Five Ways Safety Management Software Can Help Your Business

Five Ways Safety Management Software Can Help Your Business

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Every day on a jobsite brings different challenges and risks. It is important that no matter the circumstances, your crew is being provided consistent messaging as well as capturing consistent information.

Safety management software helps your team maintain consistency in delivering and documenting data. Standardized forms with required fields and established checklists ensure that the proper information is conveyed and collected for every situation. 

Safety software also helps with accuracy, so when the same tasks are repeated, workers can focus on the procedure without forgetting key pieces of information.

There are times when your teams will have to report to multiple locations, or be spread out across massive worksites. This presents a challenge to make sure the latest safety forms and regulations are distributed in a timely manner.

With many safety software solutions, your crew can get the latest versions of necessary forms on their mobile devices or company tablets. Workers can rapidly complete incident or hazard reports and send them directly to your office systems, so you can keep your team aware and safe.

So much time is wasted trying to collect paper forms from various jobsites, not to mention the amount of effort needed to decipher, catalog, and report on data from multiple sources. 

With the right safety management software, you won’t lose time to waiting for paper forms from daily briefings to be returned at the end of the day or managing documents from multiple worksites. Any standard forms completed by your team can be immediately sent via the safety software, which means you can store and track important data in a single system. 

When it comes to keeping your team safe, it is vital that workers stay up-to-date on the latest OSHA regulations and compliance issues. As you are sharing this information, it is also important to be able to confirm and track who has attended daily briefings, completed certifications, and other safety program milestones.

Safety management software often includes required attendance logs, so you can collect the names and IDs of every employee at each worksite to ensure they are present for the latest daily briefings and toolbox talks. Plus, you can capture details related to the jobsite location, project manager, as well as date and time stamps for every briefing.

Digital safety forms can also include an integrated signature capture field, which means you can have employees verify their attendance and you can collect signatures from your foreman and any safety representative who makes an onsite visit, ensuring compliance measures are met for every situation.

When workers know that their safety is a priority within your business, worksite morale inevitably goes up. Your crew and contractors want to know that their well-being is an important aspect of daily operations. 

Safety management software ensures that your team is informed of the latest potential risks and related precautions, so they know how to stay safe and have confidence that their safety is a priority. 

Using safety software can also provide real-time visibility of your current Certification Programs (including expiration dates and IDs) and active incident reporting. You can quickly share safety program data with customers, fulfilling SLA requirements so you can get jobs done faster while keeping your team safe.


Looking for a safety management software that will provide these benefits to your team? GoCanvas Safety includes pre-built digital forms so you can streamline your planning and ensure that you collect accurate and complete information for every job. Customizable reports and turn-key dashboards mean you can regularly audit and update your safety program, so you can focus on the human factors to keep your team safe. Learn more here.

About GoCanvas

GoCanvas® is on a mission to simplify inspections and maximize compliance. Our intuitive platform takes care of the administrative tasks, freeing our customers to focus on what truly matters – safeguarding their people, protecting their equipment, and delivering exceptional quality to their customers. 

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

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How Small Business Revenues have been Impacted by COVID-19

How Small Business Revenues have been Impacted by COVID-19

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GoCanvas surveyed its customer base, as well as other small business leaders, in June 2020 about their industry outlook as a result of the global pandemic. This blog post highlights our initial findings. Data from this GoCanvas Small Business Report is sourced from 270 small businesses within a varying spread of industries.  

  • 17.9% – Specialty Trade Contractors 
  • 13.6% – Building, Equipment, Electrical, Plumbing, HVAC 
  • 8.1% – Transportation Logistics 
  • 7% – Healthcare 
  • 5.5% – Foundation, Structure, & Building Exterior Contractors

Business Outlook Pre- vs. Post-COVID-19

The global pandemic forced many small businesses to halt operations, furlough employees, and increase precautions for contractors, suppliers, and vendors. While a strong proportion of small businesses cite overall confidence in their ability to return to normal operating levels, the short-term impact of the pandemic is felt across industries. 

On a scale of 1-10, please rate the outlook for your business BEFORE COVID-19 (1-Pessimistic; 10-Optimistic)

On a scale of 1-10, please rate the outlook for your business AFTER COVID-19 (1-Pessimistic; 10-Optimistic)

Per the visuals above, it will likely take time for small businesses to return to their originally forecasted operating levels. As of June 2020, nearly 14% of our response base shared their business was still suspended (considered non-essential) due to their state’s mandate. 

Of the respondents that were able to stay open during this time, nearly 50% of our respondents shared that the “stay-at-home” order was restricting the amount of work they can do. Meaning, regardless of a business’s essential status, workforce operations and efficiency are being impacted at an unmeasurable level. 

To get a better short-term estimate of business impact, we asked our respondents to rate their revenue expectations for the rest of this year: 

For many small businesses, it’s too early to tell how big of an impact the pandemic will have on their revenues – nearly 42% to be specific. To find out which industries are largely predicting the most significant declines in revenues, sign up for our webinar to learn more.


Interested in learning more? Tune into our live webinar on Thursday, August 22nd, at 2 PM ET, as we review more survey results. Register here.

About GoCanvas

GoCanvas® is on a mission to simplify inspections and maximize compliance. Our intuitive platform takes care of the administrative tasks, freeing our customers to focus on what truly matters – safeguarding their people, protecting their equipment, and delivering exceptional quality to their customers. 

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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How Security Guard Managers Should Handle Complaints

How Security Guard Managers Should Handle Complaints

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notebook of complaintsYou’re working hard to keep your clients safe and their property secure. You’ve been careful about the staff you’ve hired to work as security officers, conducted the necessary background checks and drug screens, and provided diligent training while clarifying your coe of conduct and expectations for how your agents should conduct themselves while on the job.

Yet despite these efforts, it’s inevitable that people will occasionally file a complaint about how your security officers perform their jobs. Sometimes these customer complaints are quite serious; other times they seem trifling.

Regardless, every customer complaint form lodged against one of your security guards and personnel needs to be taken seriously. Failing to do so puts you at risk for reputation damage or costly litigation. Even your business license is at risk. That’s why it’s crucial to have a thorough policy for handling customer complaints – and to follow it.

Have the right kind of post-incident follow-up

Virtually every state regulates private security officers and companies, and those regulations often set guidelines for handling complaints.

With that in mind, here the steps your organization should take in following up on a complaint:

Listen. The first step in handling complaints is to hear what the complainant has to say about the incident or problem. Was a security guard rude? Not paying enough attention? Or are we talking about something more serious, like a security guard who is accused of being intimidating, under the influence of drugs or alcohol, harassment, or worse? Your goal here should be to gather the facts at issue as the complaining party understands them, not to defend or condemn your employee. This first step is critical because an individual wants to feel they are being heard and respected — and research has shown that listening may reduce your litigation risk. This first step may be the most intrusive, but it is extremely important in handling complaints and making sure you are receiving all the pertinent information on what occurred.

Review the record. A critical source of information will be your guard’s own incident report. You should review this document before speaking with your security guard. If the report tells a story that’s different from the one you heard from the complainant, then you’ll want to pursue that discrepancy in your discussions with your employee. Also, take note of when the report, which should have been filed as soon as possible after the incident in question, actually was filed when handling complaints.

Gather more information. Beyond the complainant’s version, the security guard’s version, and the incident report, gather any additional sources of information that might be available, such as statements from other witnesses or camera footage, to attempt to understand what actually happened. When handling complaints, it is extremely important to gather as many pieces of information and evidence for validates sources as possible. This gives you a well-rounded view of the situation and doesn’t make you biased in any way when handling complaints.

Seek a resolution. The action you take will depend, of course, on the results of your investigation. While in severe cases your hands may be tied and disciplinary action will be required, most of the time you’ll have some discretion. The most important thing is to fully document the investigatory steps you took, what you discovered, and why you chose to take the action you did based on the evidence found. When you are handling complaints, you will feel pressure to rush to a resolution. Don’t! You want to make sure you make the best decision, for all parties, and ensure that the complaint is fully resolved.

Plan for follow-up. No matter how you handle a customer complaint, you should always be prepared to defend your response. Sometimes a patron won’t like the way you handled complaints and will seek further action. Other times, a state regulatory agency or other bureau or authority will hear about the incident and decide to conduct its own investigation. If this happens to you, it’s important to cooperate and have all your notes in order.

Proper documentation — the timely and accurate logging and filing of incident reports and daily activities — makes the process of handling complaints much more manageable.

Start by making sure your security guards are well-versed in how to describe an incident and include basic information (time, date, location, and witnesses) as well as unbiased, descriptive details. This makes handling complaints much more time efficent.

The process of investigating a customer complaint and documenting the results is much easier when your reports are digital. Storing all your activity logs in the cloud makes it easy to find the data you need when you need it and to properly handle complaints when they occur. Automatic time-stamping means you’ll always know when a report was filed; that’s especially important when investigating a customer complaint because reports filed long after an incident occurred means the information is often less reliable. Late documentation should also be a violation of your internal policies regarding incident reporting.

Moreover, a report that’s altered after it’s initially submitted is often a sign that something is amiss, and digital reporting makes it immediately clear when that has happened.

While paper-based logs are still dominant in the security industry, a crop of mobile apps are starting to emerge to make documentation faster, easier, and more accurate. One example of such an app is GoCanvas’ “Security Officer Daily Activity Log Mobile App,” which allows security guards and officers to log an incident, and then add detailed information such as GPS and images. You can get started with mobile reporting for free for, then decide later whether it’s right for handling complaints and more within your business. Or explore 100’s of other security industry apps that may be perfect for your business!

While training security guards to correctly report incidents, enforce rules, and document activities in a detailed manner doesn’t guarantee that they won’t be the target of customer complaints, but it can help your business retain its professional reputation, minimize the repercussions of a complaint, and better handle complaints in the future.

About GoCanvas

GoCanvas® is on a mission to simplify inspections and maximize compliance. Our intuitive platform takes care of the administrative tasks, freeing our customers to focus on what truly matters – safeguarding their people, protecting their equipment, and delivering exceptional quality to their customers. 

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

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