advance. Use mobile checklists to help you prepare for OSHA inspection day. Besides self-inspection checklists, mobile apps can help you create your inspection plan, manage “surprise” inspections, and organize all those regulatory documents.

Make sure you understand what rights your team has if the OSHA inspector arrives and be sure to test your team’s knowledge in advance.

4. How Software Can Help Your Business with OSHA Compliance

No matter how well you prepare, OSHA might find something that you need to correct. But with proper preparation, you’ll be much less likely to be cited for serious violations. Most importantly, you’ll have a strong system in place to keep your employees safe and free from workplace hazards.

By tapping into the power of mobile apps and cloud-based technology, you can ensure that your business is more than ready to welcome OSHA inspectors when they come calling.

Use Mobile Forms Apps to Stay Violation-Free

By using mobile apps to create safety checklists, analyze your business’ safety program and trouble spots, and implement corrective action, you’ll avoid injuries and safety violations — keeping you off OSHA’s radar in the first place.

GoCanvas has a wide variety of OSHA mobile apps that can help make your business safer. Get in touch to find out how cloud-based data collection can take your OSHA compliance efforts to an entirely new level.

Why GoCanvas for OSHA Compliance?

Easy-to-use software. Creating checklists to inspect and regularly record hazards and correct them can keep you clear of fines. Making those checklists mobile keeps data at hand and accurate.

Accessible documentation. Mobile apps ensure that the appropriate people have access to important documents in real time and employees know their roles in case of an audit.

Improve safety compliance. In the majority of cases, OSHA’s inspections are not announced in advance. You have to be prepared at all times and mobile apps like GoCanvas can help to ensure compliance and lower your risk.

3 Key Benefits of Software for Mobile Forms

Still not sure about moving to software for capturing form data? Here are some of the key outcomes companies have seen when implementing software platforms for mobile data:

Increase Productivity. Mobile forms can improve annual productivity by 28% and show an ROI in 6 months.
Cost Savings. A company can lose hundreds of hours in manual data entry. Mobile forms save an average of $40,000 in year one.
Lowered Risk. Companies that implemented mobile form software report that they have reduced their risk and liability by 18%

About GoCanvas

Since 2008, thousands of companies have chosen GoCanvas as their go-to partner for seamless field operations.

Check out even more resources

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Business Operations | Compliance and Safety | Disaster Preparation

Understanding Workplace Safety Hazards: What Employers Need to Know

Posted on December 17, 2021October 14, 2024 by Danny Kanev

Understanding Workplace Safety Hazards: What Employers Need to Know

While the pandemic has brought mainstream attention to worker safety issues, workers and employers in many industries, such as construction, field services, manufacturing, and transportation/logistics, have long grappled with common workplace hazards. Not only do firms have a vested interest in keeping their employees safe from worksite risks, but the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) also requires them to do so.

However, despite OSHA being the law of the land for more than 50 years, some employers still lack comprehensive safety management plans that address and mitigate the risk of common workplace hazards. Without such a plan, workers (and potentially customers) may be at risk of illness or injury. Further, their employers face potentially stiff financial, legal, and reputational consequences.

What are workplace hazards?

A workplace hazard is a workplace activity or condition that creates the potential for mental or physical harm. Employers are responsible for remediating workplace hazards that they know about or should have known about and keeping a log of all workplace injuries and illnesses that have occurred at the workplace. The Occupational Safety and Health Agency is tasked with inspecting worksites to ensure that employers provide workplaces free of hazards, and it takes enforcement actions when they are not.

What are the different types of hazards?

While the Act covers specific and detailed General Industry safety standards (as well as those for the Agriculture, Maritime, and Construction industries), OSHA’s general duty clause is broader. It requires employers to ensure their worksites are “which are free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to his employees.” While the list of hazards the Act covers is significant, they can generally be divided into the following categories:

Safety hazards

Safety hazards are workplace activities or conditions that can result in accidents or cause injuries. The list of possible safety hazards is considerable, but common examples include employees:

Being provided with broken mechanical or electrical equipment
Navigating slippery or cluttered floors
Working on insecure scaffolding or not having appropriate fall protection equipment
Working inside buildings with a single entrance/exit or blocked fire exits
Working schedules that are impossible to fulfill without cutting corners, among others

Biological hazards

These workplace safety hazards can stem from exposure to dangerous materials, such as healthcare and lab workers’ exposure to infectious diseases, or a food processing employee’s exposure to animal materials, in a day’s work. However, biological hazards can also result in all workplaces from neglect, such as in mold occurrences.

Chemical hazards

Chemical hazards can also result from exposure to dangerous substances and compounds as part of a worker’s routine duties. Employers must ensure that equipment is in working order, employees are provided personal protective equipment (PPE), and that chemicals are handled in well-ventilated places, among other safety measures, to mitigate the risk of injury/illness from a worker’s exposure to chemicals. Employers are required to provide Safety Data Sheets for anyone that manages chemicals in the workplace.

Physical hazards

Workers in certain industries often face a variety of physical hazards. Construction workers may deal with excessive noise, while manufacturing workers may face elevated temperatures. Or an employee at a nuclear plant may deal with radiation exposure. Employers must minimize the risk of employee injury from these and other types of physical hazards.

Ergonomic risk factors

Another type of hazard concerns physical activities that may result in injury. For example, a worker who must repeatedly perform heavy lifting puts themselves at risk for musculoskeletal injury, as would an employee who performs repetitive injuries. Employers should examine processes and workflows that create this type of risk and provide tools, or even automation, to minimize ergonomic risks.

How to identify hazards in the workplace

Safety-conscious employers can identify workplace hazards through regular inspections of their worksites, equipment, and operations. It’s best to document these inspections to help ensure the appropriate remediation takes place.

It’s also recommended that employers speak with frontline workers about workplace safety hazards, as they will likely identify some that managers miss. Among other areas of potential danger, employers should examine:

Clutter
Use of electrical, chemical, or biological materials and equipment
Equipment maintenance and operation
PPE inventory and suitability
Work scheduling and processes
Emergency plans and evacuation procedures
Fire safety measures

These areas are just a sampling of workplace elements where hazardous conditions may be found. In addition to seeking input from workers, it’s also often advisable for employers to use services from third-party safety experts to help identify all potential workplace safety hazards.

How to prevent hazards in the workplace

Performing regular workplace safety inspections is one way to prevent hazardous conditions. Another tool is training. Employers should ensure that workers at all levels have the fundamental training they need to perform their duties safely and receive regular refresher training that helps keep their skills up-to-date. Further, workers should also be well-versed in their employer’s internal safety practices and procedures to help prevent hazards.

Employers should also encourage a safety-oriented workplace culture. Workers should not only have an outlet to provide health and safety-related feedback, but they should also be actively encouraged to do so. In unionized environments, formal mechanisms, such as labor-management health and safety committees, may be established by contract or past practice. However, all workplaces, union and non-union alike, should establish a mechanism for workers to identify potential hazards without fear of retaliation.

Another way to prevent workplace hazards is by establishing a workplace health and safety management plan.

The benefits of a health and safety management plan

When employers develop a comprehensive health and safety management plan, employers can greatly mitigate the risk of worksite illnesses, injuries, and deaths. They can also save themselves considerable money in the process. When a safety incident occurs at work, the company may be liable for damages from the victim/family or, if the incident stemmed from an OSHA violation, from the Agency. Employers lose the services of an employee, reducing overall productivity. And their insurance premiums may also go up as a result.

But by drafting a plan that includes provisions for workplace hazard prevention, assessment, and remediation and employee training (from leadership on down), employers can avoid high financial costs, productivity reductions, legal consequences, and bad press.

Using GoCanvas to identify hazards and ensure a safe workplace

When incorporating GoCanvas into their workplace health and safety plans, employers don’t need to rely on expensive third-party consultants for periodic assessments. Instead, they enjoy continuous access to a robust safety application that helps employers and employees collaboratively identify workplace safety hazards and incidents in real-time, reducing paperwork and saving time and money in the process. GoCanvas’ robust platform allows you to take advantage of pre-formatted forms for specific industries and use cases or build your own, tailored to your unique business.

Interested in learning more? Try GoCanvas for free or contact us for more information today.

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About GoCanvas

Since 2008, thousands of companies have chosen GoCanvas as their go-to partner for seamless field operations.

Check out even more resources

Smarter, Faster, Safer: Improving Safety Compliance with Mobile Technology

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Connect with an Expert Today.

We’ll help you put together the right solution for your needs.