Contact tracing and safety blog by SaferMe

These six tactics help managers boost remote workers’ wellbeing

As long-term remote working has become more common since the Covid pandemic, managers face a new challenge of ensuring the wellbeing of remote team members. Supporting the holistic health of employees in a remote work setting goes beyond just productivity—it encompasses mental, emotional, and physical aspects. Here are some meaningful ways managers can contribute to the wellbeing of their remote workers: Establish Clear Communication Channels: Open, transparent, and consistent communication is fundamental in a remote work environment. Managers should facilitate regular team meetings, one-on-one check-ins, and provide accessible platforms for employees to voice their concerns and share updates. This not only fosters a sense of connection but also helps in identifying and addressing potential challenges early on. Promote Work-Life Balance: In remote work, the boundaries between professional and personal life can often become blurred. By encouraging remote workers to establish regular work hours and take scheduled breaks, managers can help prevent burnout and promote a healthier work-life balance. Additionally, offering flexibility and understanding individual needs can contribute to a more sustainable and fulfilling work experience. Provide Resources for Mental Health Support: Managers should ensure that their remote team members have access to resources that support mental health and wellbeing. This could involve offering mental health days, providing information on counseling services, or arranging workshops and training on stress management and resilience. Measure / Quantify psychosocial hazards: To understand which psychosocial hazards are impacting the remote staff, a science-based system for measuring these should be implemented. This will help managers to understand the issues that are present and how they can help their remote teams. SaferMe Safety Snap can capture these insights in less than 60 seconds per week. Foster a Supportive Team Culture: Creating a culture of support and collaboration is paramount in a remote work environment. Managers can facilitate virtual team-building activities, encourage peer mentorship, and celebrate achievements to cultivate a sense of camaraderie and belonging within the team. Prioritize Individual Growth and Development: Remote workers, like any other employees, benefit from opportunities for professional growth and skill enhancement. Managers should actively engage in discussions about career goals, provide access to learning resources, and offer developmental opportunities to empower their team members and demonstrate investment in their long-term success. The wellbeing of remote workers is a shared responsibility and managers play a pivotal role in creating an environment that nurtures and supports their team members. A supportive and compassionate approach can go a long way in ensuring the satisfaction and productivity of remote workers. SaferMe’s Safety Snap gives you peace of mind about the wellbeing of your remote workers. Book a free demo to see how it could you better manage your remote team.

18 February 2024 · SaferMe Team

Farm Safety: These 21 questions will improve your operations

Farm safety conversations are a deliberate and proactive way to periodically “check-in” on safety throughout the day. Conversations should be encouraged between everyone on the farm – the owner, family workers, employees, contractors or visitors. You can try working conversations about safety into regular communication. This could be while: planning the day checking in throughout the day morning tea or lunch when something goes wrong when something’s going well at the end of the day Use the opportunity to steer the conversation proactively and deliberately towards health, safety and/or wellbeing. Ask an “open” question that can’t be answered with just a yes or no. Here are 21 questions / conversation starters to get you underway: What’s the plan for today? What jobs do we have to do this week? What’s different from last week? Who is on the farm this week? Do we have contractors? What do we need to do to look after them? What kind of dangers do we need to consider with this work? How would you do this? What do we need to do to keep ourselves safe? Do we need to do this right now, or at all? What should we do if conditions change? What is our plan B? Are we up for this work today? How do we feel? Are we confident we know how to do this right? Do we know how to do this task well? Or is there another way to do this? Have we got the right tools and equipment for the job? Have we allowed enough time to do this properly? Why did our day go well? What is working well?This blog post was written by Henry Samson, of Samson Safety, a qualified health and safety professional and partner of SaferMe. The original post can be found here: https://samsonsafety.nz/having-good-farm-safety-conversations/

2 January 2024 · Henry Samson

A FREE model to help you have better safety conversations

Using coaching techniques helps us engage and influence more effectively when we are having health and safety conversations. It helps us stay ‘neutral’ and helps the person we are having these conversations with often get ‘unstuck’ in their thinking and/or solutions. It draws on their knowledge and experiences, identifies gaps, empowers them to find solutions and takes responsibility for their actions. These types of health and safety conversations provide learning and insights for you and the recipient. They create shared knowledge, build respect, and grow influence. They are actively seeking to raise awareness and find solutions. You are doing four things when having these conversations Questioning – to understand their perspective Listening – what are they saying? And what aren’t they saying? Reflecting – back what you have heard and what you have not heard Supporting and encouraging - so that the person feels heard and involved. The questions you ask are the most powerful tool in these conversations Ask WHAT questions approx. 70% of the time. ‘What’ questions discover both the problem/situation and solution, for example: What do you think is working well? What is your greatest challenge? What is stopping us from being safe? What do you think is the right thing to do? Ask HOW questions approx. 20% of the time. ‘How’ questions discover solutions, for example: How could you change what is happening? How do you see this working? How should we do this? Ask WHERE, WHEN, and WHO questions approx. 10% of the time. These questions are about taking action/responsibility, for example: Where would you go for more information, support, and resources? When will you do this? Who do you need help from? Avoid WHY questions, if possible, as ‘why’ can make people feel they must explain/justify their behaviour, making them defensive. They then stay stuck in the challenge A Helpful Coaching Conversation Model Typically, a coaching conversation happens in these five steps. Sometimes, the conversation moves around between steps, and you may need to guide the person. STEP ONE - Establish Focus We either notice the need to talk or get invited to talk about safety. At this stage, you are establishing the ‘focus’ of the situation. You ask lots of ‘what’ questions to get to the heart of the matter, being curious and encouraging. STEP TWO - Discover Solutions At this stage we have established what the situation is and that we are interested in supporting them. Now the focus turns to exploring possible solutions. Again, we are using mostly “What” questions at this stage. STEP THREE - Plan Action Once solutions emerge, then it’s our role to help them plan the next steps. This part is all about the actions they will take. Questions at this stage start with “Who, What, Where, How”. The practical bits. STEP FOUR - Remove Barriers It’s important to identify any potential barriers that may arise and solutions to those barriers. Otherwise, the plan may fail. For example: What might stop this from working? Who could be a barrier to this succeeding? What help do you need? STEP FIVE - Recap At the end of the conversation, reflect on where you think the conversation went and what actions they have committed to acknowledge them. If needed, hold them to account for achieving them. Here is what I think we have discussed When do you want to meet again to review this?This blog post was written by Henry Samson, of Samson Safety, a qualified health and safety professional and partner of SaferMe. The original post can be found here: https://samsonsafety.nz/influencing-better-health-safety-conversations/

2 January 2024 · Henry Samson

Introducing the site sign-in software designed for dynamic workplaces

Monitoring the activity of employees, contractors and site visitors doesn’t need to be challenging. With SaferMe’s new ‘Sites’ feature, staying on top of the comings and goings of workers is now easier than ever. ‘Sites’ is a user-friendly tool designed to provide Site Managers with real-time visibility into who is present on-site and who is yet to be inducted. Features and Functionality Site Customisation: Define your site boundaries and record editable site information, like emergency evacuation points and first aiders. Flexible Sign-in: Download a QR code for your site entrance or share a sign-in link with workers. Real-time Monitoring: Stay up-to-date with who has signed in and how long they have been on-site. Record Inductions: Mark which workers have completed their induction and stay on top of those who have not. User-Friendly Interface: Intuitive design for hassle-free check-ins that won't trip workers up at the gate. Benefits of adopting ‘Sites’ Enhanced Safety Measures: Real-time monitoring enables swift response in case of emergencies, ensuring everyone's safety. Improved Accountability: Accurate attendance records foster accountability among workers, encouraging punctuality and responsibility. Efficient Workforce Management: Site Managers can optimise resources and schedules by having real-time visibility into workforce presence. How does sign-in work? Site Managers and Administrators will download the site QR code or share the sign-in link with workers. After scanning the QR code or opening the link, workers will be prompted to: Enter in their phone number to receive a text sign-in link Open the secure text link Complete their details in the fields provided to gain access to the site To sign-out, the worker can simply reload the sign-in success page What’s coming in next? Looking ahead to 2024, SaferMe will roll out additional site functionality like mobile app sign-in for SaferMe users and the ability to attach hazards from the risk register to a site. Want to know more about how how to enable this feature for your organisation? Reach out to our team at support@safer.me

22 November 2023 · Emma Withers

[MEDIA RELEASE] PlaceMakers increases investment in staff wellbeing, expands use of SaferMe psychosocial hazard tool

Two additional PlaceMakers frame and truss manufacturing sites will implement SaferMe’s psychosocial hazard measurement solution ‘Safety Snap’ after a successful implementation in the company’s Christchurch plant. PlaceMakers leadership implemented Safety Snap in an effort to extend the company’s positive health, safety and wellbeing culture by identifying challenges experienced by staff that could impact their wellbeing, or lead to absenteeism or worker turnover.After a successful pilot period where high worker engagement was achieved and valuable insights were generated, the programme will be expanded.“We take the wellbeing of our staff very seriously so using Safety Snap was a logical move for us. We’re really pleased with how simple it has been to use - it was very easy for the site leadership and workers to keep using it.“The analysis from the SaferMe team led by Dr Cantwell has been excellent. It’s helped us identify areas where we’re performing strongly, and a couple of tweaks we can implement to make our site even better and safer for staff,” said Mark Buckenham, General Manager Manufacturing & Estimating at PlaceMakers Manufacturing. (Fletcher Distribution Ltd). Safety Snap generates psychosocial data with a workplace-integrated weekly micro-survey that takes less than 60 seconds. It is available in any language, with no app required. The solution’s development was co-funded by Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) as part of its Workplace Injury Prevention Innovation Programme. SaferMe founder & CEO Clint van Marrewijk said he was thrilled to partner with PlaceMakers and help generate valuable insights.“It’s wonderful to see their workforce engaging so well with the tool, and for the leadership to now be working on insights generated. The impact will make a real difference for workers.“With the amount of data we have we’re now providing valuable industry benchmark information, so our customers get very rich context about their results.”With new psychosocial hazard laws implemented in Australia over the past 12 months, SaferMe is continuing its expansion of Safety Snap in both New Zealand and Australia.More information is available at www.safer.me/features/safety-snap/

21 November 2023 · SaferMe Team

Press Release: Psychosocial Hazards in the construction industry

A study of psychosocial hazards in New Zealand construction businesses has revealed that workers are frequently abused and threatened; and that health and safety leaders are facing huge challenges. The study collected over 30,000 data points from construction businesses around the country and was led by Dr Steve Cantwell of safety software company SaferMe. The work was co-funded by ACC via its Workplace Injury Prevention innovation programme, and supported by CHASNZ (Construction Health & Safety NZ) and Civil Contractors NZ. CLICK THE IMAGE ABOVE TO VIEW THE KEY FINDINGS DOCUMENT Among the set of six key findings published today:- Verbal abuse and physical threats are common- One in four workers avoid reporting injuries- Health & Safety leaders suffer low levels of support, more workplace bullying and poor role claritySaferMe’s report follows on from the publication of the Business Leaders’ Health and Safety Forum’s State of a Thriving Nation report last week, which showed NZ’s workplace death rate is double Australia’s, with deaths and injuries costing the country $4.4 billion per year.“Psychosocial hazards increase the likelihood of accidents and injuries; as well as making workers more likely to be absent or to leave a business. It’s certainly contributing to our abysmal statistics as a nation, and more needs to be done to understand and address psychosocial hazards,” SaferMe founder and CEO Clint van Marrewijk said.“Our team led by Dr Cantwell has taken a very thorough process to examine these challenges in construction and other sectors, and we’re now helping businesses to measure these problems and fix them, “ van Marrewijk said. CHASNZ Chief Executive Officer Chris Alderson said the study could help shape a better future for construction work: “Robust evidence-based studies such as that undertaken by Dr Cantwell and SaferMe provide the construction industry with valuable insight into how to create a better future for our construction workforce. There are instant and implementable takeaways for construction businesses around the value of fostering collaborative and supportive workplaces as well as reducing known psychosocial risk factors.” SaferMe is now focused on helping further industries and individual businesses to measure and address psychosocial hazards in their workplace with its Safety Snap tool, developed with co-funding from ACC.Safety Snap is an evidence-based tool that helps a business understand the psychosocial challenges affecting staff on their worksites in less than one minute per week.More information on Safety Snap is available at www.safer.me/features/safety-snap/

10 September 2023 · SaferMe Team

Why Aren't All Safety Apps Offline Capable?

Most places have mobile connectivity, and most people have access to the internet 24-hours of the day... until suddenly they don't. When moving from job-site to job-site, it is surprisingly common for team members to be stuck in offline areas. When they are offline the flexibility to enter safety information is gone. Sometimes even in a well connected workplace, a lack of connectivity can happen in internet dark-zones. In a heavily reinforced concrete & steel corner, or even an elevator. The lack of offline functionality in safety software leads to loss of engagement in safety. We find this annoying, and it’s why at SaferMe we think that making safety easy, even in remote locations, is important. This is why SaferMe has invested in building seamless, native offline apps. Launching the SaferMe Android app, as a companion to our recently redeveloped iPhone app. With SaferMe, users can: Using a safety app anywhere, wherever data entry is needed (even in the elevator).Eliminate the risk of hazard sharing delays. Use a faster app - apps with offline capability require less loading time, when moving from offline to online mode. Data retrieval is less likely to drain device battery too. Why the lack of offline capability in safety? Many safety app providers don't go to the lengths needed to provide a seamless offline product - perhaps because the client's purchasing department isn't in the field... in seriousness, it may simply be due to difficulty. The complex part of building a high quality offline app is weak connection modes. This is where the edge cases happen, in limited/low connectivity, where apps need to be carefully tested and improved. This is where SaferMe excels. Learn more about the brand new offline apps here, and receive a demo of what an excellent offline safety app looks like.

17 July 2023 · Jessica Knapp

Why your workplace wellbeing app is doomed to fail

A new wellbeing app is launched within a company to great plaudits, and it’s going to ‘transform’ wellbeing in the organisation.Twelve months later the app is not used and not spoken of. Its impact - if any - is unknown, and unmeasured - apart from perhaps the number of times the app was opened and what people clicked on.Sound familiar?If it does sound familiar that’s because it is a common story in workplaces around the globe over the past decade. In the well-meaning interest of ‘doing something’ about mental wellbeing and psychosocial hazards, one of the many thousands of wellbeing apps was launched. But when it inevitably failed to have a real impact, the organisation ends up back at square one.How can you solve a problem you haven’t measured?There are a myriad of reasons (some of which are canvassed nicely in this article by U.S. based licensed counselor Dan Smith) why the ‘first generation’ of wellbeing apps have not delivered true, quantifiable outcomes for workplaces. Perhaps the most significant in my opinion is because these apps jump straight into offering a “solution” to an unmeasured and unknown problem.In any field of medicine or support - even in the field of sub-clinical advice - the first step to helping a person or group of people should be to quantify and understand the issues that are present, before you try to recommend a solution.This is where businesses go wrong. Purchasing software to solve a problem, before you even know what the problem is, is problematic! By not identifying or quantifying the actual issues it essentially guarantees you will struggle to deliver any impact because you have no data for a baseline, and therefore no data to show what you are improving. Generating data about only interactions or clicks is meaningless.Taking a measured approachIn collaboration with the New Zealand Government’s Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC), SaferMe has developed a tool called Safety Snap which measures psychosocial hazards inside your business.The tool uses an evidence based approach to measure and quantify psychological and social hazards - which means you can do three things:1) Understand the profile of the psychosocial issues present and the level to which they’re impacting workers 2) Enable a targeted approach to solving real problems 3) Keep measuring to understand the impact of interventions you makeWith this approach you will not only derive valuable insights, you can also measure the impact of actions you take to resolve challenges. Improvements will deliver a return on investment through reductions in absenteeism, presenteeism, worker turnover, plus accidents and injuries. Read more about Safety Snap and book a free demo.

20 June 2023 · SaferMe Team

How to calculate return on investment (ROI) on psychosocial wellbeing programmes

Is a psychosocial risk or wellbeing programme a good investment for your business? Of course it’s worth protecting and improving the wellbeing of your team - but you will likely want to understand the financial impact or return on investment (ROI) of such an initiative. And even if you aren’t too interested, your CFO definitely will be.To answer this question properly we need to first understand the costs of the issues that poor psychosocial wellbeing leads to. These issues - absenteeism, presenteeism, accidents and injuries and worker turnover (or ‘churn’) we will explore below.The cost of AbsenteeismAbsenteeism refers to lost days of productive work due to staff being absent due to illness, injury, stress or any other reason. Many companies will be aware of their absenteeism rate, which helps to understand the financial impact of absenteeism. Using the number of staff multiplied by productive hours per year, we get the total productive hours per year for all staff. Multiplying this figure by the absenteeism rate calculates the total productive hours lost to absence. To calculate the financial value of the lost productivity, we multiply this by the average revenue per employee per hour. For example; in an organisation of 1000 staff if the absenteeism rate is around the average of 3.5%, then 60,025 hours of productive work are lost each year. At a business with an average revenue of $80 per employee per hour, the annual cost of absenteeism is $4,800,000. The cost of PresenteeismPresenteeism is an umbrella term for the impact that psychosocial issues like stress, fatigue, and workplace bullying have on a worker’s productivity. The worker may be present, but due to these issues they are distracted, unmotivated or cognitively impacted, making them less effective.Much research has been conducted looking at the financial impact of presenteeism. A thorough 2018 study from the UK’s Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health estimates the cost of presenteeism as an average per worker cost of £605 per year. (USD$755 / AUD$1135 / NZD$1212)In our case of the 1000 person business, this represents an annual cost of presenteeism of (AUD) $1,135,000 per year. The cost of Worker Turnover (Churn)Worker turnover is costly across all industries, due to hiring and retraining costs as well as the impact of lost productivity. These costs do of course vary with the level of training required, and may account for significant financial commitments, particularly in industries and roles where specific training is required to bring new employees up to speed. Research from the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD) published in conjunction with the European Union Health & Safety Agency (EU-OSHA) has estimated the average cost of replacing an employee at £5,800. (USD$7,240 / AUD$10,889 / NZD$11,605).To calculate the cost we take this average cost and multiply it by the number of stress-related worker departures. This is calculated using University of Masschusetts research that shows 40% of job turnover relating to stress. So, if in our 1000 person business, we have 30 job departures during a year, we can assume 12 of these are stress related. 12 x $10,889 equals a total worker turnover cost of (AUD) $130,668. The cost of accidents and injuries, and reputational damageThis is more difficult to measure reliably and in a consistent way in relation to psychosocial factors, because accidents and injuries generally involve a combination of factors - the intersection between stressors that are psychological in nature, as well as situational, ergonomic and biomechanical. Additionally, varying severity and external circumstances can elevate the cost of particular types of incidents. However it is fair to say that both the costs related to accidents and injuries and external reputation damage can be significant when an accident, injury or issue with psychosocial factors at a workplace cause serious harm. While we don’t attempt to place number values on accidents, injuries or reputational damage in our calculations of ROI for clients; we do recommend that your organisation considers this as an additional risk in your evaluation of whether to adopt preventive measures in the psychosocial wellbeing space. How to generate a Return on Investment (ROI) In our example business of 1000 staff we have established that, using average assumptions across absenteeism, presenteeism and worker turnover, there is an annual cost to the business of (AUD) $6,065,668 from these issues. Generating a return on investment by targeting psychosocial hazards and wellbeing relies on investing in measures that solve the actual challenges present.SaferMe’s Safety Snap tool solves this problem by helping businesses to identify the psychosocial factors that are present in their workplace, and quantifying them. In less than one minute per week, Safety Snap collects data using an evidence based method, so business leadership have simple, clear data about the psychosocial hazards that are at elevated levels and need to be addressed.By helping businesses to focus on which issues need attention, and where in the business they need fixing, Safety Snap makes the job of improve workplace experience much easier, and prevents wasted investment.Our approach is to target modest and achievable improvements across absenteeism, presenteeism and turnover. In the example of our 1000 person business, which is experiencing costs of $6,065,668 per year, we will target:- A 2.5% improvement in absenteeism costs- A 7.5% improvement in presenteeism costs- A 5% improvement in turnover costsMore: Book a free 30 minute demo of Safety Snap.How to calculate the Return on Investment (ROI) of psychosocial wellbeing initiativesNow we know the costs of absenteeism, presenteeism and turnover, and have conservative estimates on the gains we can achieve by addressing the issues behind them - we can calculate the return on investment of the initiative.In our example business of 1000 staff, the modest targets listed above will deliver the business a saving of $211,658.40 per year.We then subtract the cost of the programme to calculate our ROI. In this case an estimated $60,000 Safety Snap programme cost for a business of this size - and Safety Snap has helped to generate a $150,000 per year return on their investment in the programme.Would you like help calculating an ROI for your business?Book a Zoom session with one of our Safety Snap solution experts and we’ll use our evidence-based model to help calculate the return on investment your business can realise, based on real numbers from your organisation. Book your free 30 minute Zoom call

22 May 2023 · SaferMe Team

How to create an effective psychosocial hazard risk register

Understanding, risk assessing and monitoring psychosocial hazards is key to ensuring your business complies with Australia’s new workplace psychosocial laws. Every business manager and director needs to ensure this takes place and is documented within their organisation. Safe Work Australia’s Code of Practice provides useful guidance about how businesses can go about this. One of the steps it suggests is creating a psychosocial hazard risk register.The purpose of a risk register for psychosocial hazards is to: Formally document that the business is aware of the different risks Document the harm or impact these risks can have Gather and identify controls for each risk Score each risk using a consistent framework Manage and document regular monitoring of the risks All of this can be easily achieved using SaferMe’s psychosocial hazard risk register software, which starts from as little as $50 per month. How SaferMe’s psychosocial hazard risk register software worksSaferMe’s easy to use tool makes the documenting, review and communication of psychosocial hazards much easier than working with spreadsheets, and provides guarantees you won’t have if you use editable internal documents that can’t be tracked, and don’t offer automated reminders.Here are the five simple steps to successfully managing your psychosocial risk register Input your risk scoring framework and the psychosocial hazards into SaferMe. (SaferMe even has a team who can help with this boring task! Give each risk an initial risk rating, and a residual risk rating with controls in place. Set a review date for each risk. This will remind senior leadership or those responsible to review the controls and risk rating at a frequency which you can choose. Review the risks - SaferMe keeps a tracked record of the reviews and any changes made, to show you have been monitoring and managing the risks. Download the register - You can download an easy to read PDF of the full register if you need to communicate it as part of compliance or prequalification checks, or to share with your Board of Directors.Book a free 15 minute demo and we can get you started with your psychosocial risk register today!

10 May 2023 · SaferMe Team

General Marburg Virus Background For Business Contact Tracing

We've been asked by clients how they should be preparing for the Marburg outbreak, regarding their contact tracing efforts. Firstly let's start with some general background: Efforts to stop the growing outbreak of the Marburg virus are being stepped up as it continues to spread in African countries. The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is sending personnel to Guinea and Tanzania to help efforts to slow or stop the virus spread, amid fears that reporting of cases is not currently accurate. The Marburg virus, also known as Marburg hemorrhagic fever, is a highly infectious virus that is classified as a biosafety level-4 pathogen. Marburg is considered to be a serious threat to public health because of its high fatality rate. The virus has a mortality rate of up to 88%. It is part of the family of viruses that also includes the Ebola virus, and like Ebola, Marburg is highly contagious and has no known cure. The virus was first identified in 1967 when it broke out simultaneously in laboratories in Marburg and Frankfurt, Germany, as well as in Belgrade, Serbia. The Marburg virus is spread through contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person or animal, such as blood, saliva, vomit, or urine. It can also be contracted through contact with contaminated surfaces or objects. Symptoms of Marburg virus infection include fever, headache, muscle aches, vomiting, and diarrhea. In severe cases, the virus can cause hemorrhaging (bleeding) from multiple organs, leading to shock and death. The risk of a Marburg virus outbreak is greatest in areas where the virus is endemic, in regions of Africa, however, the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the virus has epidemic potential. Most of SaferMe's clients aren't yet redeploying or expanding contact tracing as a result of the latest developments, however, they are currently in an 'observing' phase. In this phase, they are preparing to act should the situation escalate further. We're advising particular caution and awareness in regions where health infrastructure and resources are more limited, which would severely impact the effectiveness of a response to an outbreak, and to prepare to deploy contact tracing.

14 April 2023 · SaferMe Team

CHASNZ Webinar to feature SaferMe's psychosocial solution

CHASNZ is hosting a webinar on March 30th to feature SaferMe's innovation work in developing a new psychosocial risk management solution for businesses. The solution - Safety Snap - is a science-based tool that gathers data about the psychological and social factors impacting workers. The solution has been developed with the backing of ACC via its Workplace Injury Prevention innovation programme.All of the factors monitored in Safety Snap are proven, when present, to increase the risk of accident and injury; wellbeing problems; as well as absenteeism and worker churn. The tool is designed to be easy for workers: It takes just 10-seconds per day to contribute; it's done anonymously and it is translated into any language required.On the webinar SaferMe science lead Dr Steve Cantwell will join co-founder Mike Steere and CHASNZ's Chris Alderson and Jon Harper-Slade to discuss the research and development of the tool; to share some valuable findings from early pilot data (construction industry), and show how businesses can start their own project.You can register for the webinar via this linkSaferMe is working in collaboration with CHASNZ and Civil Contractors NZ on this project.For more information about the Safety Snap product or to book a free demo for you or your team, visit: https://www.safer.me/safety-snap/

17 March 2023 · SaferMe Team

How do you measure psychosocial risk in a business?

Finding a framework to measure or assess psychosocial risk in businesses is becoming a necessity for senior managers to understand.In Australia, new legislation implemented in late 2022 means that psychosocial risk must now be risk assessed, managed and addressed in the same way all other health and safety risks are required to be managed by law. Many businesses in New Zealand are already moving down this path due to an increased focus on mental wellbeing issues in the aftermath of the Covid pandemic.This is an example of the step change occurring in the way psychological and social workplace risks are being managed. With employee wellbeing more important than ever before - and highly competitive job markets making it difficult to attract and retain talent, it is anticipated many more countries, and more health and safety standards providers will soon increase the importance of psychosocial risk in their jurisdictions.If you have an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) in place, you might be wondering how to take the next step to measure and understand psychosocial issues in a consistent manner.Why measure psychosocial risk?Peer-reviewed research from around the world has shown consistently that psychosocial factors play an important role in an employees wellbeing, and their cognitive capacity to perform tasks safely and efficiently.This is particularly pronounced in medium to high risk industries such as construction, engineering and other trades, manufacturing, agriculture, horticulture, waste management and many more. In these industries, any cognitive impact caused by psychosocial factors leads to greater risk of a workplace accident or injury.In addition to the accident and injury risk, psychological and social factors in the workplace can affect how an employee or contractor experiences work - increasing the likelihood of absenteeism and worker turnover / churn.What is the best way to assess and monitor psychosocial risk?Measuring psychosocial risk needs a consistent science-based framework for you to reliably measure and monitor change over time.Some key considerations when planning how to measure psychosocial risk in a business are:1. Making it easy to participate - if it causes pain to the workers’ workday, they won’t do it.2. Make it a regular part of workers’ day or week - embed into existing routines where possible, measure regularly to understand changing dynamics.3. Measure what matters - take a science based approach to the psychosocial issues you track so you know the data you generate is robust.4. Customize the experience to your workforce - translate information or questions into different languages and allow them to do it anonymously if they find it hard to share personal information.5. Commit to the journey - the business must communicate its commitment to improving when shortcomings are identified, so your workers know why they are doing it. This is also vital for compliance with workplace psychosocial risk laws. SaferMe has developed a science-based psychosocial risk tool with the backing of New Zealand’s Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) Innovation Programme.We can help your business to measure, analyse and improve psychosocial issues that increase the risk of accidents, injuries, absenteeism and worker churn.More info: Learn more and book an obligation-free 20 minute demo session

31 January 2023 · SaferMe Team

Women in Construction - Building the Future

The world being built around us has never before had such a diverse workforce. Women’s contribution within the construction industry is one such strand of diversity that’s slowly increasing but making an impact. As the number of women in construction continues to increase, and we see ceiling-breaking developments such as Bailey Gair being elected as President of Civil Contractors New Zealand (their first female President in their 78 year history) - SaferMe's Sarah Dudley looks into what's driving this change and what transformation it might bring. The Stats Construction, similar to other industries affected by advancements in technology, has experienced major change over the last decade. The construction workforce is changing too to reflect new roles, processes and to meet demand. Recent stats in the US show women make up only 10.9% of the entire construction workforce. Looking more closely, the lion's share of these construction roles are office roles like admin and HR (just under 87%), whereas only 2.5% of tradespeople are women. This lack of representation is also felt in areas such as the civil engineering profession (one of the best paid worldwide), yet only around 12% of civil engineering professionals are women according to Forbes magazine. Similarly only 17% of registered architects are women according to the American Institute of Architects (2020). However women are proving to be a much needed resource to meet demand and these stats are increasing. In March 2022, the Construction Federation of Ireland released a report revealing that one in four jobs added in 2021 went to women. Not only that but the total number of women in the industry has reached the highest level since records began in 1994. In the USA attitudes are changing towards recognising the construction industry as a positive working environment for women. Business Wire reported that 76% of women surveyed stated that the construction environment is changing for the better and 80% saying that they love their job. So what has changed to attract more women into construction? Construction is a changing industry with emerging technologies, new innovative roles and major project demand - so women have been highlighted as an untapped workforce. The industry is attracting a more diverse workforce by raising awareness of opportunities available, creating support networks and designing tailored outreach. Women are finally able to visualize longevity for themselves in construction. One of the most important aspects of bolstering this momentum is representation. The more women are visually represented in ad campaigns, recruitment call outs, leadership, mentoring, training and education, the more women can see construction as a viable career option for their futures. Genuine and authentic representation is important. Keeping relevant and being accessible to everyone. Eliminating barriers which historically alienated outsiders from getting a look in. Social media plays a part in opening a closed off industry to a wider audience. Today, doing a basic ‘women in construction’ search on YouTube, you can find an abundance of visual content of women discussing, debating, sharing and teaching all things construction. Emily Pilliton-Lam a diversity in construction non-profit founder, generated 1.4M views of her TedTalk video - ‘What if women built the world they want to see?’ She speaks of her first-hand experience training young women and opens up the conversation of imagining a world built through equity. ‘’More than just an economic opportunity, though, is a chance for women to play an equal and substantive role in the making of our physical world.’’ Women are acquiring a more equal contribution to the way the world is being built. If that share continues to increase we can really start to imagine what would the experience of our parks, buildings, homes and environments feel with a more equitable approach in their construction. Obstacles to progression & retention in construction Women are overcoming the well-recognised barriers to entering the workforce and more and more are beginning careers in construction. A complex challenge for all in the industry is to identify how best to retain women in the industry. Support networks like WIC (Women in Construction Week) in the US, founded in 1960, run an awareness campaign every year. Their goal is to highlight the achievements of women in the construction industry and encourage any woman in construction to join a support association as a way to create community and share experiences. In their 2020 report on Women in Construction, Randstad in the UK reported ‘’it’s important for employers to look at their policies and see if extra flexibility and ways of working can be implemented in order to retain the current female workforce.’’ The report also sighted equal pay, flexibility of working hours and equal growth opportunities for men and women as the top three factors to help women stay in the industry. It’s important to state that the low numbers of women in construction is not something that can be fixed with a hiring binge. Real change comes with cultural reflection, an honest conversation about making people feel welcome and appreciated that it becomes intrinsic, embedded. We are now living in a time when the construction industry has changed so much that workers no longer have to fit exactly into what construction demands, rather the industry is the putty that the workers can mold and cultural changes come from the top down. When they trickle and permeate every level, when women can visualize themselves within the structure with longevity and flourish with their work, that’s when the real change occurs. When we see more evidence from leadership showing a desire for genuine and sustainable change we see results. For example celebrating the unique perspectives of women, their problem solving, analytical and empathic communication skills. Appreciation for diversity at every level creates more inclusive workplaces that celebrate belonging as opposed to ‘fitting in’. If we want to see further equity in how the world around us is built, all sides must work together to create a working industry that benefits everyone. The door to the construction industry has been wedged ajar, now it is up to everyone collectively to push it wide open.

20 September 2022 · Sarah Dudley

SaferMe releases new iOS App

Great safety reporting and management has just gotten easier, faster and better looking!SaferMe’s new iOS App for Apple devices is now hitting app stores and it offers a new interface designed to make app navigation easier, as well as some key background and speed improvements.Upgrades include: New design and introduction of bottom navigation for improved ease of use. Upgrade to the offline-first functionality - giving users a seamless experience regardless of where they are. Improved task management via mobile - so you can update and track important tasks on the go. Enhanced speed and performance so safety reporting is more efficient than ever. A new app for Android users will follow in Q4.Speaking about the release of the new app, Christian Sykes, COO said: "Our customers often work in remote and challenging locations, with limited or no connectivity. It's critical that our app works perfectly no matter the conditions, so they can focus on getting the job done safely. "This app is a really big step forward for these people." The new app can be downloaded from the iOS store.An introduction and guidance sheet for the new app can be accessed here.

26 August 2022 · SaferMe Team

Tips on Making Your Next Toolbox Talk great, with 101 Toolbox Talk Examples

What is a Toolbox Talk? Toolbox talks are a short, informal group discussion. They are a way to ensure all workers are aware of specific safety hazards and safe work practices. It also gives everyone an opportunity to discuss any hazards/controls, incidents or accidents that may have happened in the work environment. Ideally, toolbox talks should be run daily and should be part of your workplace routine. Each talk should cover a new toolbox talk topic, including a quick discussion on the topic, highlighting any information that is specific to your workplace. Here are 101 Toolbox Talk examples for you to check out. PS. We also sell Toolbox Talk Cards! What makes a good toolbox talk? Be Relevant Make sure you're talking with your team about topics that make sense to the site, people and type of work that you’re doing. There’s no point delivering a talk on Office Desk Ergonomics if all of your workers are based out on the field. It’s much better to take a relevant topic that relates to your team's work at that time, this will keep them engaged and interested in what is being discussed. Our Toolbox Talk Card Packs come with 4 different themes, to help you choose relevant topics for your team. Ask questions Rather than making your toolbox talk meetings a lecture with no team discussions, try asking questions to promote involvement. Getting your team involved not only makes everyone an important part of the safety process but it can also help in identifying potential hazards or accidents that may have not yet been reported. Check out the ‘Chat Time’ section on our Toolbox Talk Cards, here we offer 3 different questions and talking points relating to each of our Toolbox topics. Engaging delivery Traditionally, Toolbox Talks are delivered face to face with one person (usually your health and safety manager) giving the talk, and the rest of the team listening in. If someone can’t make it to the Toolbox Talk, having a handout or digital copy available for them is a good way to make sure everyone is kept up to date with your safety processes. Each of our Toolbox Talk Cards come with an online version on the topic, send your team the related link or they can be downloaded and printed. Demonstrations are a great way to keep everyone engaged in the topic and will help your team retain the information. For example if you are giving a Toolbox Talk on Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), have all the PPE that the team should be wearing with you and demonstrate what and how it should be worn. Record meeting notes Keeping meeting minutes is a great way to ensure topics aren’t being missed or repeated. They can help you keep track of who was in attendance at each talk, and help you bridge any knowledge gaps within your team. It is also a good opportunity to write down any unanswered questions or comments brought up by your team so they are not forgotten and to ensure that the right actions are taken. Keeping records can be as easy as jotting down who was there and what topic was covered in a notepad, or you can have a Toolbox Talk Form that is filled in during and/or after each meeting. Toolbox Talk Examples Wondering how you will come up with new and engaging toolbox talk topics? We have you covered.Below is our list of 101 Toolbox Talk Topics for your business. Want to see more detailed toolbox talk topic ideas? Check out our toolbox talk topic generator. Or check out our Toolbox Talk Card Packs for inspiration and guidance for your daily toolbox talks. Each pack contains 50 Toolbox Talk Cards with talking points, sample questions to ask your team and a QR code that takes you to more details on each topic. Toolbox Talk Examples: Evacuation procedures Excavation Eye Strain Eye protection Fall protection Anchor Systems Fatigue Management Fire Extinguishers Fire prevention First Aid Footwear Forklifts Frostbite Gas Safety Guard Rails Hand Tool Safety Hand protection Hazard Assessment Head Protection Hearing protection Hoisting Signals Home office egonomics Housekeeping Hydrogen Sulfide Inert Gasses Ladder safety Lead Leg safety Legionella Lighting Conditions Lone Working Method Statement Mind on safety Mold and Mildew Near misses Noise exposure Permits To Work Personal Care and Conduct Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Power Line Safety Presenteeism Protecting the Public Rebar and Impalement Hazards Refueling Respiratory Protection Rights and responsibilities Risk Assessment Roof Work Safe Use of Power Tools Safety Culture Safety Nets Safety Signs Scaffold Safety Sharp objects Silica Dust Exposure Site Access and Egress Skip Loaders Slips, Trips, and Falls Social Distancing Stress Stretching Summer Weather Hazards Temporary Heating Temporary Stairs and Handrails Traffic control Trailer Towing Tyre Safety Underground Utilities Welder’s Flash Winter Site Safety Work refusal Working from home Workplace Complacency Youth in Construction Zero harm

17 August 2022 · SaferMe Team

Monkeypox guidance for business contact tracing

As an expert in contact tracing, business leaders are now reaching out to us to ask about the growing spread of the monkeypox virus. In general, they are all asking a version of this question: What is it that they can do to avoid disruption? One major concern for business leaders is the length of time needed to fully recover from a case of monkeypox. Some cases have described up to a month (much longer than Covid isolations), before their lesions were fully healed and they were able to return to a physical work setting. What this means for business leaders is that avoiding operational disruption and employee sickness from monkeypox are now important risks to mitigate. How to filter employee contact distance for Monkeypox: During waves of Covid when the risk of disruption is higher, businesses often adjust the contact distance filters in SaferMe to better protect against spread. For example, a high precaution setting is to select the 20-feet contact filter, rather than the more commonly used 6-foot and 15 minutes filter. This filtering can be done on every employee's contact table in SaferMe: With Monkeypox the 6ft filter setting indicates direct face-to-face contact (coughing and sneezing risks transmission) or direct physical contact, and should any employee experience a case of Monkeypox, this distance setting is a good starting point and in line with current health authority guidance. What are the current recommendations? The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control along with the CDC and WHO are publishing regular advice and updates about monkeypox. The advice about the importance of contact tracing to slow or stop the spread of this virus has been made clear. The ECDC recently said: “Epidemiological experience and mathematical modeling have repeatedly shown case identification and contact tracing as important interventions in this current outbreak…” To this extent we recommend businesses should be preparing their virus response toolkit now, to ensure they can move with speed and minimize the impact of the virus hitting their organization during the peak of the outbreak. Why use Bluetooth contact tracing? Automation now allows your organization to quickly trace the close contacts of a monkeypox case in your team, and isolate those you need to, to help prevent the spread of the virus. Just as important to a business is not overreacting when a case does occur, isolating too many people, and shutting down when it's not necessary. Accurate data makes an accurate response possible. Your team wants to carry on working, feeling safe, confident that their workplace has deployed best practice systems to keep them healthy. For more information on SaferMe’s contact tracing system for Monkeypox, book a meeting here.

1 August 2022 · SaferMe Team

How businesses can prepare for Monkeypox

Monkeypox cases have tripled in the past two weeks and the World Health Organization is urging European countries - where the outbreak is worst - to take action.The WHO’s message came after cases in the current outbreak passed 5000 this week.As the cases continue to grow both in Europe and in parts of the United States; the WHO also issued updated guidance about recommended contact tracing practices to help manage the virus. It said:“As soon as a suspected case is identified, contact identification and forward contact tracing should be initiated. Contacts of probable and confirmed cases should be monitored, or should self-monitor, daily for any sign or symptom for a period of 21 days from last contact.”How should businesses respond?At this stage the WHO has not classified the virus as a public health emergency, however it noted it would be reviewing this position soon.This means businesses should not hit the panic button yet - but they should be prepared for a potential escalation and not discount the potential for disruption.The best suggested course of action is to be prepared. How will your organization respond if you do need to start contact tracing and re-implementing hygiene measures?Many of SaferMe’s customers have switched to our long-term Preparedness Plans after successfully navigating Covid-19 outbreaks over the past two years. SaferMe’s automated contact tracing technology is the best practice way to slow or stop the spread of a virus once it enters your workforce.Preparing ahead of time is the best way to guarantee you will have access to the tools you need, as soon as you need them. Whether it is monkeypox, a new Covid variant or a completely new virus that threatens your company’s safety, productivity or continuity.To learn more about how you can get Pandemic Prepared - book a session with one of our Pandemic Preparation experts here.

17 July 2022 · SaferMe Team

Introducing SpotCast, a new video instruction product.

The first time you ever do a task is often the most dangerous time. The reality of work, is that a job you’ve never done before will take you longer to complete. When you do a job for the first time you are more prone to error, and if it is a physical job, injury. Sometimes serious injury. Proper one-on-one training done at the right time helps to turn a “first time job” into an easy job. But giving one-on-one training isn’t always possible. That is why we created SpotCast. It is designed to be the easiest way in the world to record video instructions. Why attach instructions to physical objects? The team at SaferMe built this product to help solve a problem that we experience too. Our CEO and his family are in the dairy farming business. The head developer of SpotCast is a Kiwi orchard owner. We know how useful one-on-one training with employees and contractors can be, but that sometimes you can’t be around to show them exactly what to do. SpotCast is designed to be a practical tool for unstructured workplaces. A way to attach instructions to physical objects. How does it work? All you need to do is: Place a SpotCast sticker on a piece of equipment or in a location you care about. Scan the QR code sticker, and you will be asked to record your video. Once done, the next time someone scans your SpotCast sticker, your training video will show. It’s that easy. For hints and tips on making a great tutorial video click here. Why QR codes and Video? If a picture says a thousand words, then a video says more! Showing people what to do rather than telling them, helps to communicate what they need to know. While QR codes have been around for 30 years, it took a pandemic to bring their usage into the mainstream. Now when people see a QR code, they know they can scan it to either do something or learn something. You can learn more about SpotCast by going here. Or you can click here to order QR codes for your business.

16 July 2022 · SaferMe Team

Introducing Toolbox Talk Cards, by SaferMe

You probably already know that Toolbox Talks are a great way to engage your team in workplace health and safety discussions. But, unfortunately, they are not always performed. One of the reasons is that safety leaders have difficulty coming up with new topics. Day after day. To solve this, you can now use SaferMe’s Toolbox Cards to inspire your team. How did we get here? SaferMe started writing short toolbox talks ideas about 12-months ago, after hearing feedback from customers that they were struggling for inspiration. This was a runaway success. Tens of thousands of people regularly view SaferMe toolbox talks, and thousands have signed up to get a toolbox talk sent to them daily. We also built a digital toolbox talk form feature inside SaferMe. Why are toolbox talk cards needed? Curious as to why “tool box talk topics” were so popular, we surveyed the subscribers and found that: 63% of organisations are doing daily toolbox talks 61% of organisations did not provide their employees with any resources to help run a toolbox talk 64% told us they needed new ideas…. When we gave options for what would help facilitate the running of toolbox talks, it stood out that printed cards were what people wanted. You ask, we deliver We worked with expert safety consultants to develop SaferMe Toolbox Talk Cards. One pack of cards contains 50 toolbox talks with: Brief notes to start a conversation. 2-3 questions or discussion points, to make sure your toolbox talks are a two-way conversation rather than a boring lecture. A QR code that links to a detailed online toolbox talk, if you need more information to help run your talk. Users tell us the toolbox talks cards are working great. The cards are left in places like the lunch room, inside a pickup truck, or wherever is close to meeting places on-site each day. The cards are especially great for organizations with multiple locations. Using toolbox talk cards helps them have a consistent experience in 1 location, or in 100 locations. Click here to order your toolbox talk cards.

3 July 2022 · SaferMe Team

Future Pandemic Readiness

How proactive contact tracing management for employees facilitates continuity of operations How do we do it better next time? That’s a key question many business leaders have been asking in recent months as companies begin to reach conclusions about how well they have managed the Covid-19 pandemic and what its overall impact was on their businesses. They are also asking other questions: What worked well? What mistakes did they make? Where were customers impacted the most? In many sectors such as manufacturing and production, construction, energy, and health care, the absence of workers due to illness or isolating has been consistently near - or at - the top of the list of factors inhibiting continuity of operations (COOP) and productivity through the pandemic. Beyond the anecdotes, there is science behind this too: A 2021 study from the Warsaw University of Technology examining the effect of Covid-19 on the manufacturing sector found that worker absence had the greatest impact on operational activities. From a cost perspective, it was estimated in 2020 by the American Property Casualty Insurance Association (APCIA) that business continuity losses alone in the United States “totals about $1 trillion per month” due to the pandemic. But if businesses need to improve their resilience against this problem to be better prepared for the next dangerous variant or disease, what should business leaders be doing? Keeping employees safer at work Companies without a contact tracing process are more likely to suffer from widespread business interruption and a drop in productivity and profitability when employees become infected with a pandemic illness. The critical value of contact tracing is that it prevents exponential growth of virus cases within an organization. Preventing exponential growth of the virus means protecting productivity and ensuring continuity of operations by avoiding having large numbers of the workforce sick at once. Having a structured contact tracing system in place quickly and accurately provides the details of the close contacts of an infected staff member to health and human resources teams, enabling them to ‘ringfence’ a virus case and isolate the close contacts. This significantly contributes to continuity of operations by ensuring that only those employees that need to be isolated are sent home and allows employees that have not been in contact with the infected employee to continue working. Ideally, businesses need a system that delivers not only actionable information within a few minutes, but the ability to customize data that meets local health authority requirements or recommendations. Contact tracing and continuity of operations Continuity of operations during any critical event, including a pandemic, is dependent on the presence of rigorously tested and exercised business continuity plans. From a pandemic perspective, these plans must have the relevant tactics in place to deal with employee health issues, social distancing, mask usage (if relevant), as well as large numbers of employees not coming to work. Since the pandemic began, it is fair to say that many businesses still do not have contact tracing as a core component of their business continuity plans. It is now time to make that change – particularly if the company has a large workforce. Doing so will help the company achieve three things, which all impact COOP: Mitigation against absenteeism and widespread, and sometimes unnecessary, isolation and quarantine Optimization of available and healthy employees so that the delivery of services and solutions are maintained, and customers feel little to no inconvenience Maintenance of productivity levels to as close to normal as possible Contact tracing can make the difference between a company staying open for business or shutting down temporarily or, in a worst-case scenario, permanently. It also ensures that the company’s reputation remains intact because it took the necessary steps to ensure it has the resources to deliver its services and solutions. Unfortunately, many businesses have not learned their lesson. Enhancing business risk management Close analysis of how companies have and have not responded to Covid confirms a number of things. First, that contact tracing is a key part of the response toolkit to infectious viral illness outbreaks. Second, responding quickly with these tools is vital for business risk management. Finally, Covid has also shown us the risks for companies that have no formal contact tracing process in place. It is important to understand that adopting contact tracing as a long-term strategy will help shift a business’ virus risk management strategy from reactive to proactive. To make this shift means that decision makers cannot wait for the inevitable to occur. They will not have the luxury of time to try to evaluate, source, procure and implement a contact tracing solution. They will need to have their contact tracing solution – whether it is a wearable device, an app, or any other solution - in a ‘ready’ state. The same goes for crisis management: you cannot formulate your crisis management plan when your company is dealing with a crisis. You must have the plan in place and ready to deal with all eventualities before a crisis is on the proverbial radar screen. Ultimately, a company must view other pandemic response tools, such as masks and sanitizers, as a component of their risk mitigation strategy, along with contact tracing. Building business resiliency Being ready to deploy contact tracing instantly means a business is always ready for the next virus outbreak. This could be a new Covid variant, a new virus, or even a serious flu season – which, pre-Covid, was estimated to wipe about $17 billion off the American economy each year in lost productivity. As the Covid-19 experience validates, companies that protect their workforce using contact tracing can lessen the impact of these viruses on staff absences and isolation. That benefit stems from an accurate, fast, and efficient approach to virus management. The benefits don’t stop at reduced absences. Having proactive contact tracing as part of an organization’s business continuity plan means that, in a worst-case scenario, the company can rapidly implement its contact tracing solution, change or optimize how it manages its inventory, human capital, and the delivery of its products and services. These capabilities make it more resilient and all stakeholders benefit. Pandemic resiliency is now incredibly relevant as businesses negotiate new agreements and seek new partners with which to face an uncertain future together. Enhancing confidence up and down the supply chain At the 2020, 2021, and 2022 World Economic Forum’s annual Davos meetings, supply chains and the problems caused by the pandemic were focal points of many discussions. The Forum reported back that supply chain stability is now a C-level issue, and that securing supply chains and making them even more resilient is now a priority issue for business leaders. Many corporate executives have likely been hearing the same messages from their stakeholders. Companies need a 360-degree view of their supply chain and its pandemic risks. They need to adopt technologies that enable them to anticipate specific risks and interruptions, including pandemics, and to respond appropriately to these risks. It is for this reason that a proactive virus management plan with contact tracing at its core must be adopted by every business serious about protecting its supply chain and its ability to survive the next pandemic. Being pandemic-ready from a contact-tracing perspective shows that a company is committed to its business continuity, operational security, delivery of services and solutions via its supply chain, and long-term existence. It also makes partners, suppliers, and customers confident in the company’s ability to meet its contractual obligations. In fact, as soon as stakeholders know that a company is well-prepared for the next pandemic, and that it has the right tools to support its continuity of operations, they are more likely to do business with them. That's because they see it as a company that not only manages its risks, but those of its partners up and down the supply chain. Boosting productivity Employees who arrive at work every day knowing that there are no measures in place to protect them from a pandemic are unlikely to work as motivated individuals. They may also look for work elsewhere. Unanticipated benefits of contact tracing for workers have emerged through the Covid-19 pandemic in three key areas. First, it has made employees aware that management, and the company that they work for, had invested in keeping them safe. This was particularly evident in instances where companies issued employees with wearable technology. Second, it made workers feel confident knowing that their employer was providing oversight and was taking a proactive role in helping to identify close contacts and that they did not have to carry that burden or worry themselves about undetected spread of the virus. This is particularly reassuring for workers with vulnerable people in their close family or friend communities. Finally, workers who know that their employer is proactively managing their risks and has plans in place to mitigate any issue or event, pandemics included, are more than likely to be more motivated and productive, and committed to their employer. How workers ‘feel’ may appear to be a soft metric to many, but all these factors combined made workers feel safer and better about coming to work during a pandemic. Where to from here? Since Covid began, some businesses have successfully adopted contact tracing to better manage operations. These businesses have mainly used a ‘manual’ contact tracing process, where contact tracers isolate positive cases and call employees who may have been in contact with a case to alert them and remove them from the workplace by quarantining them. In many instances, there has been no reason to do so. Not only has this process proven to be labor intensive, time consuming and invasive, it has also had a negative influence on businesses' COOP. Due to this impact on businesses, contact tracing is moving towards wearable devices. There are significant benefits to businesses from a COOP and resiliency perspective. Businesses will be able to respond rapidly to a pandemic event and will have access to all required data to make key decisions. Employees will be protected, their risks minimized, and they will continue to work while only sick individuals and their direct contacts will be isolated or quarantined. Market analyst predictions estimate that the contact tracing market will grow sizably to a $26 billion per year industry by 2027 as businesses look to ensure their COOP and to be better prepared for ‘next time’ – and there will be a next time. Mike Steere is a co-founder of SaferMe (www.safer.me), one of the world’s leading contact tracing and safety software companies, with products used across more than 30 countries. Through the pandemic, he has worked with Fortune 500 businesses and other well-known international organizations, helping them to maintain productivity and continuity of operations. Contact him at mike.steere@safer.me This article first appeared on www.drj.com on June 13, 2022. https://drj.com/journal_main/future-pandemic-readiness-how-proactive-contact-tracing-management-for-employees-facilitates-continuity-of-operations/

14 June 2022 · Mike Steere

Three staff standing below an umbrella that is protecting them from Covid19

How manufacturers can prepare now for the next health challenge

With the Covid-19 pandemic still fresh in our minds, leading manufacturers are already preparing now for 'next time' - whether that be a new variant of concern; or a new virus.The importance of a virus management strategy is now high up the list for business leaders - with the key outcomes of continuity and maintaining productivity when the next virus or variant strikes. It's certainly not an issue of lessening importance. Research shows the frequency of new viral illnesses emerging is increasing and the international connectedness of our world means these can spread faster than ever before.To best survive and thrive through this risk, the experience of manufacturing businesses in the Covid-19 pandemic has taught us:1. Companies that implement an automated contact tracing solution have fared better than those that didn't in terms of ensuring continuity, maintaining productivity, and building worker confidence. 2. Responding quickly with contact tracing tools matters. Instead of waiting till the inevitable occurs and then trying to evaluate, source, procure and implement a solution - when supply chains are in turmoil - engaging with suppliers early guarantees supply and pricing of these tools ahead of time. SaferMe has published a free guide for manufacturers about how to be prepared for next time, and what leading companies did well during the Covid-19 pandemic.DOWNLOAD THE GUIDE NOW

9 June 2022 · SaferMe Team

Four principles to overcome the safety engagement challenge

How do you engage more staff with your health and safety initiatives? It’s an oft-asked question by safety leaders, and a long-standing barrier to better safety outcomes. Addressing the issue starts by understanding the context in which you’re trying to engage people. Specifically - an environment where very few workers are engaged with their job at all. The annual Gallup employee engagement survey reveals each year just how poorly engaged people are at work. In 2021, the percentage of US workers fully engaged in their job slumped to 34%, while those actively disengaged rose to 16%. The other 50% are somewhere in between. So two thirds of your staff aren’t fully engaged in their job. That is a mighty hill to climb to get them engaged with safety. (Even when we know workers who are engaged with safety are seven times less likely to have a safety incident.) You’ve probably heard a number of ‘tips and tricks’ over the years about how to drive more engagement. But one-offs don’t work, and the truth is a new app won’t fix all your issues. (Despite what other software providers might tell you!) What we’ve learned through working with tens of thousands of workers around the world is that every workplace is different and there is no single silver bullet technology or process. Instead what separates success and failure comes down to four foundational principles. Focusing on these principles in every decision and action in your safety programme is the best approach to improving engagement. Why? Because if you fail to hit any of these your chances of success will diminish significantly. 1. Workplace Trust This is critical. If your workplace has low trust among employees then people won’t believe that you’ll follow through on safety plans, and they won’t believe you have good intentions when you seek to collect more safety data. Trust goes far beyond safety’s realm; but it’s vital. A big part of this is trust comes down to company leadership, and their relationship with your team. Doing your part to ensure trust exists, and to ensure senior leadership lead by example with safety will give you a head start on your hopes of improving safety engagement. 2. WIIFM? What is in it for me? Or in this case, what is in it for them? Have you truly considered what workers get from participating in safety processes? Of course you know it’s going to help lower their chances of being hurt - but they may not see it that way: “I’ve always done it this way, and I’ve never hurt myself...” The question is how can you connect proper safety procedures and engagement to something that matters to each employee? It could be tying it to their career progression and personal development, or for some it could relate to rewards or bonuses. Additionally, your safety programme should seek to feed back to workers. Find the appropriate carrot and offer it, and remember it may not be the same carrot for every worker. 3. Think like a marketer To get cut through in people’s busy lives and workdays - you need to stand out. You need your message to be seen and heard. You also need to understand your audience first, to shape appropriate messages for them. This is all Marketing 101 - but you will have to prioritise it if you want to get relevant messages in the right places at the right time to drive engagement. 4. Keep it simple You may have done all the work to create the right incentives and get attention for safety in an organisation with high trust - but it can all fail if you don’t make it easy for people to participate. This is where technology like SaferMe’s makes a big difference for businesses. We designed our safety tools focused on the end user - not for the safety manager sitting in an office - because we know engagement is so important to success. So make sure you set appropriate levels of language, and time and complexity levels within safety. Case Study Read how Pryors Apparelmaster massively increased engagement by ditching their old safety software that was clunky and difficult to use, and replaced it with SaferMe’s simple and engaging app.

11 May 2022 · SaferMe Team

Introducing ‘Training’, a one-stop-shop for all safety training records

Managing safety training records across your business is challenging. Good training records help assure you that you are managing risks in the workplace. These records also show that you take the safety of your people seriously. The importance of good training is why we are adding one of our most requested features - Training and Competencies Management. Safety Training Management made easy By adding Training and Competencies Management to our health and safety suite you can: Define what training your people need Manage qualifications, certifications, and competencies Log training records Track expiry deadlines for your team members in one place Track progress and change over time What does it look like? This update includes an easy-to-understand management dashboard. The dashboard shows admins an instant overview of which training and certifications will expire and when. You can access each training record, upload training attachments, and set custom competency levels. Easy oversight of when refresher training is needed will ensure your workers are still following safe work practices. Learn more about the Training and Competencies Management feature here or click here to book a demo with one of our team

5 May 2022 · SaferMe Team

Image of timer, staff with Covid mask and a germ/bacteria

Covid will impact business productivity for years to come

We get it. You and the rest of the team are tired. It’s been two years of talking about Covid, and we are all over it. It’s logical that we are all hoping that the Omicron wave is Covid's last. What's driving this idea is the assumption that once you've had Covid, you won't have it again. Unfortunately, the latest research is that this assumption is incorrect. Covid is likely with us for the long run That's right. The latest research points to a future where we will be living with Covid for a long time. Covid is a long term concern because: It appears that, for multiple reasons, you can catch Covid more than once, even if you are vaccinated. With only 60% of the world vaccinated, we will likely see another variant emerge from places where Covid is allowed to run rampant. No rest for businesses All of this means that businesses will continue to face challenges, like health risks to workers and high levels of absenteeism due to Covid. And this is a productivity hit for businesses. Let's pause for a second and look at the impact of the flu, as a comparison. In 2018-2019 the flu cost US businesses around $17bn in lost productivity. Now, think about Covid. A more dangerous, more contagious disease that has the potential to have a significant perennial impact on businesses. And if all of that was not enough, the latest research is showing that vaccines are less effective for children, so it’s reasonable to assume that employers have some anxious parents who don't want to take Covid home with them. Long term infectious disease management The things that your business is likely doing now, will continue to play a critical role in managing Covid and things like the flu. Be prepared to do the following: Improve ventilation systems in offices Support employees with time off to get vaccinated In the case of Covid, be ready to test employees with Rapid Antigen Tests Be prepared to contact trace in the event of an outbreak to stop the spread of Covid at work, and avoid having to send people home unnecessarily Encourage good hand hygiene in the office and make hand sanitizers available We have all learned a lot about managing infectious diseases thanks to Covid, and these learnings will help us manage Covid and other infectious diseases for years to come.

7 March 2022 · SaferMe Team

Businesses preparing for the next pandemic

We are starting to see businesses thinking longer term - focusing more on preperations for what may come next. Why are businesses preparing for the next pandemic already? There is a 47-57% chance of a global pandemic on the scale of Covid happening in the next 25 years. Regional level pandemics will likely occur every ten years. There is a risk that the frequency of pandemics will increase due to environmental factors like human expansion into wilderness areas, climate change, and higher levels of interconnectedness Businesses will need to take precautions The impact of Covid on businesses has been massive. Whilst some businesses have done quite well, others have been left behind. Regardless, many businesses have suffered from at least one or all of these: Staff shortages due to illness Staff shortage due to inability to hire foreign labor Loss of revenue due to enforced shutdowns Being sued by employees for not doing enough to protect them from Covid. Employees are anxious about returning to work Employee or family bereavement All of these things blindsided businesses. However business leaders have learned a lot over the last two years. This is good, as looking forward there will be less excuses for not being prepared the next time. Shareholders and boards will demand that businesses have continuity plans that factor in being pandemic prepared. What does being pandemic prepared look like? Knowing what we know now, it’s safe to say that some if not all of the following should be considered in a robust business continuity plan: Sufficient Business Interruption Insurance (BII) that includes some kind of pandemic or health event cover. Further adoption of cloud-based technology so work can be done remotely. Holding stocks of personal protective equipment (PPE) and sanitizer. Having robust contact tracing training and technology in place to stop the spread of a virus.

7 March 2022 · SaferMe Team

Mineral Resources in Contact Tracing First

Mineral Resources has become the first Australian resources company to roll out SaferMe’s innovative Bluetooth contact tracing technology across our sites and corporate offices. With the Omicron variant of COVID-19 presenting challenges across the eastern states of Australia, we moved quickly to bolster our pandemic response to protect the health and wellbeing of our people, their families and local communities. Contact tracing is essential to breaking the chains of COVID-19 transmission through the rapid isolation and care of cases, and quarantine of contacts. The introduction of wearable Bluetooth cards by our workforce and visitors automates the process, with each card detecting contact duration when one card comes into the range of another. The system takes the guesswork out of contact tracing and will streamline the process of identifying close contacts and activating control measures if a positive case is detected at one of our sites or offices. Automated contact tracing is just one element of our comprehensive COVID-19 Management Plan, which includes regular rapid antigen testing for our Perth metropolitan employees, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing for our site-based workforce, and free face masks. In support of the broader resources sector, we’ve made our PCR testing facilities available to more than 60 companies for the past 18 months. MRL Chief Executive – Commodities, Paul Brown, said: “MRL has developed a comprehensive management plan to define clear procedures and actions to prevent COVID-19 from entering our business and enable us to quickly and safely manage cases if it does. “Contact tracing will be an essential part of our response should we detect a positive COVID-19 case, ensuring we can keep our people, their families and our communities safe, and our operations running. “We’ve seen an extraordinarily positive response from our people to all the measures we’ve put in place to manage COVID-19 so far. “I’m confident that when the borders are relaxed, our COVID-19 planning and preparations will ensure our workforce and business are well equipped to face the challenges ahead.” SaferMe CEO Clint van Marrewijk said: “Our customers are among the world’s leading companies – doing their best to protect the wellbeing of their employees and looking to ensure business continuity. “Mineral Resources is a great example of this, and we’ve enjoyed partnering in this project.” Full credit to Mineral Resources. View the original article here.

9 February 2022 · SaferMe Team

Former BuildFax CEO Holly Tachovsky joins Austin-based SaferMe Board of Directors

Board appointment to support digital contact tracing startup’s expanding US presence. SaferMe, a contact tracing solution helping businesses keep their employees safe from health outbreaks, has appointed Holly Tachovsky, former BuildFax founder and CEO, to its board of directors. SaferMe is a digital contract tracing solution that uses Bluetooth-powered anonymous wearable or mobile app technology to protect employees’ health and safety while maintaining their privacy. With more than 100,000 end-users across the United States, the global company is quickly expanding its presence, and appointing Holly to SaferMe’s board of directors alongside Sheridan Boardbent and Nick Gerritsen as the next strategic step in ensuring continued growth. “Holly brings a wealth of experience scaling a US-focused business and managing a high growth technology product,” says Clint Van Marrewijk, founder and CEO of SaferMe. “I look forward to working closely with her as we address the many challenges and opportunities associated with rapid growth to ensure we’re advancing SaferMe’s mission and providing the best product for our employees.” In her previous role as co-founder and CEO of BuildFax, Tachovsky established a new class of property data by creating value-driving insights for some of the world’s largest insurance providers, hedge funds and risk analytics companies. Under Tachovsky’s leadership, BuildFax grew from a startup to a high-growth market leader before selling to Verisk in 2019, where she served as Chief Innovation Officer until December of 2021. “I’m inspired by SaferMe’s vision to create an effective contact tracing solution that protects workers’ health and safety while also maintaining employee privacy,” says Holly Tachovsky, former BuildFax CEO. “This game-changing solution will be critical to supporting businesses in navigating the evolving workplace as well as addressing the many operational challenges and supply chain constraints caused by unexpected shutdowns.”

27 January 2022 · SaferMe Team

What are the contact tracing requirements for business in New Zealand?

Under the new Covid-19 Protection Framework (traffic light system) the need for businesses to be able to effectively contact trace has been highlighted by WorkSafe and the Ministry of Health. When a Covid case enters your workplace, as an employer you need to be able to determine who are close contacts of that person. This is to help stop the spread of Covid-19 in the community and protect the health and wellbeing of your staff and contractors as is required under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015. Ministry of Health Advice Current Ministry of Health guidance for businesses is that close contacts need to isolate at home - 7 days for vaccinated staff and “At least 10 days” for partially or non-vaccinated people. The Ministry of Health’s full guidance on self-isolation for close contacts is available here. WorkSafe NZ Advice WorkSafe has provided six key areas for businesses to consider when managing Covid-19 risk. These all point to the benefit of an automated contact tracing system like SaferMe’s - with WorkSafe saying: “You need to make sure you have information about who was in contact with the worker from when the worker is suspected to have contracted COVID-19.”Additionally, WorkSafe notes the importance of operating procedures that help protect staff from contracting the virus. MPI Advice For manufacturers, food producers and any business operating in industries regulated by MPI (the Ministry for Primary Industries) the authority has also released comprehensive new guidance about managing Covid-19 which includes details about contact tracing.MPI’s states that businesses should ““strengthen the ability to trace the movements and interactions of staff within the plant, and test these systems regularly.” How should businesses manage contact tracing? Businesses must meet public health requirements, workplace health and safety requirements, and also balance that with ensuring business continuity for customers, employees, partners and suppliers. That’s why companies like Toyota, Goodman Fielder, DB Breweries, Sistema Plastics and many more are using SaferMe to keep their staff safe and ensure business continuity through the pandemic.Based on the advice from authorities our position remains that our automated contact tracing solution for business is critical to ensure accurate, fast contact tracing when Covid cases enter your workplace. Alternatives such as reviewing CCTV footage or card access records provide incomplete data and can take days to review. SaferMe provides accurate contact records in seconds. Book a demo now

5 December 2021 · SaferMe Team

WorkSafe Covid-19 guidance points to contact tracing importance

The important role of workplace contact tracing has been highlighted by new vaccine guidance from New Zealand’s WorkSafe authorityWorkSafe has released guidance detailing how to risk assess the spread of Covid-19 in workplaces, in order to determine whether employers should consider a vaccine mandate.In its information, the authority shares key risk factors for businesses to consider as Covid becomes a health and safety issue of increasing significance for companies to manage.Here’s a quote from WorkSafe’s website:“Consider these risk factors: How many people does the employee carrying out that work come into contact with? (very few = lower risk; many = higher risk) How easy will it be to identify the people who the employee comes into contact with? (easy to identify, such as co-workers = lower risk; difficult to identify, such as unknown members of public = higher risk) How close is the employee carrying out the tasks in proximity to other people? (2 metres or more in an outdoor space = lower risk; close physical contact in an indoor environment = higher risk) How long does the work require the employee to be in that proximity to other people? (brief contact = lower risk; lengthy contact = higher risk).” The guidance goes on to list further factors and suggest how vaccine decisions can be framed.What these key factors highlight is the important role of automated contact tracing solutions for business. How many people a person has contact with, how easy it is to identify these people, how close they were, and for how long, are all questions answered by SaferMe’s contact tracing cards.SaferMe’s Bluetooth wearable contact cards enable you to quickly determine who had close contact with whom on your worksites. It measures close contacts to reduce unnecessary isolation of workers. It also helps prevent Covid clusters developing internally by isolating the right people. SaferMe has already been implemented in New Zealand by well-known brands like Goodman Fielder, DB Breweries, Sistema Plastics and many more.Book a demo of SaferMe’s contact tracing solution for businesses now - book a demo here.

24 November 2021 · Mike Steere

Three mistakes to avoid with business contact tracing

What union members need to know about contact tracing at work

Both businesses and employees are interested in avoiding site shutdowns. We all need to earn money and put food on the table, right? Employees want to know that it is safe to work. Businesses need to make money to keep functioning. One way to make workplaces safe and remain open is to have an automatic contact tracing system. SaferMe makes contract tracing badges and software to help make contact tracing easy. Reasons contact tracing at work is a good idea. A workplace contact tracing system helps identify employees who have been in contact with each other. For example, if there is an outbreak at work, rapid contact tracing helps employees know if they have been in contact with someone who has covid. Contact tracing helps businesses stay open. In addition, it helps stop the spread of covid amongst employees and their families, regardless of their vaccination status. Time is of the essence. Manual contact tracing is a time-consuming and invasive process. It requires employers to investigate where employees have been and who they have had contact with. Despite these benefits, employees may have questions about the privacy and security of contact tracing at work. Here are the most common questions to help union representatives give their members guidance. Does SaferMe know the location of employees? No, SaferMe does not track the location of employees. There is no GPS or location tracking hardware inside the card. We don't need a person's location information. All we care about is who has been in contact with whom. SaferMe is less invasive than manual contact tracing investigations. How does the SaferMe card know who has been in contact with each other? Our cards use Bluetooth technology to register how far away they are from other cards. Can the cards be used to track employees outside of work? If two employees are associating with each other outside of worksite hours, and are wearing the cards, then the cards will record this close contact. Regardless, SaferMe does not show employers a register of each occurrence of employee contact. Instead, employers only see a daily snapshot. E.g., Sam was in contact with Jim for a total of 8 hours on Wednesday. Is any personally identifiable information recorded on the Wearable cards? No, there is no information about the owner of the card on the card. The information on the card would be worthless if found on the street. The cards are also encrypted. How long is information on the card stored? Cards store information for 21 days. After that, it is automatically deleted. Who has access to employee data within SaferMe? Each organization determines who can see contact tracing data inside SaferMe. Typically, this access is limited only to select people within an organization, say like a Human Resources Manager or somebody who's in the specific role of a contact tracer.

7 November 2021 · SaferMe Team

SaferMe’s contact tracing helps Sistema® put worker safety + privacy first

Sistema® Plastics has implemented SaferMe’s award-winning contact tracing solution to expand the company’s preventive measures to keep workers and their families safe. Sistema® Plastics employs over 700 people at its Auckland, New Zealand facility and since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has implemented several precautions to ensure health and safety in the workplace, including staggering shifts, compartmentalizing sections of the facility and increasing cleaning and sanitation. As New Zealand continues to mitigate the pandemic, Sistema® has partnered with SaferMe to implement their contact logging technology solution to more accurately pinpoint worker interactions so appropriate prevention measures, including testing and self-isolation, can be activated quickly if a positive COVID-19 case is detected. The SaferMe technology helps Sistema® Plastics protect the privacy of its employees as no location information collected, or personal information is stored with SaferMe. Sistema® Plastics Chief Executive Officer, Drew Muirhead explained, “The safety of our people is our number one priority as we continue to ensure we can get essential products to consumers. SaferMe helps us keep our workers safe and our facility operational through the rapid contact logging and notification system.”Muirhead said SaferMe would help the company mitigate COVID-19 as keeping workers safe and informed is the first line of defense to limit the threat of exposure and the potential for the virus to spread. “New variants show why this technology is important. Any solution that helps ensure continuity and creates a workplace that workers feel safe coming to is critical,” said Muirhead.CEO & Founder of Wellington-headquartered SaferMe, Clint van Marrewijk, praised Sistema® Plastics for their commitment to finding a worker-centric solution.“We’re proud of helping companies like Sistema® Plastics to protect both the safety and privacy of their workers during these challenging times. We’ve been helping globally recognised brands in the United States manage COVID-19 over the past 18 months and we’re now supporting some of New Zealand’s biggest businesses as we enter a new phase in the pandemic here.” CONTACTSSaferMeClint van MarrewijkSaferMe CEO & Founder+64 21 023 98581Sistema PlasticsJohn BoydManaging Director Boyd PR+64 21 733-561

27 September 2021 · Mike Steere

Why NZ business leaders are more concerned than ever about Covid

Since the Delta outbreak has hit New Zealand, we have heard concerns from hundreds of businesses about managing the next phase of the pandemic. Compared to previous outbreaks in New Zealand, what has changed now is the realisation that we will inevitably be living with Covid permanently and that the vaccine will not be a silver bullet. This situation is, of course, a concern for businesses. That’s why leading NZ businesses like Goodman Fielder and Sistema are turning to SaferMe to help give them the power to respond to critical situations with the correct information. Here are the most common concerns we hear from mid to large-size operations in NZ: Keeping their people safe Whether it’s a legal requirement, or just because Kiwis look out for each other, employers want to do everything they reasonably can to keep people safe. Many employees and contractors are feeling anxious, both about returning to work and returning to life as normal. Export concerns There is a real issue around market access for New Zealand exporters. One of the leading countries we export to, China, is becoming more strict regarding food safety. Many food exporters’ hearts skipped a beat when Covid was detected on food goods bound for China. NZ exporters hope that if they can demonstrate their robust processes for managing Covid to the rest of the world, their businesses will avoid being shut out in the event of a positive case. Current tools are not good enough A QR code at the front door is not enough to meet an exporter’s requirements. Furthermore, using QR codes alone is not enough to generate accurate data that will avoid a lockdown. Businesses want as much evidence as possible to help prevent isolating people who have not been exposed to someone with Covid. An example would be someone in another area of a building. Technology like contact tracing cards does this job well and is highly accurate. Contact tracing is complicated It’s remarkable the work that our government contact tracers do, where a team of hundreds is investigating each incidence of Covid. Contact tracing in a business is complex but can be made simple. We’ve heard stories of employers sifting through video footage, looking at outlook calendars, and trying to conduct interviews. This work can take hours or days. Contact tracing cards let employers contact trace in minutes. Lack of Government support Employers know that the time for state-mandated lockdowns will come to an end soon enough. Once the population is sufficiently vaccinated, the doors will open, but employers we talk to feel that there will be some compliance obligations. Covid will still need to be managed because NZ does not have enough ICU beds to let it run wild through the country. And even with the vaccine, people will still get sick. Employers will need it. Our experience in the US tells us that when the government no longer has the political will, they will walk away from managing lockdowns and contact tracing. What then? Insurance Employers are looking at things like advanced contact tracing and video temperature sensors as insurance against an outbreak. Each time an outbreak happens the impact will be severe. Having robust contact data is the best way to avoid a total shutdown. When border restrictions are lifted, the chance of the outbreak increases, increasing the importance of contact data. Responsible for other businesses If people involved in the business-to-business sector are shut down, there will be knock-on effects for other businesses. Businesses must avoid site-wide shutdowns by providing as much contact tracing information as possible to isolate at-risk people and keep the economy moving. At SaferMe we partner with New Zealand businesses to help you overcome these challenges. Contact us now to discuss how we can help.

23 September 2021 · SaferMe Team

Living with Covid means businesses will live with Contact Tracing

Despite the ever-changing situations with covid, a few things are becoming clear: Variants Of Interest and Variants Of Concern will continue to appear. The vaccine is not 100% effective at preventing Covid. Vaccinated people can still spread Covid. A significant amount of the population, and your workforce, will not be able to get vaccinated, or will not want to. When you consider all the above points, you may be thinking that we are going to be living with Covid for good. And we at SaferMe think you're right. Government support is likely to end Some countries have done a wonderful job of looking out for their citizens' health. They have used tools like contact tracing and correctly-timed lockdowns. But with the bulk of populations vaccinated, this support is going to end. What living with Covid looks like for businesses The result of support ending will be that employers have a significant part of their workforce vulnerable to Covid. Workforce productivity will drop in the event of an outbreak. It's hard to work when you are in bed sick, right? This is where contact tracing for business comes in When businesses don’t know exactly who has been in contact with whom, they are forced into a position when they need to isolate their whole workforce. Highly accurate contract tracing badges allow employers to understand exactly who has been in contact with whom. In the event someone reports sick, a business only needs to send home the people who have been in contact with an infected person. Businesses that contact trace avoid the cost of a self-imposed shutdown. They avoid putting lives at risk. The developing world is already experiencing massive labour shortages. The last thing a business needs is part of their workforce off work sick. The return on investment of doing contact tracing is not just a safer workplace. It will show up in the bottom line.

8 September 2021 · Shannon Smith

SaferMe Contact Tracing App Selected by Selective Insurance, Helps Insurer Protect its Employees Returning to its Offices

As some businesses return to the office for the first time since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and with the Delta variant posing new challenges, Selective Insurance is proactively adopting the same tech innovation that helped the New Zealand Government effectively mitigate the spread of the virus in businesses. AUSTIN, TX (Sept. 8, 2021) -- Leading contact tracing app provider SaferMe announced today that award winning property and casualty insurance carrier Selective Insurance Company of America, the lead insurer of Selective Insurance Group, Inc., (NASDAQ:SIGI) has renewed and expanded its commitment to SaferMe’s wearable contact tracing solution. This follows Selective’s initial rollout of SaferMe at the beginning of its phased return to the office in February 2021. "Our employees are the most important element of our success and helping ensure their safety is our priority. It's vital that they feel comfortable and confident returning to work in our offices,” said Cyndi Bennett, Executive Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer, Selective. “Contact tracing is an important part of our health and safety procedures and allows us to address COVID positive cases reported to us and minimize its spread." SaferMe provides purpose-built wearable cards that log interactions between employees using an anonymized and secure system to protect worker privacy and help enable businesses to stop large COVID clusters from developing in their workforces. This is done by instantly identifying workers who were in contact with other individuals who reported themselves as potentially or COVID positive. “We want to help businesses and employees get back to their normal place of work asmuch as possible, and to do so safely,” said Clint Van Marrewijk, CEO of SaferMe. “Selective Insurance exemplifies what a thorough and thoughtful return to the office should look like. They’ve used our technology to help manage a safe return to all of its offices across the U.S. and provide employees peace of mind that COVID exposures can be effectively and timely tracked, reported, and mitigated.” Selected by the New Zealand Government to provide business contact tracing via the MBIE Covid-19 response fund, SaferMe is now operating globally. Founded in Wellington, New Zealand, in 2015, SaferMe opened its US office in Austin, Texas, in early 2020. Van Marrewijk added, “There are already more than 30 variants of the Sars-CoV-2 virus being monitored by global health authorities. To be proactive and prepared for the threat of new variants and seasonal spikes, organizations need to be able to prevent clusters of cases within their workforce.”

8 September 2021 · SaferMe Team

Delta variant a game changer for contact tracers

Now that Delta is here, many of our customers are asking for our guidance on what distance and time thresholds to use when identifying close contacts and conducting a contact trace. To date, our advice to contact tracers has been to follow the advice of your local authorities. For example, in the USA, the CDC’s advice is that someone is considered a close contact if they were six feet apart or less for 15 minutes. SaferMe’s contact tracing system is very flexible - using our contact tracing software, customers can filter close contacts via any time/distance combinations they require. Delta is a game changer Delta is more contagious than previous Covid variants. The Delta variant: Is more than 2 times more infectious than previous variants. Becomes infectious earlier in people. Is more easily spread in the air. Has a greater presence in people’s bodies, known as viral load. Can be spread by people who are vaccinated. What has really got our attention at SaferMe is a recent case in a New Zealand quarantine facility where Covid was transmitted across a hallway in as little as three to five seconds. Our thoughts Mask-wearing is another variable which can impact the transmission of the virus - it can be a good mitigation measure that might leave the CDC parameters unchanged.However, if no masks are being worn and customers want to be more prudent with who they isolate after a contact trace, they can use the filtering feature in SaferMe to select a shorter time interval, for example, six feet and 5 minutes.Until health authority guidelines change, using the filters in SaferMe to shorten the time interval is what we suggest customers consider to take a conservative approach to close contact identification and help keep on top of the more contagious Delta variant. If guidelines from health authorities do change, we’ll update our customers with new guidance about how to use the SaferMe contact table filters. Further reading CDC Website - Delta variant

18 August 2021 · Shannon Smith

ACC selects SaferMe & Civil Contractors NZ to progress safety innovation

ACC has chosen an innovation project between SaferMe and Civil Contractors NZ as a major grant recipient in the Workplace Injury Prevention Innovation scheme. The two year project begins in August. Leading workplace safety software provider SaferMe announced today that ACC will co-fund its project to improve safety in the civil construction industry in New Zealand. The project is in collaboration with leading industry body Civil Contractors New Zealand (CCNZ). The civil construction industry faces a high rate of workplace injury compared to other industries, and the issue of sprains and strains in civil companies has caused large cost increases for ACC in recent years. The project aims to tackle this by developing and implementing an algorithm that collects data and uses it to measure the level of risk to individual workers. CEO & Founder of SaferMe Clint van Marrewijk explains that this is a new approach:“We are on a mission to create safer workplaces and that includes reducing injuries that impact people’s lives. This project is a great fit as we want to help organizations, and workers themselves, to understand when they are working at unacceptable levels of risk for injury.“To do this there are a range of factors to consider, and we’re the first safety software provider to take a holistic approach to evaluating individual worker safety.”Civil Contractors NZ Chief Executive Peter Silcock says sprains & strains are an important issue for civil contractors as they happen frequently and have a “cumulatively significant impact” for businesses."CCNZ members regularly introduce new technologies on to their sites so it is exciting to be able to work with SaferMe to look at how we can use technology to resolve what is a thorny and persistent safety issue that can have a big impact on people's ability to work," Silcock adds. ### About SaferMe SaferMe has emerged as a leader in workplace safety and contact tracing solutions for business use. Selected by the New Zealand Government to provide business contact tracing via the MBIE Covid-19 response fund, SaferMe is now operating globally. Founded in Wellington, New Zealand, in 2015; SaferMe has been experiencing strong growth - including among Fortune 500 clients. This demand is partly driven by being highlighted by the World Health Organization (WHO) and winning New Product of the Year in America’s OH&S Magazine Safety Awards. About Civil Contractors NZ Civil Contractors New Zealand is an incorporated society that represents the interests and aspirations of over 600 member organisations – including large, medium-sized and small businesses in civil engineering, construction and general contracting.

10 August 2021 · Mike Steere

Safer Me safety software vaccination log

The risk of vaccinated people infecting unvaccinated at work

Latest evidence suggests that the highly contagious delta variant is capable of infecting vaccinated people This is a major concern for workplaces with a mixed vaccination status, and also for the families of employees, where full vaccination may not be possible. What are the risks for not fully vaccinated workplaces? First of all, the health impacts for unvaccinated people are real. At the moment, 97% of all Covid hospitalizations in the US have not been vaccinated. Covid spreading in the workplace could lead to the loss of lives. One cannot understate the impact this has on families, colleagues and communities. For employers this opens up several issues Employers have a duty of care to keep their employees safe. There is a legal risk that making unvaccinated people come to work could be a breach of this duty of care. This opens employers up to legal challenges. Due to the risks of being infected, some people who are not vaccinated may choose to not show up to work. Contact tracing is the first line of defense If requiring vaccination is not possible at your business, which is often the case, this creates a problem for your business to navigate. Being able to stop people coming to work in the event they have Covid, or have been exposed to it, is still the best way to stop the spread of Covid in your workplace. This is why rapid and automatic contact tracing is so important. Contact tracing is a relatively new technology, that any business can put in place to better protect their workforce and customers. For more information start here.

3 August 2021 · Shannon Smith

Proactive US insurer makes sustainable return to the office

As many businesses return to the office for the first time since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, Selective Insurance is taking a proactive lead with its methodical return to the office so the return can be sustained. Selective Insurance implemented SaferMe’s wearable contact tracing solution at the beginning of its phased return to the office in February 2021. SaferMe provides purpose-built wearable cards that log interaction using an anonymized and secure system to protect worker privacy and enable businesses to stop large COVID clusters from developing by instantly identifying workers who were in contact with other individuals that reported themselves as potentially or actually COVID positive.Selective Insurance has now renewed its commitment to employees’ health and safety by extending its use of SaferMe’s technology through the next phase of office re-entry, a move that SaferMe CEO Clint Van Marrewijk says needs to be recognized.“We want to help employees be in their normal place of work as much as possible, and to do so safely. Selective Insurance is an example of what a thorough and thoughtful return to office looks like. They’ve used our technology to help manage a safe return to all of its offices across the U.S. and provide employees peace of mind that reported possible COVID exposures can be tracked and mitigated.” Van Marrewijk says senior executives and Boards have no excuse to be caught off guard a second time by the virus. “There are already over 30 variants of the Sars-CoV-2 virus being monitored by global health authorities. To be proactive and prepared for the threat of new variants and seasonal spikes, organizations need to be able to prevent clusters of cases within their workforce.” About SaferMe SaferMe has emerged as a global leader in contact tracing solutions for business use. Selected by the New Zealand Government to provide business contact tracing via the MBIE Covid-19 response fund, SaferMe is now operating globally. Founded in Wellington, New Zealand, in 2015; SaferMe opened its US office in Austin, Texas, in early 2020, and has been experiencing strong growth - including among Fortune 500 clients and leading educational institutions. This demand is partly driven by being highlighted by the World Health Organization (WHO) for contact tracing capabilities and winning New Product of the Year in America’s OH&S Magazine Safety Awards. For further information, please contact: Clint Van Marrewijk T: (713) 360 1672 Founder, CEO E: clint@safer.me

30 July 2021 · Mike Steere

Toolbox Talk Ideas - 101 of the Best

Are you looking for toolbox talk ideas for your next safety meeting? You're in the right place! We've put together a list of 101 toolbox talk ideas to inspire you. Background.... What is a toolbox talk? Toolbox talks are a quick and informal way for managers to share safety concerns with their team. They're a great way to supplement the detailed safety training you should already be doing. These short chats give everyone the opportunity to discuss any workplace hazards, risks, incidents or safety issues they may have encountered. They also give you space to talk about other safety topics that are of concern in your work environment. By discussing these toolbox talk ideas, you help prevent future accidents from occurring. 101 Toolbox talk ideas for your business. Our team of health and safety experts are adding to this list all the time. Want to see more detailed toobox talk topics ideas? Check out our toolbox talk topic generator. Let's get into it! Accident Prevention Accident Reporting Air Quality Alcohol Consumption Angle Grinder Safety Asbestos Back Safety Bug and Insect Protection Combustible materials Confined Space Control of Hazardous Substances Cost of accidents Dangerous occurances/Notifiable events Defensive Driving Demolition Diabetes Display screen equipment Disposable Respirators and COVID-19 Distracted Driving Drugs at work Dust Earthquakes Electrical Safety Elevator Shaft and Open Holes Emergency Preparedness - Pandemic Equipment, Machine and Tool Guards Ergonomics at work Evacuation procedures Excavation Eye Strain Eye protection Fall protection Anchor Systems Fatigue Management Fire Extinguishers Fire prevention First Aid Footware Forklifts Frostbite Gas Safety Guard Rails Hand Tool Safety Hand protection Hazard Assessment Head Protection Hearing protection Hoisting Signals Home office egonomics Housekeeping Hydrogen Sulfide Inert Gases Ladder safety Lead Leg safety Legionella Lighting Conditions Lone Working Method Statement Mind on safety Mould and Mildew Near misses Noise exposure Permits To Work Personal Care and Conduct Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Power Line Safety Presenteeism Protecting the Public Rebar and Impalement Hazards Refuelling Respiratory Protection Rights and repsonsibilities Risk Assessment Roof Work Safe Use of Power Tools Safety Culture Safety Nets Safety Signs Scaffold Safety Sharp objects Silica Dust Exposure Site Access and Egress Skip Loaders Slips, Trips, and Falls Social Distancing Stress Stretching Summer Weather Hazards Temporary Heating Temporary Stairs and Handrails Traffic control Trailer Towing Tyre Safety Underground Utilities Welder’s Flash Winter Site Safety Work refusal Working from home Workplace Complacency Youth in Construction Zero harm

15 June 2021 · SaferMe Team

New Feature: Easily Contact Trace Visitors to your workplace

Tools like apps and contact tracing badges make it easier to log who has been in contact with each other at work. As you may already know, tracking visitors like cleaners, contractors and customers add a new challenge. Businesses should have contact data for these people too, in the event of an outbreak. Now system admins can assign a contact tracing badge to guests who visit your workplace. They don't need access to SaferMe. No logins, no fuss. Give guests a contact tracing badge like you would a sticker that says “visitor”. When it's time for the visitor to leave they hand it back. Should the need arise, you will be able to access who they came into contact with while on site. To learn more about our guest feature, head over to the our support area. Learn more about the technical specifications of the SaferMe wearable badge here

8 June 2021 · Shannon Smith

New Feature: Spanish Language Contact Tracing

As SaferMe has grown, we've welcomed more and more customers from the Southern United States and Mexico. Many of their employees speak English as a second language, with their preference being Spanish. Language should not be a barrier to staying safe. We've been working on making our apps more accessible to non-English speakers by adding Spanish. Spanish translations are available in our iOS, Android, and web apps. The Spanish version of our app will appear if the device's language is set to Spanish. These translations apply to our contact tracing and general safety products. This investment also lets us translate into other languages with relative ease also. Now you can be confident that language won't be a barrier. Contact us if you need contact tracing software in another language. We are happy to help.

8 June 2021 · SaferMe Team

New Feature: 100% anonymous contact tracing

It’s important to many workers that they maintain their anonymity, and the latest SaferMe update makes 100% anonymity possible. The latest update allows clients to: Contact trace employees with no email addresses or phone numbers. To use third-party software for linking data to a name, when an organization wants to share minimal personal data outside pre-approved systems. Easier access for users with no email access You may have workers who do not access phones, computers, or company email. Even though they may not have access to all company systems, it’s important that they can be protected and be effectively isolated in the event of a Covid outbreak. Now you can give a contact tracing badge to these people without them having to verify an email or access SaferMe. They wear the card and sync their data as required. You can easily contact trace and protect them. An even more private solution Some workplaces want to cut the amount of information released to third-party software providers. This should not be a barrier to running fast and accurate contact tracing. A business can now connect the User ID’s from inside SaferMe back to their HR records to complete the contact tracing process. The above features enable a private contact tracing solution for workplaces. Learn more about all of our contact tracing features here.

8 June 2021 · Shannon Smith

Is your business prepared for a Variant of High Consequence?

As vaccines have started rolling out the world we are elated at the prospect of life returning to normal. In the developed world we are seeing infections and death rates come down. Businesses are reopening and economic activity is bouncing back. It’s wonderful to believe that the threat of Covid has gone away and we can all get on with life. One thing could get in our way - a variant of high consequence What’s a Variant of High Consequence? You can see a good technical answer from the CDC here. In short we are talking about a strain of the virus that is: Harder to detect. More lethal. Less likely to respond to current best practice treatments. Not as affected by the current vaccines. What’re the chances of a variant of high consequence appearing The more the virus spreads, the more chances it has to mutate into something nastier. The more people who get vaccinated the less Covid can spread. There are two things holding us back Lack of availability of vaccines, and Out of control transmission in the developing world We have all seen the tragedy unfolding in places like Brazil and right now India. This is causing newariants to develop, for example a new variant of concern has been discovered in India. It’s already believed to be traveling the world. The research will tell us soon if this variant deserves the status of a “Variant of High Consequence”. People in the developed world choosing not to vaccinate For a variety of reasons, many Americans don’t want to get vaccinated at all, or at least soon. This creates an environment where Covid can roam and mutate. What business can do First of all, vaccination is the best chance we all have of stamping out the virus. There are however differing opinions on the ethical and legal point of view in insisting that employees get vaccinated. It is our view that it’s in society's interest and your business interest to encourage employees to get vaccinated. Tactics could include: Internal advertising campaigns Giving people time off to get vaccinated Paying for transport to vaccinations sites Arranging on-premises jabs. The next best thing you can do is have systems in place to allow you to contact trace and isolate employees when they do get sick. A virus that is at higher risk to your employees could spread in your workplace. Isolating infected employees gives you a better chance of keeping your doors open and keeping others safe at the same time. That’s where SaferMe comes in.

12 May 2021 · SaferMe Team

Safety indusction via QR code scan at construction site

How to easily get contractors to complete a site safety induction

Businesses face challenges getting external contractors to complete a site safety induction. Your business may have a safety system with some type of safety induction built-in. The problem is that there is often no way for external third parties to complete it. These people and your business are at risk when they fail to complete a safety induction. With SaferMe, you can have people outside of your organisation complete an on-site safety induction. QR code powered safety inductions to the rescue Using SaferMe, you can place QR code-powered induction forms at the entrance to a workplace. Contractors can scan the QR code to quickly access site induction forms. A form can contain information about hazards and procedures on site. Your contractors can add their details to acknowledge that they have completed their safety induction. As a business, you have a record of this acknowledgment and know that this person is safer. Only for Contractors? No way! Any person who does not access SaferMe's app but visits your workplace can benefit. This could include: People from head office Delivery drivers Utility providers The health and safety inspector With SaferMe, you can make a full suite of safety forms The power of QR codes does not stop with safety induction forms. We can produce QR codes for any form you need. For example: Machinery service forms Equipment startup checklists Fit for work reports And many more Book a meeting with one of our solution specialists to learn how we can help your organisation.

6 May 2021 · Shannon Smith

Covid Variants Force Businesses to be Vigilant

Businesses hoping for a quick end to the effects of Covid may be in for a disappointment. The latest research is showing that the P.1 variant of the virus may be resistant to some vaccines. Brazil a tragic example After Covid had already swept through parts of Brazil, many believed they would be immune to further infection. Unfortunately, a new strain arrived which is up to 2.2 times more transmissible. What's worse is that some vaccines have been shown to be ineffective in stopping the spread of this strain. Meanwhile back in the US A number of other variants are popping up too. With a new strain responsible for the majority of Covid cases in California. Rolling out a vaccine nationwide remains challenging, and achieving ‘herd immunity’ will not be possible if a large portion of the US population does not want a vaccine. Back to square one? The good news is that US will emerge from Covid lockdowns. However the evidence from other countries where Covid is already "under control”, is that life will not completely return to normal. There will be a new normal where continued vigilance is required. Taking steps to reduce the spread of new variants and extra safety regulations for businesses, will be part of this new normal. The positive takeaway here, is that the world now has useful tools in fighting virus strains: Rapid testing Automated contact tracing (like safer.me) Faster development of new vaccines We are much better equipped to do a better job the second time around. What should a business do? With continued vigilance and new technology, we can work together to make sure that further lockdowns are not needed at all. Prudent workplaces will need to have contact tracing plans in place until at least the end of the year. These measures will help to protect their workforce and mitigate the significant legal risk of not meeting their obligations to keep people safe at work. Want to learn more about automatic contact tracing? Watch this video.

9 March 2021 · Shannon Smith

Employers will need to proactively protect employees from Covid under Biden

As Covid-19 continues to impact the world OSHA has issued American employers with new guidance on managing the virus in the workplace. The new guidance follows on from President Biden’s earlier Executive Order to extend worker protections against the coronavirus. The message for employers from the Biden Administration and OSHA is clear: more will be done to mandate employers to protect employees from Covid-19. “The guidance issued today is the first step in the process, but it’s certainly not the last step in that process,” Jim Frederick, OSHA’s acting administrator and the agency’s principal deputy assistant secretary was quoted as saying . What is the current status? The new guidance calls for explicit hazard assessments and control measures for Covid, and adds stronger wording to recommend the implementation of other tactics such as barriers, physical distancing and other infection control measures. Although this guidance doesn’t yet carry legal obligations for employers, there is already a General Duty Clause that protects employees. Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act and most state OSHA plans, employers must furnish “employment and a place of employment which are free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to his employees.” In addition, many states have added their own standards for Covid-19 protection. For example, in December, the state of California implemented an emergency temporary standard that requires businesses to implement “infection prevention techniques” and keep record of all Covid-19 cases and exposure. ( Read: How to contact trace efficiently ) What changes may come? It is widely anticipated that OSHA will release a nationwide emergency temporary standard for COVID-19 in order to protect workers across the United States. As has occurred in some states, this would give employers specific, legal requirements on what to do to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in the workplace. This means employers need to start preparing a proper Covid-19 response programme if they haven’t already - considering hygiene, distancing, barriers, contact tracing and roles and responsibilities. As we have mentioned earlier there remains challenges with rolling out a vaccine nationwide, and achieving ‘herd immunity’ will not be possible if a large portion of the US population does not want a vaccine . The implication here is that it will be difficult to have workplaces that are immune to the virus - so protection measures will be key. Best ways to protect employees from Covid Aside from; attempting social distancing, deep cleaning facilities and working from home, proactive businesses will: Use daily health checks to make sure team members are not coming to work sick Logging the contact between team members, ideally with an automated solution to reduce the burden on workers Be ready to rapidly contact trace to stop the spread of the disease from shutting down work and risking lives. Forward-thinking organisations are going to get out ahead of any law changes and demonstrate they are doing everything they can to keep their workers safe. SaferMe provides an automated contact tracing solution for business that is in use with Fortune 500s, high-profile brands, schools, universities, manufacturers and businesses across a multitude of industries. Read more about business contact tracing .

4 March 2021 · Shannon Smith

What is the best device for business contact tracing?

There are three important dimensions to balance when evaluating the best device type to implement for contact tracing.AccuracyWorker PrivacyEase of useLet’s explain further each key component to measure when making your contact tracing technology decision:The first is accuracy - can the method or device used provide accurate data that will help keep workers and their families safer? Secondly, considering worker privacy and security and making sure the solution enables workers to feel completely comfortable using the technology.Thirdly, is the device or method easy to use? Does it fit with workers’ normal ‘rhythm of work’ or does it require significant behavioural changes that could make it a challenge to implement?If you evaluate all of these dimensions - as many of our clients have - the SaferMe contact tracing wearable card solution is the market leader for returning to work safety.How does the SaferMe device work?The card - similar sized to a credit card (but thicker) provides very accurate contact information, allowing you to assess the total time of contact and estimated distance between contacts during interactions. It’s more accurate and reliable than bluetooth contact tracing apps, and it is easy to distribute to team members as most employees are very used to using a swipe card at work. The contact card also provides the most privacy-protecting option for businesses. The card stores no personally identifiable information (PII) and it does not collect location information, only interaction with other devices. It does not require the install of apps on personal devices of employees. The SaferMe system even enables an anonymous option where users’ identity can be decrypted client-side only.For further peace of mind, SaferMe’s approach to data security uses best-in-class encryption, ISO27001 certified data storage, and a broad range of advanced data protection tools.Ease of deployment and useFinally, no new Bluetooth infrastructure is required, and no use of workers’ personal devices is needed. The cards do not need to be recharged - a significant pain for employees and solution success - and they last a minimum of six months (guaranteed). In fact, all that workers need to do is wear the card using the provided lanyard and they are doing their part to keep their company’s community safe.The SaferMe contact card is the most practical device on the market for contact tracing, with the technology being robustly tested for accuracy by many large organisations.SaferMe has been delivering software solutions to keep workers safe for more than five years, and it was one of the first providers of contact tracing solutions to the market when companies needed help to return to work amid the Covid-19 pandemic. SaferMe has since won the OH&S Magazine New Product of the Year for Virus Management; it has been funded by the New Zealand Government for delivery to New Zealand businesses as part of its world-leading response to Covid-19; and has been referenced by the World Health Organization and leading analyst groups.Read more and book a free 30 minute demo here

1 February 2021 · SaferMe Team

Texas podcast chat about contact tracing

Why did we open an office in Austin, Texas? How can SaferMe play a part in Texans' recovery from Covid-19? Enjoy this chat with our CEO Clint van Marrewijk on one of Dallas' most popular podcasts ('Y'all-itics' - Episode 71) - it covers the back story of how we opened up in Texas and how our technology can help the economy in Texas - and around the United States - to return to work safely amid the Covid-19 pandemic.Listen here (link to WFAA.com): https://www.wfaa.com/yalliticsTo learn more about SaferMe's contact tracing solution for business, you can read here: safer.me

1 February 2021 · SaferMe Team

Safer Me's disposable, power-free wearable device

Rechargeable, not the way forward for contact tracing wearables

There has been a surge of new wearable contact tracing devices being sold to businesses over the last 6 months. All of these devices need power, and so, businesses have two options to pick from - rechargeable or disposable. SaferMe’s new wearable contact tracing solution is not rechargeable. We have been very deliberate in making that choice for our customers.Let us explain why:Rechargeable devices; an operational challengeBy their very nature, rechargeable wearable devices need to be, recharged. Some daily and some every week.If your business is considering a rechargeable solution, you will have key questions to ask yourself:Will every staff member be given their own charging device? Do we need to install a shared recharging station at the office?If it’s shared recharging, how many stations are there and where are they located? How are you going to prevent people getting close together at bottlenecks?Do I expect my team to remember to charge their devices all the time, or is that unrealistic?Will we check if devices are fully charged periodically? A smarter single-use cardSaferMe’s Contact Card has a battery which lasts between 6 to 12 months, depending on usage.Many contact tracing devices currently on the market are adaptations of existing Bluetooth technology that was originally designed for other purposes. Because of this, these devices may be bulkier or have superfluous features that drain the battery quite quickly.The SaferMe’s wearable card, by contrast, is built specifically for contact tracing. When it comes to battery usage, the SaferMe wearable is smart. The card knows when a card is being worn, and when it is not. At the end of the work day when your people get home, they can put their card down and it will go to sleep.When the battery has run out employees are issued a new card, a process that takes a minute. We also hear people’s concerns about e-waste. All SaferMe customers have the option to return their card to us at the end of life, and we will recycle them.Are rechargeable cards more cost-effective?From a cost perspective, the total cost of ownership depends on the price of the device. Rechargeable devices can in fact be more expensive. Our experience is that the cost of rechargeable devices compared to the cost of several single-use devices, is competitive and we look forward to giving you a quote for your needs.The easier a card is to wear and use, the better the chance your business will have all the information on hand to rapidly contact trace and protect your people.Our research shows that hands-down, businesses that are looking for wearable contact tracing solutions agree and are turning away from rechargeable solutions.

21 January 2021 · Shannon Smith

Contact tracing card now available for New Zealand businesses

Government-funded contact tracing provider SaferMe has added a wearable contact tracing card for New Zealand business use.The contact tracing card is about the size of a credit card and is worn on a lanyard or a clip on the shirt, and can be purchased by businesses in batches of 250 or more.“There are some situations where a phone app is not the ideal contact tracing solution for a business.” says SaferMe’s CEO Clint Van Marrewijk“Where a card solution really shines is when workers may not have smartphones, or where the use of a phone may not be appropriate, like on a manufacturing floor, warehouse or clean environment.”SaferMe is funded by MBIE to make its phone-based contact tracing apps freely available to New Zealand businesses. During the April peak of the New Zealand outbreak, the SaferMe app was used by hundreds of New Zealand businesses. The company has since been selling its product primarily in the United States.“The SaferMe card solution is for business use specifically” Says Van Marrewijk“Our goal is to stop the spread of the virus inside a business between employees because that is where there’s a real chance for contact tracing technology to have an impact.”It’s also a great solution for customers who are concerned about privacy.“The card is completely secure. There is no personally identifiable information on the card and all information on the card is encrypted. From a privacy perspective, contact cards are a very low-risk solution.”SaferMe is thriving export business with customers around the world “Given the state of the pandemic we have seen huge interest out of the United States market, and we have already sold thousands of contact tracing cards to businesses and schools in the United States” said Mr Van Marrewijk“Closer to home, we have seen the Government put contact tracing cards into managed isolation facilities. We are happy to serve New Zealand business too, by being able to provide a contact card to all businesses that want it.”About SaferMeSaferMe has emerged as a leader in contact tracing for business use. 2020 has been a busy year for the company, after being selected by the New Zealand Government to provide business contact tracing via the MBIE Covid-19 response fund; opening a new office in Austin, Texas; unprecedented client growth - including Fortune 500 clients; being highlighted by the World Health Organization (WHO) for contact tracing capabilities, and winning New Product of the Year in America’s OH&S Magazine Safety Awards.

8 December 2020 · Shannon Smith

SaferMe Launches Contact Tracing Wearable Devices

Over the past six months we've provided our automated contact tracing apps to hundreds of businesses. Our app automatically logs when people are in contact via a technology called Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). This data is used to produce a simple contact tracing table, which allows a business to rapidly contact trace and protect employees when positive cases of the virus occur. Sometimes employees are not allowed to carry smartphones into certain areas or they do not have access to them. Therefore we have chosen to also deploy a new SaferMe contact tracing wearable device to complement the SaferMe apps. By working together, the apps and the wearables can gather a more complete dataset and make contact tracing even more effective for businesses. How does the contact tracing wearable device work? Your team wears SaferMe's contact tracing card. The card is a Bluetooth transmitting device about the size of a credit card and weighs only 18 gms. As the worker goes about their day, the card will record whenever it comes close to another cardholder and save this information on the card. Once a day, or whenever a business chooses, the cardholder can press a button on the card at a syncing station or next to a phone. This uploads the contact logs to SaferMe’s contact tables, and your HR leaders can access these in the event that a contact trace is required. The card is completely secure. There is no personally identifiable information on the card and all information on the card is encrypted. If an employee's card is lost or stolen, there is not any recoverable or accessible data on it. From a privacy perspective, contact cards are a very low-risk solution. When is SaferMe’s wearable device the right solution? A separate contact tracing card really shines in situations where: employees do not have modern smartphones. a business does not already have a 'bring your own device policy' with employees. the use of a phone may not be appropriate, like on a manufacturing floor, warehouse or clean environment. Our wearable solution works alongside our existing phone solution, accessible to your HR leaders in one unified contact tracing table. This gives you complete coverage in your workplace. Why did we develop the BLE app first? Phone apps for contact tracing can be rolled out very quickly and at a lower cost because there is no additional hardware involved for a business. Good hardware also takes time to make. Where others hardware providers have rushed into the market and suffered issues with reliability, we have taken the time to learn what works. Why do we need this if a vaccine is going to be available? Vaccines will take a long time to distribute to the levels where it will impact safety for at-risk groups. In the meantime, and especially over the next 12 months during each business’s back-to-work program, there is a great need to keep employees safe using best practice technology. You can read more about the challenges of rolling out a Covid vaccine here. As cases and deaths due to the Covid-19 continue to grow in the United States, the need to protect staff and try and keep business productivity up also grows. You can learn more about SaferMe’s wearable contact tracing solution here or book a demo today.

4 December 2020 · Shannon Smith

Sheridan Broadbent joins SaferMe as international growth accelerates

Experienced energy sector executive and safety evangelist Sheridan Broadbent is joining the SaferMe® Board of Directors. The appointment is effective immediately and adds further strength to SaferMe’s expertise as the company pushes boundaries with new health & safety innovation. A former CEO of Counties Power and senior executive at Genesis Energy, Broadbent has worked in New Zealand, Australia and the South Pacific in a variety of infrastructure and utility roles including GM Downer EDI Engineering and EGM of Downer’s Telecommunications business unit in Australia. Sheridan also sits on the Board of Transpower and Kordia, and is a senior member of the Business Leaders’ Health and Safety Forum steering group. Broadbent says ”I’ve been keeping tabs on SaferMe over the last few years and was extremely impressed at their rapid delivery of Bluetooth apps and wearables for contact tracing during the early weeks of the Covid-19 pandemic. SaferMe has become a leader in supporting companies and economies to manage pandemic risk and restore their productive economies safely, and in a way that is worker-centric and privacy-protecting. “The company is at a point where accelerated growth, particularly in the United States, means it’s time to strengthen governance, invest in capability and build capacity. I am delighted to now be a part of that journey,” Broadbent adds.SaferMe founder & CEO Clint van Marrewijk says Broadbent brings experience, a history of excellence and industry understanding - adding huge value in its next growth phase.“We’re changing the way businesses address safety & wellbeing, working hard to drive down injuries & deaths, and Sheridan gets it. She’s well placed to help us achieve our goals.” The appointment of Broadbent caps a significant year for SaferMe, after being selected by the New Zealand Government to provide business contact tracing in the MBIE Covid-19 response fund; opening a new office in Austin, Texas; unprecedented client growth - including Fortune 500 clients; being highlighted by the World Health Organization (WHO) for contact tracing capabilities, and winning New Product of the Year in America’s OH&S Magazine Safety Awards.ENDSContact: Clint van Marrewijk clint@safer.me | +64 21 023 98581

30 November 2020 · Shannon Smith

Real leaders are making bold decisions to get back to work.

Screw Covid! Get those doors open and make some money! Sounds aggressive right? Even negligent? Tyrants force people back to work in conditions which are unsafe.True leaders are the ones who are opening their businesses while considering the health and safety of their people.73% of employees fear a return to work will compromise their personal health and safety.To get the most out of people, they need to not only feel safe at work, but they need to actually be safe. SaferMe's contact tracing solution does this.Asking employees to complete SaferMe's daily health checks lets them know you care about their health. It also gives you the ability to keep them away from a healthy workforce if they are sick. Having the ability to rapidly contact trace at work will help to stop the spread of the virus, actually making people safer.Opening your doors without being prepared to keep your people safe is irresponsible. It also opens you up to massive legal risk.Being a leader in keeping people safe will get you noticed in your industry. Being know as a safe workplace that values the lives of people will help you keep and attract a productive workforce.We look forward to talking with you about how you can be a leader in your industry.

26 November 2020 · Shannon Smith

A table with an alert that shows a user has Covid-19

SaferMe's contact tracing table - It's where the magic happens

Contact tracing is something that most people had never heard of before 2020. It's a simple notion, we want to track who has been in contact with an infected person. We can then stop these people infecting others. It sounds straight forward right? It gets complicated when we have to start dealing with second-degree and third-degree contacts. And to make things more difficult we need to define what is a contact. Is it someone who has been next to another person for one minute or ten minutes? 3 feet apart or ten? SaferMe's standout feature is our contact tracing table. These tables summarise the contacts that are in our system. With this information, you can rapidly contact trace. Our tables make the complex easy: Filter by meeting duration to understand how long people were in contact with each other. Filter by contact distance to understand how close the contact has been. You can choose CDC guideline 6ft option or any other distances you need. 2nd and 3rd Degree Contact Log Data. Filter and understand this important degree of separation metric. Rather than making you sort out your contact data with an excel spreadsheet we do the heavy lifting for you. You get to let people know if they are at risk quicker. You also need fewer people to do the job of contact tracing. You can learn more about how the contact tracing process works here or watch this great video.

25 November 2020 · Shannon Smith

Long road ahead for businesses relying on a Covid vaccine

The news that two potential Covid-19 vaccines have been discovered is truly wonderful news to end a challenging year. People are looking forward to getting their lives back on track. Businesses owners are looking forward to returning to business as usual. However, the reality-check is that the promise of a Covid-free world remains some distance away. If you’re in business that means you can’t rely on a vaccine if you want to get back to work before 2022. Here’s more detail about why that is the case: Pending approval The first vaccine, discovered by Pfizer, has been shown to be 90% effective. From here the research needs to be peer-reviewed by other scientists and move towards a full trial. Whilst it's likely that approval will be fast-tracked, it is unlikely to occur until early 2021. It will be the same process for any further vaccines coming along through approval processes. Distribution challenges Arguably the biggest challenge is production and distribution of the vaccine. The first vaccine that has been developed is going to be difficult to distribute as it needs to be frozen. If it’s outside of refrigeration for just minutes it will be less effective. Local doctors will not have the facilities to store this vaccine, and it can’t be easily sent around the world with UPS. Producing quantities to protect enough people will also be a massive task. The best-case estimates of production tell us that by the end of 2021 nowhere near enough people will be vaccine protected (even in countries with greatest vaccine access) to stop Covid-19 from being an issue we need to manage. Most governments will choose to protect the vulnerable first, but this means that the general public (ie. most employees) may be in for a longer wait. What is a business owner to do? Based on the best information we have at the time of writing ou should be ready to continue running your businesses considering the impact of Covid for at least the next 18 months. (May/June 2022) Aside from; attempting social distancing, deep cleaning facilities and working from home, proactive businesses will: Use daily health checks to make sure team members are not coming to work sick Logging the contact between team members, ideally with an automated solution to reduce the burden on workers Be ready to rapidly contact trace to stop the spread of the disease from shutting down work and risking lives. Doing the above will help keep your people safe and keep your business running in the short term. It will also satisfy executives, Boards and shareholders that your organization is ultra-prepared for future epidemics or pandemics that bring similar disruption and threat to the health and safety of workers.

17 November 2020 · SaferMe Team

Infectious diseases have been hurting business growth, before Covid

Due to COVID-19, every business is now hyper-aware of the costs an infectious disease can bring. We recently wrote about the cost of doing nothing about COVID-19. The truth is that infectious diseases have had a massive impact on businesses since, well, forever. In 2018, US businesses were told to expect to take a hit of at least $15.4 billion in lost productivity due to the flu. If you extrapolate those numbers out 50 years, the cost of the flu adds up.Every day, infectious diseases have a real impact on businesses. In our view, there are several reasons why businesses will remain more vigilant following COVID-19.Shareholders will demand itMike Tyson famously said that “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face”. COVID has certainly been a punch in the face that has blindsided businesses. Shareholders across many industries have had to accept, at best, dividend and share price erosion, and at worst, business loss - all completely out of the blue.Scientists now predict that there will be a significant pandemic event every five years. Company executives and directors who don’t have the tools in place to cope with a major pandemic will suffer shareholder wrath.There will be an expectation that businesses can rapidly contact trace at the touch of a button. With technology like SaferMe, we can now see the punch coming.Health monitoring tools are too easy to useIs there still a role for health tracking software tools beyond the pandemic? The answer is of course yes. Now that people have started to use daily health screening software, this process will be the new norm for everyone every day to help reduce the impact and cost of more common infectious diseases like the flu.Lazy worker syndrome be gone!Previously, an employee that called in sick may have been viewed as lazy. This perception came from a culture where employers focused on the loss of productivity of one individual. But if one team member gives 20 others the flu, what is the cost of that to a business?Sick people will be given tools to report when they are unwell, advised to stay at home, and if able, work remotely until they have recovered. No judgement.The new normalNew businesses will spring up from the ashes when COVID is gone. After they have bought their email software, they will buy a subscription to a workplace infectious disease solution and use that as an insurance policy. The prepared will still be operating when the competition is long gone.As you plan for the future of your business, be a leader in ongoing employee health and business resilience by using software like SaferMe.

10 November 2020 · Shannon Smith

OH&S Occupational Health and Safety 2020 product of the year

SaferMe Contact Tracing wins OH&S New Product of the Year

SaferMe’s contact tracing solution for business has been recognized as New Product of the Year by Occupational Health & Safety Magazine, the leading health and safety industry magazine in the USA. The award was made in the category for Infectious Disease Control solutions, with SaferMe’s contact tracing for Covid-19 coming out on top.“This award is further recognition for the great work of our whole team in releasing an innovative solution that is helping businesses around the world in coping with this pandemic which is unprecedented in our times,” SaferMe CEO and Founder Clint van Marrewijk said.“The OH&S Magazine is a well-known and respected source for health and safety leaders in North America and around the world, so to be chosen by their panel of experts is an honor,” he added.The 2020 OH&S New Product of the Year awards are the 12th edition of the awards. The winners were chosen by a panel of judges who are prominent and experienced figures in the health and safety industry. “There were a number of great products submitted for the New Product of the Year Awards,” commented judge Greg Zigulis, president of Sixth Sense Safety Solutions. “Each year the products and their features just seem to get better. There were also some interesting products that were entirely new conceptually and responsive to the COVID-19 pandemic,” Zigulis said.More information on New Product of The Year Awards here (OH&SOnline)For more information about SaferMe’s award-winning contact tracing solution for business - Start Here.

14 October 2020 · Shannon Smith

The true cost of businesses doing nothing about COVID-19

Experiencing a pandemic has many people feeling overwhelmed in their personal life and at work. We're all dealing with balancing the need to protect ourselves and our loved ones whilst needing to provide for our families.Business leaders take on this burden for their whole workforce and shareholders. That’s a tough spot to be in.Managers have three options: to manage COVID-19 in their workplace; to close the doors; or to play ‘Russian Roulette’ with people's lives and the law, and hope this all goes away quickly.Is this going away soon?It’s nice to think Covid will go away soon. This makes us feel that as long as it’s a short term issue then we can get away with making no decision. Sometimes the cogs of business spin painfully slowly, which can lead people to think that by the time all stakeholders are on board with a solution, herd immunity or a vaccine will be here. The reality is that a vaccine is not going to appear overnight, Dr Anthony Fauci has spoken about this at length and natural herd immunity may never occur, or at least it would take a massive human toll.You simply can’t ignore a disease away. And you can’t ignore the costs of doing nothing about it.Cost of not being open Globally economists think that COVID will cost the economy nearly $9 trillion. Big global numbers like this can feel a little intangible. Let’s drill down a little:Economists have estimated that Harvard University and the University of Michigan will be out of pocket to the tune of nearly $1bn each.McDonald's revenue is down by 23.9%.Small Business Revenues have dropped 52% and payrolls have declined 54%.Alison had never been laid off till she lost her job at a publishing company when Covid hit. Her experience is a story that’s happened to millions just like her this year.Cost of litigationAs of June, over 2,000 lawsuits relating to COVID-19 have been filed in federal and state courts in the US.Early evidence suggests many of the cases coming through are targeting businesses that did not follow best practices.Daily health checks, social distancing, mask-wearing and rapid contact tracing are best practice. Some might view this as being proactive - but with the legal requirement of providing a safe workplace for employees - you could also say it is conservative. Regardless, implementing best practices instead of taking weak or no measures, will help avoid expensive legal costs.Cost to livesWe all know that the elderly are more at risk from COVID than younger people. The latest research suggests that younger people, whilst less likely to die, are still likely to be stuck with chronic illness after being infected with COVIDAfter you're done crunching the numbers on how doing nothing will impact your revenue and legal expenses, consider how you will reconcile the human cost.How will you feel talking to a team member who got COVID at work, who then passed it onto their father, who died?How will you feel about a co-worker who has not been at work for 6 month due to heart damage after getting COVID at work?How will you feel about doing nothing?

14 October 2020 · Shannon Smith

SaferMe Contact tracing available on ADP marketplace.

SaferMe is now a referral partner on the ADP marketplace and is here to help keep your employees safe from Covid-19 and keep your business open. SaferMe is an experienced safety software provider and its contact tracing solution for business is a new offer that recently won New Product of the Year at the OH&S Magazine Awards. SaferMe’s contact tracing solution helps a business do three main things: Enables you to identify sick workers early and take immediate action. See clearly who is NOT at risk, and keep operations running. Reduce risk, save money, and save lives. “ADP payroll and Workforce management users are more often than not the people who are leading a business's Covid-19 response. The ADP marketplace is a logical place for us to be,” says SaferMe CEO, Clint van Marrewijk. “Keeping employees safe is a critical part of any organisation's return to work plan. SafeMe provides businesses with the tools they need to keep people safe and keep the doors open." ADP customers can reach out to ADP now to speak to someone about using SaferMe to keep their people safe. ADP Salespeople can attend a SaferMe training webinar on Wednesday October 7th. We will cover the challenges businesses returning to work face, and how SaferMe plays a key role in making this happen. You can learn more about SaferMe’s features here.

14 October 2020 · Shannon Smith

Contact Tracing: A privacy balance for employers

When it comes to collecting data for business contact tracing our experience tells that less is in fact more.Businesses that are improving worker safety with contact tracing need to carefully consider the value of data they gather and take a position on how much they will collect and how that will impact the success of their contact tracing efforts.SaferMe’s position is clear: Our system aims to use the least possible data from end users in order to establish reliable contact logging for the purposes of contact tracing.We deliver a personalized table of contacts for each worker - including number of occurrences, and total approximate time of contact. The data can be filtered by the number of days into the past you want to contact trace for, and also by distance and contact length. This is all that is needed.However, we’ve had requests from clients to see individual interactions on a row-by-row basis with accompanying metadata, or the locations of interactions.Our answer to these requests is a firm: No.Why? Because it's not needed. Our contact table already provides the data necessary for contact tracing. And protecting the privacy of end users of SaferMe is what is most critical for the success of our solution. If we collect more than is necessary to log the contact between workers then we are unnecessarily impacting their privacy. As an employer you need to understand that if you overreach with the data you collect people will not trust or use the system you provide. Which means it will inevitably fail.That’s why we do everything we can to use the least amount of data possible, to protect our users’ privacy whilst also protecting their wellbeing. Less really is more!If you’d like to ask how this would practically apply to your business - book a meeting with one of our international team and we’ll share more details with you.

31 August 2020 · SaferMe Team

Parents’ factsheet: Contact tracing with SaferMe

SaferMe is a global leader in safety applications and contact tracing software. With Covid-19 spreading rapidly around the world and the need for education to continue, universities and other educational institutions are choosing SaferMe to help keep students, their families and communities safe. What SaferMe does We give universities tools to help them identify and respond to a Covid-19 outbreak on campus. The core tools are: A simple health survey to help students let the school know if they are well or not. An automatic contact logger that records which students and teachers have come into contact with each other. With these two tools we can give a school information they need to help: Prevent students who may be ill arriving on campus. Alert students who may have been in contact with an infected person, allowing them to get tested and prevent spreading the virus. Why would a school or university use us? Because they have a responsibility to keep students safe and they care genuinely about this. Each education provider is different, but there are a few common reasons: The school has a duty of care to keep students safe. Going to school should not be a risky activity, and contact tracing is one way to mitigate risk. Schools care about families and the wider community. By limiting the spread of Covid-19 on campus they help keep families and the community safer, especially more vulnerable citizens such as the elderly. They care about education. Sometimes there is no good alternative to face to face learning, so they want to make sure their learning environment can remain open. Large outbreaks of Covid-19 in education facilities will lead to closures. What about privacy? Part of caring about student wellbeing also involves caring about their privacy. SaferMe’s tools have built-in features to help protect students' privacy. These include: Not sharing user location. At no time do students or school staff members know the location of students. It’s not required and it’s not possible in SaferMe. We build a list of contacts - where the contact occurred isn’t important. All user data is encrypted and securely stored on servers located in the United States. Education providers are given the ability to tightly control which people have access to health and contact information. Whilst every school is different, typically the only people who will have access to this information would be those in roles such as: The school nurse - to ask students about any Covid-related symptoms they may have. An associated medical organisation - which may be asked to arrange a test for example. Someone in an administration role - Who will be responsible for communicating with students and/or their guardians when a student has been in contact with someone who has Covid or is symptomatic. Can the app be turned off outside of school hours? Yes. Each student can control turning the app off and on. It is worth considering that there are often situations outside of school hours where students come into contact with each other. For example, university students may study outside of school, attend social functions or live with one another. The virus has zero respect for school opening hours. Students and their parents have the power to use their judgement and our app as they think is appropriate. Schools have always been a place of leadership Our communities around the world revolve around schools and universities. Throughout history they have been a great source of leadership. It’s great to see schools stepping up in these difficult times to enable learning to continue in the safest possible ways. SaferMe is proud to provide the tools to help make this happen, and to deliver it in a way that protects your children and their privacy, whilst helping keep them safe.

9 August 2020 · Shannon Smith

University in Washington chooses SaferMe for contact tracing

SaferMe is pleased to announce Walla Walla University will help protect its students, faculty and staff from the risk of spreading Covid-19 with the help of SaferMe’s contact tracing solution.The University is keen to ensure best practice systems are in place to help with contact tracing if cases arise after the return of students. SaferMe was the preferred choice as it offers a proven and easy-to-use solution that also protects users’ privacy.“We chose SaferMe because it is an app-based service that will provide the information we need to act quickly and decisively in order to limit the spread of infection," said Dr. Kari Firestone, the university's director for COVID-19 response efforts. "SaferMe also meets strict General Protection Regulation (GDPR) guidelines for the utmost security and protection of personal data." SaferMe’s CEO & Founder Clint Van Marrewijk says that as classes return, measures that prevent universities from developing large clusters of coronavirus cases are vital.“Contact tracing is international best practice, and will be a key part of helping prevent Covid-19 outbreaks for some time to come,” said Van Marrewijk. “SaferMe is a great fit for universities because it is easy for both students and staff to use; and we protect each individual’s privacy. Acting early at the symptom stage, before large outbreaks occur is critical. Large clusters of cases can lead to long closures and increased community transmission of Covid-19 - so that’s what we want to avoid.”Universities have an important role to play in protecting the health and safety of their students, faculty and staff. SaferMe is the best way to conduct contact tracing and daily wellbeing checks.

9 August 2020 · Mike Steere

3 factors for a successful rollout of a contact tracing program

When it comes to contact tracing, companies have many factors to consider and their employees have even more. We’ve implemented SaferMe’s safety solutions in thousands of organizations. Through our rollouts, we have found that these three A’s: Acknowledge, align and assure are markers of success for a contact tracing solution and an overall safer and more positive workplace environment.1. Acknowledgement from leadershipIn moments of uncertainty, we look to our leaders to lead us. To show us the way. In fact, the famous leadership expert John Maxwell once said: “A leader is one who knows the way goes the way and shows the way." When committing to a contract tracing solution one must lead with that commitment and acknowledge its value consistently throughout the organization. This means that it’s just as important for the CEO to log their daily health screening as it is for the hourly employee. We are all susceptible to the risk of COVID-19 and choosing SaferMe as your contact tracing solution is key to the safety of your workplace environment.At SaferMe, we recognize the importance of this change of management practices and work closely with your leadership team to adapt our implementation plan to your organization’s culture. 2. Alignment on communication and useTo receive the most value from SaferMe or any SAAS solution, it is important that a large percentage of employees use the application correctly. Therefore, helping colleagues to understand why they must have the application on their phone AND have their phone on their person at all times is an important part of ensuring a successful implementation. Encouraging alignment across all departments and team managers communication plans is crucial. SaferMe offers a variety of customized tool kits that can be adapted to your organization’s messaging and communication processes: Back-to-work Handbook with SaferMe “Chapter”Stakeholder Email Announcement templateEmployee Engagement Intranet blurbsFAQsPromotional MaterialsFeedback surveysTranslation and messaging alignment3. Assurance in privacy and a safe and healthy officeAs an employer, your choice in SaferMe is you prioritizing your employee’s safety without sacrificing their privacy. Assuring your employees that their health and privacy are both of the highest importance is a key to a successful implementation. Contact tracing is a solution that proactively addresses the potential risk of Covid-19. By using SaferMe your organization can see when an employee is unwell and/or experiencing COVID symptoms and then trace who they have been in contact with. The goal of gathering this information is to prevent your employees from getting sick and to be able to keep operations open. It’s important when encouraging your employees to use SaferMe, that you stress both the importance of their safety and their privacy. At SaferMe we rely on trust to function. We adhere to the highest standards of privacy compliance including GDPR and do not passively collect or store employee information. We also encourage specific protocols within an organization to ensure that the data that is collected is only available to a select group of managers.

28 July 2020 · Leah Fleischner

Mid July Product update

We're please to announce some highly anticipated feature additions to SaferMe. Automated Bluetooth Contact Logging Successful contact tracing requires an accurate log of people who have been in contact with each other. This month we have released enhancements to our automatic contact logging solution. This update allows us to log contacts automatically via a phone's Bluetooth capability. Combining Bluetooth with our existing location-based contact logging, and our manual contact logging features, will give our customers more accurate contact tracing information. These improvements make SaferMe one of the most comprehensive phone-based contact tracing solutions available today. More granular control of what a contact is There is conflicting advice around how to define what a contact is. Governments and health organizations are often suggesting different metrics. We are now giving users the ability to be able to define a contact via various filters in our contact tables. These options include filters by time, distance, or logging method (i.e Bluetooth, GPS or manual). Improved accuracy and more flexibility to help keep your people Safer. What a great update!

17 July 2020 · Shannon Smith

How to make employee attestation part of your back to work process

How to keep COVID-19 out of the workplace is becoming a major issue as employers around the world look towards how they may return to work in the months ahead. Of course, there is a major desire to get business open. Owners need to make money and employees need to put food on their table. This desire to get back to work needs to be balanced with the health and safety risk that is COVID-19. It only takes one sick team-mate to come to the workplace and infect everyone else, which can have serious health implications and grind production to a halt. That’s why you might be hearing a lot about COVID-19 employee attestation forms at moment.COVID-19 employee attestation forms?You may know them by other names like, “Fit for work reports”, “wellbeing screening” or “Symptom tracking reports”. Regardless, the idea is basically this: You ask employees to fill out a form asking how are they are feeling. If they tick a box saying they are fine then they can come to work. If they are not fine then they stay away.Businesses are asking all sorts of questions at the moment. This simple form template from The Society of Human Resources is one example.How does filling out this form keep people safe?Every business has a collection of forms, most don’t get filled out. What you need is a process to make sure employees are filling out the form each day and that the form information is getting into the right hands to prevent a virus outbreak in your workplace.This process will work something like:Employees fill out an attestation form every day before they come to work.The form results are pushed to a health and safety manager or human resources manager.In the event an employee is symptomatic they are instructed to stay away from work and get tested.In the event an employee has tested positive for Covid-19 or is symptomatic a contact trace is performed and staff members which may have been exposed are also asked to not come to work and get tested as well.Our app, SaferMe, has employee attestation forms built into it. This automation helps remind staff to fill out their forms and helps businesses create workflows to speed up all the actions that need to take place when an employee becomes symptomatic..Can’t people just lie?Yes that is possible, even though the act of falsifying a report would likely be a breach of a worker’s employment contract. But let’s not get heavy handed just yet.Every business will need to have a good look if their company is structured in a way and has a culture which operates on a high trust model. It’s also worthwhile exploring the incentives that are in place that will help get these forms filled out. For example:Fostering a environment that cares about employees and their teammates.Places value on having a safe work environment.Allows people to work from home in the event they are isolating to make sure they may not suffer financially if they report as being symptomatic.Everyone wants to go to work so they can provide for themselves and their families. Good employers help people do it in a way which allows people to get home safe every day.

15 July 2020 · Shannon Smith

How to meet Virginia's 24-hour contact tracing requirements

New workplace safety regulations in Virginia state set a 24 hour timeframe for employers to inform staff who have been exposed to a Covid-19 infected co-workers.But, how do you identify and contact all of an employee’s close contacts within 24 hours of them testing positive for coronavirus?To be done properly, this process of contact tracing requires a reliable set of data showing contact between co-workers. The data needs to be easy to access and action so you can get straight into the work of contacting people without needing to try to collate, sort or understand data. Trying to interview workers after the fact often proves difficult. Ideally you will want to identify not just those directly in contact with the person, but the second degree contacts (those who have been in contact with the direct contacts exposed to the virus) if you are to properly ‘ringfence’ the cases and prevent a widespread outbreak in your organization. Recent cases have highlighted the high price of getting this wrong.Our recommendation to businesses in VirginiaOur recommendation for businesses in Virginia is to use an automated contact logging solution such as SaferMe. Our solution will collect the contact lists automatically and make the list available for immediate actioning so you can meet the 24 hour requirement.SaferMe uses workers’ mobile devices to log the contact between co-workers. We do not track their location - we only log contacts. This occurs both automatically in the background, and workers can also manually log meetings with customers, suppliers or others who aren’t using SaferMe.This contact logging automatically builds a contact table (list of close contacts) for each of your workers. When someone contracts the coronavirus, it takes just one click to open their contact table and get to work contacting those who have been exposed to the unwell person.We’re already working with businesses across North America with their contact tracing needs, and we’re ready to deploy swiftly to get your team up and running.

5 July 2020 · SaferMe Team

Three mistakes to avoid with business contact tracing

We’ve heard from dozens of American businesses in the past few weeks that have had difficulty contact tracing after one of their employees fell ill with the novel coronavirus, Covid-19.The contact tracing process is a new challenge for these businesses, and on several occasions it led to broad closures of operations because it could not be determined with enough clarity who the unwell employee had been in contact with.This problem is set to gain more urgency with states such as Virginia introducing regulations that require employers to notify staff who have been exposed to ill co-workers within 24 hours of the coworker testing positive for Covid-19.To ensure your company can meet these requirements and to avoid making basic mistakes with your contact tracing efforts, here are three important lessons from our conversations to take back to your business:Mistake 1: Relying on employee interviewsSeveral of the businesses worst impacted by the coronavirus case had relied on interviewing their unwell employee to ask who they had been in contact with. In some cases the person was not well enough to speak with the company representatives, and even when they were able to speak, their memory was limited of who they had connected with over the previous days. In one case an employee even refused to cooperate with the interview process.The lesson here is that you need to be collating data on the go so you are not relying on the memory of workers, particularly unwell workers, to patch together a contact list of who to notify and isolate. This data collection needs to be done continuously every day so you have clear data going back at least 14 days.Mistake 2: Not having easily actionable dataAny type of process to log your staff members’ contact with each other is a good start, but we’ve spoken to companies who were having their team write down contacts - and they found that this was a very difficult task to figure out the full list of contacts to reach out to. Firstly, a manual process like this is easily forgotten or may exclude informal interactions. Secondly, getting access to and collating notes from different sources is a challenge. Thirdly, calculating second degree contacts is almost impossible.An automated solution solves this by logging contact data without workers needing to remember to take notes - and then constructs individualized contact tables for each worker. These contact tables include second and third degree contacts and are filterable to your own or CDC guidelines on how to define a contact. They are also ready to be downloaded with one click and immediately actioned. Read more about collecting actionable contact information.Mistake 3: Underestimating the financial impactAll companies we’ve spoken to who were forced to make closures of offices (including shutdown of valuable operations, inhibiting their ability to generate revenue) due to the coronavirus had underestimated the cost that one or two cases of Covid-19 would have on their business.A lack of social distancing combined with no contact tracing solution ended in unnecessary absences and failed to prevent spread of the virus within the office, leading to further decreased productivity. There has also been negative media attention about businesses ‘getting it wrong’.We hope you avoid these mistakes when you return to work and tackle the challenge of contact tracing.Our SaferMe team is ready to help with automated contact tracing that collates contact tables while protecting the privacy of users, and makes it easier for your business to react with speed to notify and isolate anyone exposed to a positive case of Covid-19 in your organization. Book a meeting for a no-obligation call.

30 June 2020 · Mike Steere

Covid-19 update: Growing trend of return to work failures

The past fortnight has seen a swathe of return to work initiatives across the United States, Europe and Asia brought to a halt or slowed by new cases of Covid-19 that have caused spikes in communities.Businesses have been at the center of these spikes or closely connected to them in a number of cases. We've identified some of the clear themes developing for businesses and some of the important cases that business leaders should be aware of as we learn more about the challenges of returning to work during the covid-19 pandemic:Business activity that is poorly controlled is leading to new cases of Covid-19 and even large clusters that are behind new community spikes. This is resulting in renewed closures and significant financial impact to the businesses involved.In a notable case in Germany a large meat company (Tönnies) is facing customer boycotts, plus threats from the German Government that it will seek damages after poor practices led to development of a huge cluster of cases in its workforce. This cluster has driven a renewed spike in the virus in the nation.In Italy, where the situation had been improving, a cluster of new coronavirus cases has emerged at a warehouse in the city of Bologna.In Florida, a number of businesses that had reopened have now had Covid-19 cases and been forced to completely close down as they didn’t know how broad the exposure to other employees was.Another sobering update from the WHO (World Health Organization) suggests a vaccine for the virus is at least a year away, but it could be two and a half years before it is available to everyone.What does all this mean for business?The return to work failures have highlighted the importance of a stringent return to work programme that includes contact tracing and daily wellbeing checks.There are many factors to be included in your return to work plan, depending on your setting. These will likely include:Social distancing protocolsTeam and shift separationIncreased hygiene proceduresAutomated contact tracingWellbeing checksContactless work and delivery processes Work from home initiativesSaferMe is helping businesses around the world - of all sizes - with automated contact tracing and daily wellbeing checks. We can roll-out to your business quickly with no new infrastructure required.Book a meeting with one of our international account managers today to see how SaferMe can help your organization return to work safely.

26 June 2020 · Mike Steere

Covid-19 Safety: Social distancing is not what you need

Do you need a social distancing app to help your Covid-19 return to work? Your answer to that question should be no. Let’s explain why. It’s important to understand why social distancing systems are not a practical fit for employees, as you manage your workplace in this Covid-impacted environment.There are four reasons that social distancing tools are impractical for business:1. The user experience is a disasterA social distancing app can sound good in theory. In practice, it would be a nightmare for employees. If you don’t want to invest in infrastructure, your option is an app like this from Google which has been released for Android devices. Pulling out your mobile to measure the distance between you and your co-workers all day is not practical. A wearable device that beeps when you get close to people, also sounds interesting, until you try it in the real world... 2. Cost of infrastructure vs value of returnIf you are willing to invest in bluetooth infrastructure and wearables for your work environments, then social distancing alerting becomes more feasible. But given the significant costs involved in that project - the relevant question then, is will beeping or vibrating wearables enforce social distancing any better than other methods? Will employees continue using devices that constantly pester them as someone walks by? And what about when workers need to collaborate at close proximity? 3. There are easy / low-cost methods for social distancingTo achieve the outcome of keeping people appropriately distanced as much as possible - there are alternatives. Staff communications, physical posters on walls, and also floor markings to keep people apart are all easy to achieve and low cost methods of driving change with distancing. These measures will achieve a lot and it’s questionable what additional value beeping devices will have.4. You still need contact tracing softwareEven if you invest in a social distancing tool - then you still need contact tracing software. Alerts to keep people two meters apart aren’t foolproof and if you have positive cases of Covid-19 in your organization, you need to be able to quickly identify and isolate those who are most likely to have been exposed. SaferMe helps you do that. It can also help you be alerted to illness before a positive test is returned.

12 June 2020 · SaferMe Team

Contact Tracing: Can my boss track my location?

Worker concern about business contact tracing has been stoked by sensationalized headlines like the Wall Street Journal’s recent article: “Welcome back to the office. Your every move will be watched.”But with contact tracing software like SaferMe this is just not true.We deliver a market-leading contact tracing solution and daily well-being check without needing to compromise the privacy of employees.We are fully committed to workers: an individual’s location data cannot be passively tracked or stored by employers. It’s not necessary and we don’t do it.Because we're hearing these privacy questions from everyone we speak to (for good reason) I want to explain how our technology works so you and your business can make an informed decision.Firstly, it’s worth noting SaferMe has worked in the business of location safety for a long time before Covid-19 came around. We’ve been helping companies large and small, all over the world, to make workers safer with proximity-based alerts, driving proactive safety practice. So we understand well the rights, the limitations and the internal employee acceptance required to operate a system like ours. It requires trust. And trust only comes by respecting the privacy of our users.With an office in Europe, the 2018 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) meant a review and enhancement of our systems and processes for managing privacy to ensure we could comply with and exceed this expectations set in this new standard.So, when you come to SaferMe for contact tracing, our GDPR compliance gives you a range of assurances:Employee location data is not available to us or you if not provided with their consentData is encrypted in transmission and anonymized “at rest” (when it is stored)Your data is stored on servers accredited to ISO27001 (the international standard for data protection)Personal data can be requested or deleted by simple requestWe have a Privacy Policy which explains the rights and obligations of usersPrivacy is a critical question - but managed correctly it doesn’t have to be a concern. In this global pandemic we are helping businesses to protect their staff and respond quickly to cases of Covid-19 so it reduces the impact on their operations. Contact Tracing is an excellent tool to help with this. And if you choose a tool that helps protect your employees’ privacy rather than abusing it; then your workers might think so too.After all, everyone wants to have a job to go to.

28 May 2020 · Mike Steere

Buying business contact tracing software? Read these five buyer’s tips first

If business contact tracing is something your organization needs to help manage the risk of Covid-19, we recommend you consider the following five points when you are deciding which road to take. This space is very new - two months ago contact tracing was a term you’d likely never heard - so there are some important things you should be aware of about some of the companies touting themselves as “contact tracing” solutions. 1. Visitor management and QR codes do not equal contact tracingCreating a list of people who have been at a given worksite does not equate to contact tracing. You need more than that if you want to collect data about contacts (not simply presence) and to react efficiently to minimize the impact of a case on your workforce. Firstly you want data about actual probable contacts (not everyone on a given site) and secondly structured per person, so each worker has a customized contact table. This makes reacting effectively with speed possible. Combing a visitor list to try to work out first degree contacts will be difficult - trying to figure out second degree contacts? A nightmare. (One concession: For sites with high volumes of public interaction - eg. a cafe, then QR codes can be useful)2. Don’t mess up privacy We’ve been working in the field of location-based safety with multinational businesses for over five years, so we know a lot about protecting worker privacy. If the contact tracing solution you are considering doesn’t have similar experience and isn’t meeting the gold-standard European GDPR regulations in how it protects data and privacy, you are putting your business at further risk. Importantly, stringent privacy measures will be fundamental for ensuring employee buy-in to any solution you implement. 3. Ask how the contact data is structuredFollowing on from the first point, to be able to conduct contact traces quickly and effectively you need data that is structured to help you do the job. SaferMe gives you individual contact tables for each worker, including second and third degree contacts. So, if Sally gets sick - you pull up Sally’s contact table and get to work. No manual labour in working out who needs to be contacted.4. Will the solution help you get ahead of the curve?More than just contact tracing is needed for an effective and safe return to work programme. As well as protective gear, social distancing, shift swaps and hygiene measures you may conduct temperature checks. One effective way to help minimize the impact of Covid-19 is through a daily wellbeing check-in for workers. Getting immediate knowledge of someone experiencing symptoms before they come to work, and before they get a positive Covid-19 test, enables you to isolate them and any close contacts to prevent a small cluster of cases becoming a large one. This could be the difference between a partial or full shutdown for many businesses. So make sure your plan includes this measure so you can get ahead of the curve.5. How well will the solution be used?Ask any software project manager or user experience expert and they will tell you the same: getting people to use software is often the hardest part of any implementation. So, if your planned contact tracing solution is going to cause clunky disruption and extra processes or work then it risks not being used and thus failing to solve the problem you’re looking to address. The majority of contact data collected by SaferMe is done automatically - so your workers don’t need to have extra work that distracts them. We help manage an effective rollout to achieve a high saturation rate and then let the solution do its thing while your people do theirs.If you want to find more about contact tracing for your business book a time with one of our team (we’ve teams in the US, Australia, New Zealand and Europe) and we’ll show you how to get started.

17 May 2020 · Mike Steere

Government makes contact tracing free for New Zealand businesses

SaferMe is pleased to announce we’ve received funding from the Ministry of Business Innovation & Employment (MBIE COVID-19 Innovation Fund) to develop our business-specific contact tracing for New Zealand companies.The mobile app-based solution will be offered for free in NZ; with only project management and support hours charged if required. Small NZ businesses who wish to manage their own onboarding won’t pay a cent.SaferMe’s CEO & Founder Clint Van Marrewijk says the company is delighted to play a role in helping New Zealand recover from Covid-19.“Contact tracing will be a key part of helping prevent Covid-19 outbreaks for some time to come. We’ve seen already that businesses are environments where clusters can occur, so we help organisations react with speed to reduce this risk.”“This support from MBIE allows us to offer the software free to small businesses. We’re proud to do that because we know many SMBs are facing challenging economic times.““Contact tracing helps a business protect workers and customers, and identify those most at risk when symptoms are reported. SaferMe’s GDPR compliant system also provides assurance to workers that their location data is not being passed to their workplace.” Business has an important role to play in contact tracing, both to protect the health and safety of its people, and to prevent development of clusters at a community level.

7 May 2020 · Mike Steere

What is the role of business in contact tracing?

The release of new public contact tracing apps by government authorities around the world, has left uncertainty for business leaders. Organizations want to know what they need to do as they resume operations in the new COVID-19 environment, but there is little guidance about how public contact tracing apps are used by businesses. So, let’s try and explain this new landscape, and the role businesses are likely to play in the eradication of COVID-19. There are a few emerging trends that seem somewhat inevitable, for those like ourselves that build & deploy contact tracing apps. First of all however, let’s consider businesses in the public health context of containing COVID-19 outbreaks. Countries need to reopen their economies long before the threat of COVID-19 is completely gone. We all know that. This means our workplaces are going to reopen while the virus is in the community. Events and large gatherings of people are banned or restricted in most jurisdictions, but workplaces remain a major vulnerability in containing the spread of the virus, due to the large-scale interaction of people in confined spaces - they can lead to a quick acceleration in outbreaks. We need only to look to statistics from New Zealand - one of the most successful countries at containing the virus thus far - to see that half of their major “clusters” of cases have occurred in workplaces. (In fact all but four of their major clusters have been related to workplaces or events.) So each business has a fundamental responsibility to ensure they manage this risk for the good of public health. Failure to do so can have dire consequences for the wider community. If we now look through a health and safety lens, businesses also have a responsibility to keep their employees and contractors safe and well; a ‘duty of care’ you may call it. This duty of care is particularly acute right now and brings workplaces one might normally consider ‘low risk’ from a health and safety standpoint, into very much a high-risk category, or at least in line with everyone else. Business leaders - those with the ultimate legal responsibility for their staff’s wellbeing - will need to consider the ramifications of a positive COVID-19 case within their team and especially if that case was slowly or poorly handled. As British legal experts pointed out in a recent edition of Business Leader magazine COVID-19 is the same as any other hazard to your employees’ health and you must act to protect them. Importantly, in many countries this also includes contractors and even the public. The importance of being safe to trade with over this period in order to maintain supplier, partner and customer relationships is also a key consideration. Demonstrating a thorough approach to contact tracing, personal protective equipment, social distancing and hygiene will enable organisations to provide assurance to their partners while reducing the risk of a poorly managed COVID-19 outbreak that could seriously harm these relationships and their reputation (in addition to impacting their own operations). Having established why businesses have an important role to play with contact tracing, it raises the obvious question of what specifically can businesses do? In short; the basic requirement is that you need to be reliably collecting contact lists for each person; and you need to be able to call on the previous 14 days of those lists for people that become infected or might have been in touch with an infected case to enable quick and effective contact tracing and isolation. It’s about collecting the data reliably, doing it efficiently and being able to call upon it quickly and in a logical and user-friendly manner when needed. Please note when I say ‘requirements’ I’m not referencing a government-issued requirement; I mean the requirements if you want to effectively help your organisation and health authorities to contact trace people when a positive case is identified. Our position is that: Businesses need to have an automated contact tracing solution to effectively manage this process internally; Business needs are not solved by public contact tracing apps released by national or regional authorities. There are several really important reasons for this. Firstly, a business-focused solution offers businesses the chance to react with much greater speed and reliability than a public app. Let’s break down why: As an employer you can’t “rollout” or manage usage of a public contact tracing app within your business. There is no insight into who is actually using it or not. On the contrary, contact tracing apps such as SaferMe allow you to quickly onboard your staff and see who has actually downloaded the app or not. Regarding speed, there is a significant difference between business vs public apps that is critical in the context of COVID-19 spread. With a business solution, management can prompt daily “fit-for-work” reporting (a form that takes two seconds for employees to complete) and can flag a case at the moment symptoms occur. That enables management to take action swiftly - isolating a symptomatic person before a positive test and pulling up their contact table (which the solution automatically generates) to have those people work from home too. Contrast that with a public app, that requires a positive test to be returned, and then it relies on the user to report that test result, and even then, you don’t have that data internally to manage. The difference in reaction time is at least 2-3 days even in a best-case scenario. That is a long time for a COVID-infected person to be spreading the virus internally without awareness for those around them. Further weaknesses of the public contact tracing apps were detailed nicely in this lengthy, but well-referenced article by Silicon Valley business leader Tomas Pueyo. In short, he shows opt-in public apps are not going to make a significant difference. Aside from technical limitations, the ability to get enough people to adopt them severely restricts their effectiveness. Another tactic businesses are trying is use of QR codes or similar visitor management systems to register visitors or members of the public coming to their place of work. We believe there is a need for registration systems to capture public attendance, provided it is efficiently presented to ensure high usage and involves no cross-contact between multiple people. These technologies alone don’t capture the full needs for business, but they are an important component for organisations that interface with the public. Overall, an automated mobile contact tracing solution is the best option for businesses to take their role in contact tracing seriously, to maximise ability to respond to a case; and to do all of this efficiently. It can be easily expanded across all staff, contractors and even subcontractors or partners. Businesses require three core components - daily fit for work check ins; automated background contact tracing; and manual contact tracing. As well as a web administration for management where a contact list can be produced for positive or suspected COVID-19 cases. You can read more about this here. For some very small businesses (eg 1-10 employees) with low external interactions, a paper and pen approach may work; combined with data from HR/payroll systems. But it should be noted that a ‘pen and paper’ approach has significant shortcomings, especially for larger organisations. Relying purely on memory and depending on workers to consistently record the names, and collate and store these notes over two weeks is just the beginning. The time this takes in large organisations will soon become unmanageable; while in the event of an actual case in your organisation, contact tracing is a significant challenge with paper notes. To put it mildly. This is because it isn’t just the direct contacts of an infected person that you need to be able to connect to - it’s the contacts of those contacts - the “2nd and 3rd degree” contacts that you also need to calculate and connect with swiftly. This is something that SaferMe does automatically for you in the background. I hope this has been a useful summary of why business has an important role in managing COVID-19 with contact tracing and what your business needs to do. If you’d like more information about how you can achieve that with the SaferMe solution, visit us at www.safer.me

30 April 2020 · Mike Steere

Compare contact tracing methods and providers

Update: Interested in comparing contact tracing tools in a simple way? - perhaps start here with this comparison table. A number of different international projects to conduct contact tracing have been established in response to the current covid-19 pandemic. These methods are mainly designed for adoption by broader communities and even whole nations. While others, such as SaferMe’s mobile solution, have been designed with organisations in mind - so business can minimize the potential impact of the coronavirus on their staff. Below we explain the different types of contact tracing methods and technologies. Also we’ve added analysis on what could be the best fit for your purpose. Manual contact tracing Contact tracing of course doesn’t need software. For small businesses or groups, a pen, paper and good routines have been successfully adopted. I had a personal experience while visiting a tourist hotspot in New Zealand shortly before the country went into lockdown, and the restaurant we ate at took our names and contact details as part of the process when we paid the bill. Manual contact tracing can of course be digital too, but requires good routine and when considering tracking larger scale interactions, an automated solution is suggested to accompany manual processes. Automated contact tracing (mobile GPS) When contact tracing needs to scale up, that’s when mobile app technology can help. A flurry of mobile apps using different methods have appeared in recent weeks. One method this works is by using GPS data from the phone and in the background collecting that data for the community of users. If one of that community returns a positive test then their contact history can be shared to the administrator allowing affected contacts to be reached.This method of collecting location data is well tested and is the current method which SaferMe uses and has been using for some time, to keep workers safe from hazards. Automated contact tracing (“Bluetooth handshake”) In Singapore, USA, Israel and Germany solutions have been released or are under development that allow for a “bluetooth-handshake” between devices. One way to picture how this works is to imagine your mobile has a registration plate like a vehicle does. Each time you “drive” past another “vehicle” (by receiving each other’s bluetooth connection) then both vehicles note the other’s “registration plate” in a list in their own memory. Should one user return a positive covid-19 test, they can then share that list with health authorities - with some apps this may create automated notifications for the other users. Some of the app projects currently active in this space are listed here on the Covid Watch website: https://covid-watch.org/about#comparison Which is the best method for contact tracing? Here there is much debate, and as with most challenges - there are many methods of contact tracing. But let’s separate into business and societal purposes to analyse the three methods. Contact tracing in the community The Bluetooth handshake approach is the method being used by most of the major projects underway. It still faces, however, much work to make the solution practicable. The privacy settings on Apple (iOS) devices are very restrictive, while Google’s Android device landscape is very fragmented with many different device manufacturers in its stable. There are interoperability issues between the two. Efforts are underway to address these problems, including a joint effort between Google and Apple that aims to alleviate these issues and potentially bring some features to an operating system level. The outcomes of that project won’t be known till mid-May at earliest; and even if there is success with that, there remains question marks about whether they will gain the trust of the majority of populations so enough people download them; and also how practicable the datasets would be to take action on. If you imagine a citizen in a city such as Tokyo, they would come in bluetooth proximity of an incredibly high number of people over a two-week period. As would each of those contacts whom they had that ‘association’ with. How long the two devices would need to be close to one another to deem an infection risk is a question also in need of resolving. Despite these challenges, the sheer number of projects, the input of heavyweights like Apple and Google and the privacy upside of the bluetooth handshake approach make it the best fit so far for community-level contact tracing. Contact tracing in business Businesses also face a set of unique challenges in the coming months as they try to return to operations while the ongoing covid-19 pandemic remains a threat. Business leaders must first consider their legal obligations to protect the wellbeing of their employees, and also the potential devastating impact of an outbreak of covid-19 within their workforce. Above these core requirements, businesses will also need to assure partners, suppliers and customers that they have good routines and reliable contact tracing processes in place so they can be seen as a safe trading partner through this time. Due to these circumstances, a business-focused contact tracing solution is the best fit because it offers features far beyond the community-focused tracing apps being developed. Key business features include; automated rollout and onboarding; personal support to manage the project and user engagement; ability to track if staff are actually using the app; daily wellbeing check-ins to provide advance warning of unwell staff members; automated contact tracing via GPS on the workers’ devices; manual contact tracing to complement the automated information. SaferMe provides all of the above measures, offering businesses the most complete contact tracing solution available. Importantly, for worker assurance, no GPS data is shared with the employer. This data is held on SaferMe’s secure servers for period of 14 days and only a list of those who have been in contact with the worker is provided in a case where a positive covid-19 test is returned.

14 April 2020 · SaferMe Team

The contact tracing needs of a business are different

The contact tracing needs of a business, are different to a nation state. Let's explain why. Background: Contact tracing is a technique used to figure-out who has been in contact with someone infected and could get sick. It's what governments do to try and halt the spread of COVID-19. Often manually, but also with technology. In particular, there are public apps being released by government departments globally, that try to automate contact tracing and make the process manageable at scale - for example Israel and Singapore’s apps. In contrast, business focused contact tracing apps can get to full adoption, and businesses already have a "duty of care" relationship with their employees. In our view there will be many more of these public apps released by nations around the globe, but they will not properly satisfy the needs of businesses at all. Businesses must know which staff have been in close contact* with other staff members, as soon as an employee reports sick. Watch this video to learn more. By getting ahead of a positive test, not only can a business increase the likelihood that most of their team can stay at work and operations can be sustained, but even more importantly they can keep their staff and customers as safe as they reasonably can! There are significant issues with paper and whiteboards for contact tracing, visitor management software, and the bluetooth beacons that are currently being implemented by businesses - more information can be found here. The problem with the public facing apps, from the point of view of a business, is they usually don’t share important information early enough - for privacy reasons. They are often not compulsory either. From the point of view of a business they are completely inadequate. Businesses have very different needs to that of a nation state, and therefore there is a need for specialist contact tracing solutions for business use. This is exactly what we have implemented at SaferMe. To get in contact with one of our account managers for your business, go here. *Close contact can be defined as: a) being within approximately 6 feet (2 meters), of a person with COVID-19 for a prolonged period of time (such as caring for or visiting a patient; or sitting within 6 feet of a patient in a healthcare waiting area or room); or b) having unprotected direct contact with infectious secretions or excretions of the patient (e.g., being coughed on, touching used tissues with a bare hand).

7 April 2020 · SaferMe Team

User manually logging contact details for Covid-19 contact tracing

Using SaferMe for COVID-19 Management

Over the past few days there has been an influx of clients adding COVID-19 communication channels to SaferMe.In particular those companies in service industries.Those that interact with the public, seem to be in need of real-time COVID-19 communication and management. For example, restaurants, hotels, retirement villages and public transport operators.One of our clients that has implemented COVID-19 management, had this to say: "It's more important than usual to know if one of your people is feeling any cold or flu-like symptoms. It's better to know straight away. This can all be done easily on SaferMe."Henry Samson, of Samson Safety These personal "fit for work" queries is only one feature on SaferMe, but it seems especially useful at the moment. Perhaps it's worth laying out for you here, how easy it is to build a COVID-19 communication channel on your SaferMe implementation. Watch this quick video below: The team here at SaferMe will continue to support clients through this difficult time, and we will keep you up to date with COVID-19 management product features.If you're interested in what can be done for COVID-19, for businesses, just go here.That's all for now.

18 March 2020 · SaferMe Team

Simon Bridges’ comments on health & safety are ignorant and irresponsible

SaferMe a leading health and safety software provider is criticising National leader Simon Bridges’ for his threat to remove health and safety regulations.In a promise to create a “bonfire of regulations” Bridges suggested health and safety regulations could be removed as they were a “burden” on New Zealand businesses.But SaferMe CEO Clint van Marrewijk says this is a fallacy.There is a wealth of international evidence showing a clear link between health and safety performance and financial performance. Companies that have healthy and safe employees and exceed the standards set by regulators are the companies that perform the best financially, not the other way around.The PriceWaterhouseCoopers 2008 report “Building the Case for Wellbeing", and a 2017 study from the University of California titled “Earnings expectations and employee safety” were prime examples that had shown this link, he said.Van Marrewijk slammed the comments as irresponsible given New Zealand’s poor work safety record. As an example, NZ's construction industry fatalities per 100,000 workers are double that of Australia, and 4 times higher than the UK. We need to stay-the-course and support businesses to keep working hard to develop competency in this area, not strip back responsibilities.Van Marrewijk said he’d like to see Bridges stop pandering, retract his comments, and instead adopt a leadership stance focused on improving safety outcomes for New Zealanders.SaferMe works with a network of health and safety consultants in New Zealand, Australia, and the UK to make workers safer through technology. The company is headquartered in Wellington.

12 March 2020 · Clint Van Marrewijk

Video: making hazard data open improves safety

It’s better for everyone when you make your safety-critical data available to other organisations working in the same location - it makes everybody safer. Watch the video to learn how:All credit to Open Data NZ and Stats NZ

11 March 2020 · SaferMe Team

Health and Safety Consultant easily switching clients team

Announcing ‘Team Switching’ on Mobile

Our Health & Safety Consultant partners have dozens, if not hundreds, of client Teams. As the number of clients grew, the more difficult it became to support them all. Switching between teams on our web admin portal is easy, and they asked that we do the same on mobile.So today we’re introducing Team Switching on Mobile!Enabling HSCs to switch teams on mobile, means they can respond to their clients' needs faster. No matter where they are. This is critical as the central benefit of SaferMe is to bring HSCs into the day-to-day of their clients.But, it's not only Health and Safety Consultants that benefitContractors that work for different clients can now switch from one to another in a second. This allows them to report to the right hiring organization for the job.Check out this video on our YouTube channel to see how to do it.Feel free to get in touch via support@safer.me if you have any questions!

6 March 2020 · SaferMe Team

Swedish heart attack plan shows the way.

The Swedish are saving lives by sharing heart attack alerts with nearby responders – critical lifesaving minutes are being saved from heart attack response. The world first software program(1) sends text messages to qualified CPR responders in the victim’s near vicinity, using a basic but workable method that logs where each trained responder works, or where their home is. Those registered with SMSLifesaver receive automatic alerts, detailing the address of a victim if they are within 500 meters of a suspected cardiac arrest. It is the location relevance of the alerts that is the innovative aspect of the software – it helps this “crowd” of qualified CPR responders work together efficiently, without the need of a centralised dispatch. In 54% of cases the SMSLifesaver responder gets to the victim before the ambulance arrives. In 2003 the Swedish cardiac arrest survival rate was 3%. Now it is almost 11% (1). This gain has been attributed to having far more responders available – the Swedish Fire Brigade and Police Department have been recruited to respond to cardiac arrest victims, which has increased the likelihood of a trained CPR responder being at the victim’s side in the critical first few minutes. SMSLifesaver has been recognised as partly responsible for the improved Swedish survival rate, and that is not the program’s only achievement. It has also clearly illustrated how the resources of a crowd can be better used. There are over 9,600 Stockholm residents contributing to the success of SMSLifesaver by being registered as voluntary CPR responders (only those trained in CPR are accepted). It seems to be an effective number of volunteers, particularly for Stockholm, where each heart attack alert may be attended by up to a dozen trained responders. In contrast to rural Swedish areas, where only one or two responders may receive an alert. What about New Zealand and Australia? According to Dr. Mårten Rosenqvist, it takes approximately 8 minutes for an ambulance to arrive in the Stockholm area (usually after the SMSLifesaver responder). By New Zealand and Australian standards even the “slow Swedish Ambulance” has a response time to be envied – our response times can fall short of this Swedish standard. And when it comes to heart attack response, every minute counts. In Australia, people living in remote locations have a 10% higher risk of death from coronary heart disease than residents in major cities, and those in very remote locations have a 30% higher risk.(2) Top marks go to the Swedish for showing the way and illustrating the power of mobile incident communication. We are watching their progress with great interest, as we believe it’s a matter of time until similar schemes are put in place in New Zealand and Australia. Disclosure of Interest: ThunderMaps are makers of “out-of-the-box” Incident Communication Software similar to the SMSLifesaver system. Sources: (1) Radio Sweden (2) http://www.heartattackfacts.org.au/heart-attack-facts/

1 December 2019 · thundermapsv3

Top 5 health and safety blogs you should follow

Workplace Health and Safety is a very important yet very harsh and dry subject. Unlike ‘sexy’ topics like travel, fashion, or food, that by nature provoke positive thoughts, and convey engaging messages, H&S is often associated with negativity. For example recent media comments that H&S laws are outdated, and our horrific workplace incidents. It is difficult to write about workplace safety without sounding diplomatic, or even superficial. But there are a few people whom I think have managed to do just the opposite. They deliver the great blend of wisdom and genuineness, with a dash of humour, and healthy dollop of positivity Here are the top 5 health and safety blogs where I often come for knowledge and inspiration: Safety At Work Direct, holistic, and genuine is what you can expect to find in Kevin Johns – an award-winning Australian H&S advocate’s blogpost. Kevin has successfully tackled H&S at both macro and micro level. From convincingly arguing workplace safety as a critical part of bigger business environment’s picture and that it “cannot exist outside social, economic and political contexts” ,to educating business about specific issues of H&S such as suicide prevention, he has successfully done them all. Speaking of Safety Susan Main, an accomplished Canadian writer, is the mastermind behind Speaking of Safety. The thing that I love about Susan’s articles is their genuineness. Rather than making strong and forceful claims about how important H&S is (like most people do), Speaking of Safety is all about story-telling “in the hope of starting conversations that lead to real change“. Because Susan is not a health and safety professional by training, many people (including myself) find her effortless, down-to-earth writing style, and informative series of posts particularly appealing and easy to read. Safety Risk dot Net In 2009, Dave Collins started safetyrisk.net. Little did he know, 6 years later this small project of his would become one of the world’s most influential and richest sources of insights and knowledge about H&S – successfully reaching over 15,000 people per day. Safetyrisk.net might not have the greatest look and feel, but don’t be fooled by its appearance, because the minute you start reading its content (particularly this article, and this one), you’ll be surprised by the level of depth and passion these articles convey. Knowledge at Work Want to learn and understand H&S from the best of the best? Knowledge at Work offers a holistic view of workplace safety from experts and practitioners. This site is a one-stop shop for all health and safety matters. From regulatory compliance to safety training, you can expect to find all the related information here. OHS Online Whatever you’re looking for, you can most certainly find it at OSH Online. Not only does it keep me updated with the latest news and trends, its blog section offers an excellent range of commentary and expert opinions from health and safety professionals worldwide. From building and promoting a safety culture at workplace, to the latest technology embraced in H&S. There you have it – My top 5 absolute favorite Health and safety blogs. I am interested in learning about yours too. Please leave a comment below.

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

Health and safety best practice: how to engage your staff?

“How can I engage my people in health and safety?”This is a critical question but it can be very challenging to get started.To help you out, we have asked top health and safety experts to share their opinions on what makes for good staff engagement practices.Here’s five things they had to say:Know your peopleYour safety program does not have to be one-size-fits all. People have different personalities, and you can tailor your health and safety program so that each individual is more likely to respond to it.1 in 4 workers are assessed as high risk based on their personality“Personality has a strong influence on our behavior. Research shows that 1 in 4 workers are assessed as high risk based on their personality . This does not mean that the high risk person will have an incident, it means that they are more likely to be involved in an incident due to their inherited “knee jerk” response to a situation. If we assess someone’s personality and provide them with the tools to manage their own high risk areas, their behavior to a given situation can change”Julie Allwright , Initial Response & Safety, Australiawww.irsafety.com.auBe one of them“Zero Harm” initiatives can backfire – injury hiding and safety-cop culture, can develop. When the “safety team” holds sole responsibility for mitigating risks and accidents for the whole organisation, safety inspectors can sometimes be seen as “compliance cops” or “over-the-top” bureaucrats in the eyes of those they’re trying to protect.This helps no one.Most of the experts we surveyed stressed the importance of being perceived as “one of the team”:If you are responsible for welders and you don’t know how to weld, go to a trade school to learn welding.“Be one of them. Dress like the employees. Take your breaks when the employees do. Lunch where they lunch.Learn how to actually perform the employee’s jobs. If you are responsible for welders and you don’t know how to weld, go to a trade school to learn welding”Dave Weber, CPS , Safety Awakening , USwww.safetyawakenings.comNo matter how busy you are or what you have planned at the start of the day before you start any work, say good morning to all staff and supervisors.Allocate 15 minutes a day to spend time and talk to staff members doesn’t have to be about safety and take an active interest this helps the lines of communication open and for you to be ‘seen’Adam Jordan, Jordan Consulting Services, Australiajordanconsultingservices.com.au/home.htmlShow your commitmentGood intentions need to be supported by good actions. You need to demonstrate that health and safety policy and programs are there for a reason, and that reason is because you genuinely care about your staff’s well-being:Establish teams of in-house workers charged with identifying an OH&S issue and developing a solution. They are resourced with a technical person and one manager. Importantly, management commits in advance a fixed sum of money to putting the team’s final solution into place. This shows management is genuine in their support. What happens? Inspiring, creative ideas appear, “owned” by the people who conceive them. On completion, a presentation brings everybody positively on board in a “win-win” outcome.Mark Dohrmann, Dohrmann Consulting, Australiawww.ergonomics.com.auShowing your commitment is also about putting workers’ safety at the top of your priority list and being prepared to stand up for what you think is right:Don’t be a “yes man” for managementDon’t be a “yes man” for management. Always do whatever is best for the safety and health of the employee, regardless of how management (and your supervisor) might view it.Dave Weber, CPS , Safety Awakening , USwww.safetyawakenings.comIf incidents happen, it is important to do a root-investigation and learn from it so that such unfortunate events won’t repeat itself. Moreover, try to put the blame on the injured person as “most accidents are caused by a failure of the management system, not the individual employee”, according to Dave Weber, Safety Awakening.Also, “after an on the job injury, make regular calls to the injured employee to see how they are doing, and to verify that the insurance company is taking care of their medical bills and paying their benefits.” he further adds.Empower and encourage staffWhat’s worse than your staff having absolutely no interest in health and safety? To receive a staff health and safety suggestion and do nothing about it.By not following up, you are sending the message that you don’t care. And if you don’t bother then why should they? Therefore, it is important that:When you receive suggestions, either follow up on them or get back to the employee who made the suggestion on why it was not followedDave Weber, CPS , Safety Awakening , USwww.safetyawakenings.comFurthermore, companies should look for ways to encourage employees to raise concerns and speak up about health and safety related issues at work. A simple way to do this is to:Encourage staff to raise issues and seek their input about “HOW” things could be done better. Empower staff to ask the question “WHY?”Adam Jordan, Jordan Consulting Services, Australiajordanconsultingservices.com.au/home.htmlTalk the talk! Walk the walk!To get everyone on board, you must show them that you are 100% committed, too.This means that you need to “set an example by following all work and safety rules yourself” otherwise people “will not have the faith or belief in what is trying to be introduced” (Dave Weber, Safety Awakening ).———–Building and creating a safety culture at work is the key to having meaningful staff engagement and health and safety participation.Hopefully these expert insights above get you thinking, and help you to put in place practices that improve your workplace health and safety culture.

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

Improve HSE culture and boost staff engagement

The Government’s health and safety changes puts more emphasis on safety being an all-employee duty that is spread throughout each business. While setting up safety meetings or introducing a new policy is relatively easy to do, creating a culture where people actively “live and breathe health and safety”, can be much more challenging. It’s not going to happen overnight. Breaking down the employee involvement mystery If you notice your coworker is operating at risk, what would you do? Warn them straight away Not doing anything while 90% agreed that they should speak up, only about 60% said they would actually speak up and provide this critical feedback. Research conducted by Safety Performance Solutions Inc. (SPS) shows that 90% of the people agreed that they should speak up. However only 60% of them said they would actually provide this critical feedback. What stops people from speaking up? There’re usually three reasons: Internal conflict – “It’s not my job” mentality: this can be common in organisations that create a siloed safety department. When staff do not see health and safety as part of their responsibility, many people will hesitate to give feedback. Not competent enough: This can be the result of (1) lack of understanding and knowledge of safety best practice, and (2) a business failing to provide an environment where speaking up against malpractice is acceptable. Don’t want to insult others: Especially if the person they are trying to warn is in a higher position in the organisation. To effectively boost health and safety performance, organisations should create an open and transparent communication environment for staff. The relevant question here is how. Building an open communication culture Research has shown that in order to build a culture of open communication, these steps should be followed: Awareness People need to be constantly informed about what’s happening around them: why certain things are taking place and especially how health and safety fits into the agenda. Source: Harrison Grierson Health and safety initiatives should be part of everyone’s everyday working life. Activities like employee-led observation and near miss reporting should be adopted by all employees, not just people in charge of safety departments. Transparency One of the most challenging things in health and safety is to get people to report near miss incidents. This is because reporting these incidents means additional work, and often nothing is carried out once reports are filed. Additionally, reporting these incidents might also jeopardize their position (or their coworkers’). Some solutions to improve transparency are: Introduce an easy and efficient near-miss reporting system Risk resolutions should be communicated back to everyone in the organisation Implement reward-based reporting initiatives One of the ways to demonstrate commitment in addressing health and safety issues is to reward risk reporting. It is just as important if not more that the leaders talk the talk and walk the walk by setting a high personal example. Joint problem solving Did you know that: 90% workers believed that they should be included in the decision making process, but Over 40% of them reported that their managers “consistently failed” to seek inputs from them. People want to be heard – they want to see that their concerns and input are of significance and are genuinely valued. Joint problem solving can strengthen employee-employer relationships, and develop mutual trust – the idea here is that everyone can and should actively take ownership of problems.

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

Experts comment on top health and safety priorities for 2020

A new year allows us all to take a moment and figure out what our goals are going to be for the year ahead. With this in mind, we have reached out to industry leaders across the globe to share their health and safety priorities for 2020. This is the first in a series that we will showcase throughout the first months of this year.When you’re distributing electricity to more than 1.4 million customers, safety needs to be at the heart of everything you do. At Energex, safety is our number one value and continues to drive how we operate our business to provide customers with energy solutions that are economically, socially and environmentally acceptable and sustainable.Ensuring our people go home safe at the end of every day, and our safety vision of becoming the world’s safest electricity distributor, has driven us to better understand our existing culture and develop a roadmap to improve our safety performance and achieve our vision.Over the next 2-3 years we are heavily focussed on three primary areas in safety:A focus on building greater trust through empowerment and stronger relationships;Changing assumptions about accountability, compliance and safety risk by building more flexible and adaptable systems; and;Creating a culture where improving work effectiveness results in improved safety performance.A central component of this direction is ensuring our people are empowered and engaged to be part of the future. What this means for us in 2016 is developing and providing our people with the tools they need to be able to lead safety. An example of where we are already starting to do things differently is introducing safety interactions based on a coaching model where both positive safe behaviours and at-risk behaviours are identified and we are all committed to learning from these and adjusting behaviours where needed.As we continue along our journey to achieving safer outcomes and implementing solutions from our safety roadmap, we will continue to consult with our people and seek regular feedback. By doing this we seek to grow our foundation of care and trust and ensure that safety is always relevant and meaningful to everyone in the organisation.Carly Smith | Safety Change and Communications ConsultantAbout EnergexEnergex manages sophisticated energy distribution networks and delivers world-class energy products, services and expertise to one of Australia’s fastest growing communities. Based in South East Queensland, we have been providing electricity to Queenslanders for more than 100 years. Today, Energex provides distribution services to almost 1.4 million domestic and business connections, delivering electricity to a population base of around 3.2 million people.Energex on Linked in | Website

1 December 2019 · Clint Van Marrewijk

Farmers getting special treatment from WorkSafe the right move?

This morning we hear, from Radio New Zealand, that WorkSafe New Zealand has been accused of selling farm workers’ safety short by not prosecuting farmers for dangerous practices. In some quarters there is concern that a lack of WorkSafe prosecution of farmers that breach workplace health and safety regulation, are one of the reasons for the farming sector’s continuing poor performance from a safety point of view. In response to this, WorkSafe is of the opinion that education is the key to improved health and safety in the farming sector, rather than whacking people with a stick. WorkSafe is being smart by not going in “guns blazing against farmers”, as farmers already have a long held “us verses them” type mentality. As the son of a dairy farmer, I can understand their point of view. For years, farmers believe they have been steadily improving how they behave, to keep inline with progressively stricter regulation. One just needs to look at the improvements in environmental regulation, food hygiene regulations, animal health practices, safety & training and employment regulation to see the progress that has been made. Alienating farmers is of little use to anyone. Shifting the mentality of farmers towards being proactive about workplace safety will take time, education and trust. The ideal scenario is that farmers are aware of safety risks on their farms, wherever they may be, and are educated about the true costs these risks pose. Technology, like SaferMe’s reporting tools, can help give farmers this level of risk awareness, but if farmers don’t understand the value of mitigating risks there will be more resistance from them, rather than progress.

1 December 2019 · Clint Van Marrewijk

For the sake of a safer workplace it’s OK to “CRY WOLF”

This post is part of an ongoing series asking leading OSH consultants about their tips for engaging employees in the workplace health and safety process.Too often, employees feel that if they raise a concern that turns out to be nothing, they will be punished or ridiculed and the path of least resistance is to assume that it is someone else’s job to raise an issue, or that the observed deviation from normal is not a big deal.Employees need to be knowledgeable enough to recognise when and how to intervene, and be willing to do so.The challenge for leaders is to create a culture in which employees not only recognize when things start to go off track, but are willing and able to intervene to prevent a small problem from becoming a major event.If employees are given the opportunity to participate in making decisions that affect their job, they become more actively involved in the work that they do.Getting employees more involved has three main psychological benefits.Employees become more focused on their work; they are more alert, active and prepared to perform, they do not become easily distracted and therefore are less likely to make errors that may lead to an accident.Participation motivates employees to contribute more. A motivated employee will balance their own and the organisation’s needs. If their job is designed to give them intrinsic and extrinsic rewards, then they will be more committed to the organisation and therefore the goals that the organisation sets around health and safety.Participating in decision making can help employees to become more accountable and therefore help them to achieve the health safety goals of the organisation and therefore feel safer at work.About the AuthorDavid Whiting is an international safety specialist who works with you in developing corporate safety strategy and management systems with 30+ years’ experience who interacts with both organisations, lead and legal bodies in an international arena.He’s an experienced HSEQ professional with operational knowledge from diverse industrial sectors with a track record in setting strategic direction and development in teams who work in global capacity where they are facing competency issues in today’s business economy.

1 December 2019 · Clint Van Marrewijk

Do you have the elements for managing a safety culture?

As we are all aware good safety management is about preventing injury and saving lives in the workplace, but did you know that it is a vital component of good organisational management as well, that will improve reputation, business success and reduce costs.Having a health and safety management system is not enough to ensure that personnel work safely, as highlighted in the Baker Report (2007) into the 2005 BP Texas City refinery disaster:‘A positive safety culture is important for good process safety performance. Absent a healthy safety culture, even the best safety management systems will be largely ineffective in ensuring and sustaining excellent process safety performance’.The safety culture of any organisation is based on the assumptions, norms, values and beliefs within the organisation and directly influences and impacts on the successful management of occupational health and safety of that organisation.It is absolutely fundamental for any organisation to achieve continual improvement in safety culture for the leadership of that organisation to have vision and drive; in addition the elements below are required for a robust safety culture:Visible demonstration of management commitment to safetyDynamic, visible and unambiguous safety leadership by the senior management team.CommunicationType (2-way), style and effectiveness.Learning organisationThe ability of the organisation to self evaluate and apply lessons learned.Production versus safetyIs there an appropriate balance?Trust within the organisationBetween peers and employees and management.Participation in safetyThe extent to which staff are involved in safety decision making.Shared perceptions of safetyExtent to which all employees share a common vision of safety.Health & safety resourcesAdequate number of competent health and safety staff and time spent on safety.Industrial relations & job satisfactionProactive management of staff and HR.TrainingValue placed on training and type of training for all management and staff.Just cultureRecognition of proactive contributions to safety and a fair disciplinary system in place within the organisation.If any of these elements are poor or absent the organisation’s safety culture will be weakened and improvement will not occur, but with the proper application of the safety culture elements above any organisation can improve its safety culture.Having a procedure is not enough to ensure that the work is being carried out safely, effectively or efficiently on site, although through good general management techniques and demonstrating visible commitment together with the other safety culture elements, we can have a successful safety culture where we can increase productivity, lower costs and improve safety performance.This piece is based on my MSc research work into safety cultures and the impacts of safety culture on safe behaviours.Article by Alex ShannonAlex is a chartered safety practitioner (CMIOSH) who is educated to post graduate level (MSc) in occupational health, safety and environmental management; with experience in the international oil and gas sector. Alex’s particular interest is the identification and development of safety cultures through performance analysis and diagnosis.Alex on LinkedIn

1 December 2019 · Clint Van Marrewijk

NZ CEOs not delivering on health and safety best intentions

New Zealand CEOs have voiced their position on the state of health and safety in their workplaces, in a survey commissioned by Deloitte. A couple of things really stand out for us in the survey results. CEOs have identified health and safety as a key priority within their organisation, citing financial benefits and the key goal of keeping workers safe as incentives. They also see improving safety culture as a key to improving performance. Interestingly though, the survey also uncovered a gap between their commitment to health and safety and what actually happens in day to day work practices. In fact, a third of CEOs say the risks in their workplace aren’t well described. Despite workplace health and safety being identified as a concern, the efforts to improve are still, as yet, patchy. When I read reports like this I feel validated in our thinking that there is a real need for improved risk communication in workplaces. SaferMe is built to help CEOs and their teams identify risks in the workplace, easily document them, and communicate these risks in real time to staff members. The goal here is to tell your team about potential dangers before accidents happen. The problem with paper forms is they don’t do anything. They sit in a drawer. SaferMe utilises the latest technology to automatically shows risks on maps, allowing people to communicate with photos, and once a risk is identified, workflows can be put into place so your staff can work together to improve safety. Of course, an easy to use reporting tool is not a silver bullet, and employers need to come up with strategies and tactics to create a culture which engages staff in the health and safety process. However, real-time feedback from upper management on everyday risks identified in the field does tend to send a strong message. With SaferMe there’s never an excuse for someone not to be aware of a risk. If employees walk blindly around a workplace, unaware of the risk around them, they perceive their workplace as being safe, and they often do not know about a risk until it’s too late. Little wonder they don’t take efforts to engage, and health and safety reporting can be described as patchy.

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

Is health and safety more than a paperwork exercise for your business?

Staff engagement is key to a successful health and safety management system, but health and safety is far too often seen as a paperwork exercise for businesses.I always try to explain that a risk assessment or a safety procedure that is not followed is just paper and words and has little purpose.The reason why most businesses fail with their risk management is they don’t involve the people that they need to protect.As with life, people do not like being told what to do, and often safety documents are written in a way that make them unachievable.By optimising staff engagement both of those common failures can be avoided.The more staff are involved in managing their risk the more successful the outcome. By giving them ownership staff will embrace safe systems of work therefore reducing workplace accidents and incidents.A great example of this is enabling staff to trial a number of suitable options, listening to their responses, and letting them choose the option that works best for them.By letting them choose a suitable option you will find that compliance to it will be greatly improved.I think it is always important for businesses to remember who they are trying to protect, and involving them in the process will lead to a more successful outcome. About the AuthorEllis Arnett is the Director of TEAM Safety Services Ltd. TEAM Safety Services provides you with Health and Safety systems which are realistic, workable and affordable. We believe in a practical approach to Health and Safety and being able to provide your company with all aspects of Health and Safety Management and Training ensures continuity which leads to great results.

1 December 2019 · Clint Van Marrewijk

How does safety culture tie in with an HSE management system?

In my previous article I discussed the need for the 11 elements of a safety culture to be in place so that a Health, Safety and Environmental Management System (HSE M/S) can operate effectively. Following that piece I was asked how to apply tangible actions to strengthen the safety culture aspect of a HSE M/S.With the need of brevity in writing on LinkedIn this article will, I hope, give you some ideas of how an organisation’s HSE M/S can be used to promote safety culture. This is not meant as a comprehensive explanation, but more of an appetiser. You will note that there is plenty of scope for cross pollination of the elements and as such the elements shouldn’t be seen as isolated silos of fact, but areas that help guide you in your improvements.Visible demonstration of management commitment to safety – Dynamic, visible and unambiguous safety leadership by the senior management team.From the initial stages of a safety culture improvement plan the board and the senior management team should develop a clear philosophy with regards their expectations in safety performance. This philosophy should be used to lay the foundations of the desired safety culture. Expectations should begin with the elements of a safety culture and ensure that a just culture is established from the outset; a culture in which workers feel confident and encouraged to report safety concerns.Is the senior management team leading and participating in safety walkarounds of the worksites and discussing safety with employees on a regular basis.Are senior management seen to take action on safety discussions they have had with employees or give direct feedback to employees with safety concerns?Is there a board member/senior manager nominated as the business HSE champion? This should be someone outside the HSE Team.Is the annual HSE Management System review effective with tangible actions and responsibility being taken by the board and senior managers? Is the resulting annual HSE Plan agreed by the board/senior management and is it SMART?Are HSE reports seen, understood and acknowledged by the board and senior managers – are they taking responsibility for the HSE performance of the business?Do the HSE reports address both agreed and business applicable leading and lagging KPIs?Does the management team need training to support them in their HSE roles and responsibilities?Communication – Type (2-way), style and effectiveness.Are safety meetings chaired by someone who gets things done?Are there regular safety bulletins?Is there a system of safety recognition in place e.g. awards for tangible improvements?Are HSE reports shared across the organisation so HSE performance can be seen by all?Do shift handovers include HSE?Could handover information be improved – e.g. using logs, written handovers, standardised etc?Do safe systems of work actively engage all those involved in or effected by the work?Is the documentation in use clear and applicable to the work, could it be improved?Learning organisation – The ability of the organisation to self evaluate and apply lessons learned.Is the incident and investigation process able to identify lessons learned and action findings appropriately. Does the organisation have enough leadership on incident investigations or is it left to the HSE Team to investigate and follow up actions?Does the annual management review included major lessons learned and progress?Is the management of change process robust enough to manage lessons learned from incidents? Is it being used for lessons learned?Are internal audits and inspections viewed as learning opportunities or ‘big brother’ type actions by auditees?Are there opportunities within the organisation for HSE based peer reviews of business units e.g. sharing knowledge and best practice?Production versus safety – Is there an appropriate balance?Is the organisation aiming to fully integrate HSE e.g. line ownership, procedures rather than generic risk assessments?Is there a system of readiness reviews in place to ensure that all necessary criteria have been met before starting, during and closing down (or other critical stages) of projects or operations?As contracting companies all have different safety cultures prior to starting a project, it would be better if the client were to evaluate the contractor’s and major sub-contractor’s safety culture prior to awarding the contract. If it were found that the contractor’s safety culture was not at a desirable level the client’s project management team could determine the best management approach to maximising the safety performance of the contractor.It may well prove worthwhile for companies to conduct a review of contractors and their main sub-contractors in terms of their HSE M/S, safety culture and safety performance prior to awarding contracts. Once that review has been completed the company could work in partnership with the contractor to establish a HSE M/S as the basis for a safety culture that focuses on areas that can be realistically improved and achieved within the timescales of the of the project. The Company should be prepared to work in partnership with contractors to implement basic safety management policies and procedures and train the management of the contractor to a level that is acceptable to the company.Are safe systems of work followed correctly?Trust within the organisation – Between peers and employees and management.Management teams, working in countries with emerging and developing economies, should work on changing safety culture using a top down approach, prior to introducing other schemes of systems such as BBS. It may be particularly applicable in societies that are traditionally hierarchal and/or where autocratic management styles are found. Here, workers are particularly reluctant to circumvent their supervision or management and are possibly suspicious of reporting on their colleagues.Does the organisation have an open door coaching and mentoring approach to managing work safely?Is the culture within the organisation mature enough to allow departments to carry out safety inspections and assist in improvements to other departments?Participation in safety – The extent to which staff are involved in safety decision making.Is HSE management within the organisation based on consultation or is safety ‘done to employees’, for example are those involved in the work involved in the risk assessment?Do the HSE Team deliver the safety talks or do management and workers get involved?Is there a system for all to suggest improvements?Are there HSE committees in place that consist of at least 50% of work force elected HSE Representatives from the workforce?Is there a clear ‘stop work’ policy that is understood and adhered to throughout the organisation?Are the workforce supported and trained to be able to participate in safety fully within their role?Shared perceptions of safety – Extent to which all employees share a common vision of safety.Is the safety psychological contract in place?Could there be more done for a better mutual understanding of agreed HSE expectations within the organisation?Is there initial benchmarking using surveys and reviews, with appropriate KPIs and scorecards being put in place?Companies’ should work in partnership with their contractors to initiate and implement a project HSE MS that can be understood by the workforce within the lifetime of the project.Is there a living HSE M/S that is properly developed, publicised and understood throughout the organisation should be well led by the senior and middle management teams, which could form part of their annual appraisal and job descriptions?Health & safety resources – Adequate number of competent health and safety staff and time spent on safety.Are the HSE Team properly trained to be able to deliver a customer focused service that adds value to the business?Is there a minimum level of training that HSE personnel should have before appointment and is their CPD maintained? By employing qualified, competent and proactive HSE Professionals, to advise the management team, there are potentially better opportunities for sustainable safety performance improvements.Your HSE M/S should specifically address the elements and ensure that there are clearly defined roles, responsibility and accountabilities assigned within the system – for example who is responsible for the competency and training matrix? Line or department manager?Industrial relations & job satisfaction – Proactive management of staff and HR.The management team should also encourage an environment where workers feel confident enough to report concerns or make suggestions for safety improvements (formally or informally); however on some work sites in emerging economies western management personnel should not expect local workers to freely submit ideas or suggestions or circumvent their immediate supervision in schemes such as BBS.It was interesting, during my own research on overseas projects, to find that the workers were sometimes reluctant to take the initiative or address safety issues directly, but would follow rules and instruction given to them by the safety team, their supervision or management.Is HSE used to alter the character of industrial disputes or impose management decisions not necessarily related to HSE?Training – Value placed on training and type of training for all management and staff.Are they minimum training standards in place and are the budgets in place for personnel to carry out that training?Are the competency matrices in place for all personnel to ensure that they meet the minimum trade and safety training expectations to carry out their job safely?Would the project management team benefit from training in safety culture and a sound understanding of the importance to the organisation in developing a better safety culture?Does the line supervision understand their responsibilities and accountabilities for the day to day safety on the worksite? They should be fully supported by an active and competent HSE team who can coach and intervene as necessary.Just culture – Recognition of proactive contributions to safety and a fair disciplinary system in place within the organisation.Is there a system in place that supports open and lesson learned based investigation and reporting of incidents and near misses? In that the disciplinary and awards systems allow for full investigation where the root cause and improvement is the goal rather than identifying a scapegoat?Deliberate negligence or circumvention of agreed systems are understood by all within the organisation as not being acceptable and the consequences of such actions are known and uniformly applied throughout the organisation; at all levels.Article by Alex ShannonAlex is a chartered safety practitioner (CMIOSH) who is educated to post graduate level (MSc) in occupational health, safety and environmental management; with experience in the international oil and gas sector. Alex’s particular interest is the identification and development of safety cultures through performance analysis and diagnosis.Alex on LinkedIn

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

Three key reasons why engaging with workers fails

Most people would agree that engaging employees is an important ingredient in the success of any business. It is often talked about but not well practiced. A good engaging organisation is an inclusive one, one where transparency and open dialogue is encouraged. Engaging employees should not be considered the same as attendance, the difference being involvement, participating and influencing the points in an equitable and constructive way. Over the years I have come to the conclusion there are three key reasons why engaging with workers fails: They are not a two-way learning experience; They do not build on trust and integrity and Communication is not well planned. Engagement as a two-way learning experience Worker involvement is increasingly becoming a social skill in relations (in addition to the traditional consultation) requiring active listening and interpersonal skills for the benefit of supervisors, line managers and senior managers. You can’t understand workplace practices, risks and issues from sitting behind a desk! Engaging with workers that work closest to the hazards have the knowledge and experience to support management understanding, what is working well, what needs improving and how improvements will be implemented. Engagement should therefore be a two-way learning experience. Building on trust and integrity My experience has taught me that it is not enough to to be correct. Successful implementation requires more than this. Trust and integrity is built up over time starting with – mean what you say and say what you mean with a shared belief in achieving what is required. Personal thoughts should be close to public ones. Engaging provides self checking through perception gap analysis and helps in this regard. Remember, perceived risk is as important as absolute risk. Plan your engagement strategy Communication is not communicating. Method is not content and delivery. There is as much attention if not more on the way something is said than what is being said. Communicating means key messages are enabling, unambiguous, precise and concise, and understood. Targeting a message to the right level for a target group, adjusting approach and methods accordingly, and having a full understanding of what is being conveyed means careful planning. For large projects (multiple worker sites or worker groups) a Communications Plan is recommended involving both the communicators and those receiving the communication. In any engagement there needs to be mutual respect which can only be earned through understanding the person(s) you are engaging with. Your workers then know who they are engaging with. It may be useful to consider engagement objectives and where possible, plan them to be converging rather than diverging. Company objectives may not be the same as personal objectives, but a performance / appraisal review can help integrate both. Remember, each time you engage, mutual respect is being tested. Harmony and conflicts are part of life. Harmony should indicate what you are doing right if the objectives are being met, conflicts where you need to close the perception gap in an agreeable way. Conflicts, like risk, are part of life. Try to understand them rather than eliminating them, they are after all an indicative reminder of what needs to be worked on. About the Author Paul Thompson is the principal Consultant at HaRMUCK. HaRMUK provides a national independent consultancy service in health, safety and risk management in the UK. Provision includes for hazard and risk management projects, legal compliance and best practices, management systems and implementation, capability and technical support, and information and assurance services.

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

The secret to getting people engaged in workplace health and safety

The question, “How do I get my employees engaged in health and safety” is a very common question. We hear it often from companies, big and small. We all know that health and safety initiatives will not succeed without real tangible support throughout the organisation. The word “real” is important here. Anyone can reduce the number of accidents in a corporate report by simply not reporting them or quibbling about what an accident really is just long enough for people to lose interest.The answer to the question is often seen as complicated and in some organisations, as elusive as the dreaded “zero accidents” slogan. Actually, the answer is very simple and can be achieved by companies without major investment. The secret is to make people care about what happens to them and their colleagues. You’ve heard this before, right? But keep reading, please.Picture the scene, you’re on an open road in the middle of nowhere, the speed limit is 50 MPH. It’s a sunny day, the top’s down, are you still doing 50? How about if there’s a speed camera, are you still speeding? Now things have changed. The consequences were the very unlikely event of you getting stopped by the authorities, now with the camera, the consequence has changed to the very likely chance of you being caught and fined. In other words, if there’s a certain consequence rather than an unlikely one, we’re all a bit more interested. Now let’s look at the more modern approach that the police use in the UK. If you meet a certain criteria, you don’t have to pay a fine, you attend a speed awareness course instead. What do you get shown at this course, an array of speed limit signs and a reminder that you really should follow them? No, you get shown graphic images of car accidents and stories of how crashes affected lives.These courses are trying to change the reason we abide by speed limits. We stick to the rules because we don’t want to hurt ourselves or other road users, not because we don’t want to get fined. Herein lies the simple message we need to bring to our workplaces, make it matter to people and for the right reasons. Maybe it’s not as simple as said earlier, but there are still really only three steps:Have speed limits – by this I mean have sensible policies and procedures that everyone understands. You wouldn’t be happy with a 30 limit on a standard motorway, so don’t make your workforce complete reams of paperwork to undertake low risk tasks. Listen to them, if they’re not following a rule, maybe there’s a reason.Use speed cameras – have a management team from top level to supervisors that will not just walk by when colleagues are acting unsafely. These people are critical and the more senior, the more effective the message. Stop the unsafe acts before they become accidents. And when you stop them………….Speed awareness courses – when you stop them, help them to understand why they broke the rule and why it was a bad idea. Get some commitment that they will change their behaviour.But please remember, the authorities don’t just keeping sending unsafe drivers on courses, eventually they do something more serious.About the Author My website is: https://www.eef.org.uk/My linkedin is: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/chris-newson-beng-cmiosh-aiema-7b9a3734

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

New health and safety laws - are you ready?

The new Health and Safety at Work Act coming into force April 4 2016 is aimed at reducing New Zealand’s workplace injury and death toll by 25 per cent by 2020. New Zealand Health & Safety expert Heidi Börner from Orange Umbrella has compiled the top five things you need to know about the new legislation coming into force on April 4 – so you can get your business, workplace and people ready and keep them safe. 1.The new legislation – it’s actually a good thing New Zealand has unacceptably high rates of workplace fatalities, serious harm injuries and work-related disease and illness. Between 2011-2016 New Zealand saw: 248 Workplace Fatalities 25072 Workplace Serious Harm Notifications The reality is that this is an opportunity to ensure that your people, your most valuable asset, stay healthy and safe and productive. That is a big win for your company! 2. The new legislation is here to stay Change is here. The new legislation is not going away and WorkSafe will be enforcing it, so we can’t go around pretending it doesn’t exist. Not complying results in operating outside the law. Should one of your people (contractors included) get injured or killed, WorkSafe will have a strong prosecution against you if you have not taken the required steps. The good news is it’s not that hard to achieve. The major changes – at a glance: Risk: There will now be a requirement to assess and manage risk rather than just identifying hazards. Personal liability: Directors and senior company leaders who have influence over what risk is acceptable in their organisation will be held liable along with anyone who has control or influence over how work is done. Workers can also be held liable and have a duty to co-operate with the company to assess and mitigate risk. Fines are significant and cannot be covered by insurance. Contracting: The person conducting a business or an enterprise shares responsibility for the health and safety of those doing the work. This means that you can’t contract out the risk to someone else. You are ultimately responsible for the people doing the work, whether they are employees or contractors. Worker participation and collaboration: Involving the people doing the work is a strategy to carry out the due diligence requirement to ensure workers are aware of and use health and safety systems. 3. It’s achievable Take the very first step and find out what the Health and Safety requirements are for your particular industry. WorkSafe has links to the new legislation as well as regulations. The new legislation spells out the accountability and liability for company leaders and directors clearly, and the consequences of not following the legislation. Many industries have their own codes of practice, and a company should be familiar with those and have good justification for not using an established industry code of practice. Use experts that can help you to position health and safety strategically in your organisation. 4. Health and safety is more than a tick box – it’s a culture shift Health and safety culture underpins the way a company functions and therefore must be evaluated and managed strategically. Get information about your current systems using a health and safety auditor or audit tool. Use health and safety specialists to help you thoroughly understand how to measure, monitor and mitigate risk throughout your business from the board right through to frontline staff. Use monitoring tools to ensure that your risk stays low – this will provide evidence for you for WorkSafe should they come knocking. 5. Measure, follow through, and refine Following through strengthens relationships and builds trust and engagement. Demonstrate transparency and responsiveness when listening to what employees say are their priorities, collaborate to develop solutions that will work. A good health and safety initiative will give you meaningful indicators, a positive return, reduce risk, open communication, and improve your bottom line through gains in productivity, efficiency, quality, and reputation. Just take Orange Umbrella’s client Unison Contracting Services Limited (UCSL) for example, who moved to managing health and safety culture strategically instead of reactively. Since the 2012/2013 financial year Unison reports to have a: 300% increase in near miss reporting 48% reduction in the number of medical treatment injuries 49% reduction in the number of incidents (e.g. vehicle or utility service damage) 13% improvement in employee engagement from the UCSL staff satisfaction survey 10% reduction in staff turnover 250% return on investment. Where else in your business could you generate a similar return? About the Author Heidi Börner is a Canadian certified occupational health specialist who started her career in 1992. Her consulting experience spans occupational health and safety system development, injury management, accident and injury investigation, auditing, and research for a wide range of business types in New Zealand and Canada. Through her experience she observed that companies were struggling to manage risks posed by workplace culture because they did not have the tools to measure and monitor the effect of workplace culture on health and safety performance. As a result, she co-developed the Orange Umbrella® tools for organisations, associations, insurers and compliance bodies and tested the tools in her Master’s research. Orange Umbrella® tools are currently helping companies measure and manage workplace risk in Canada and New Zealand in a variety of industries.

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

Making health and safety fun gets results

Client case study: A serious subject can still be engaging and fun A common theme from our new clients is that they are trying to increase engagement in HSE, but that getting change is difficult because “it’s a cultural thing”. Big organisations and small are all trying to incentivise good practice in safety procedures and reporting. A great idea. But how do you go about making real change? Which led us to a thought: could we leverage the ability to share photos inside SaferMe , to drive engagement from the bottom up within a company? Making health and safety fun using safety selfies We humans love to show off and to be social: why not let people show off that they are being safe at work? In case you have been asleep, taking a selfie on your phone is a global phenomenon. To the point that they even make sticks to help you do it. Auckland-based Active Roofing recently started using SaferMe for reporting risks in their workplace, and the idea of safety selfies helped the roll-out of mobile reporting to their team. Instead of being just a gimmick, safety selfies became part of their everyday business practice when submitting their site-specific safety forms. Their people enjoy using the software, engaging with each other, and like knowing that at the push of a button their H&S reports are submitted. Meanwhile, back at head office, Business Development Manager Kate Rose O’Neill gets to see a real-time feed of safety forms being submitted, and can instantly follow up with a comment if issues are seen. “The forms are collecting the same info as we did before, with the addition of time and location being automatically recorded, so we know the information is accurate. But the photos are fantastic. If there is something wrong on a site my guys can send a photo showing what they are working with, and we can come up with solutions to make the site safer.” Photos allow Katie to keep on top of things, and to give staff real-time feedback and encouragement. Katie said “They will send me a message saying – did you like my photo? And I’m like yes, but improve your high viz!” Katie described the ability to share reports between people on-site as “Amazing. It’s perfect.” Active Roofing started using SaferMe to solve the problem of resolution too. They had a process in place that was “ticking the boxes” with forms manually being uploaded to Google Drive, but the lack of ability to quickly follow up on reports, and lack of pictures and GPS location to help document on-site hazards, was an issue that just had to be solved. Safety selfies are a great way to get your team having fun and actively participating in being safe – especially when first making the move to being mobile. For more info on how to get your team involved in making your workplace safer, just fill out the form below.

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

Hector’s dolphin tracking project

Hector’s dolphins are the smallest dolphins in the world and are unique to New Zealand coasts. They are endangered, and not enough is known about their local movements and habitat.We wanted to step in and help.Although we focus on exporting safety apps, all our software developers live in New Zealand and they like to find ways to give back.This project got our attention after looking at the quality of existing dolphin sighting forms.Software does not need to be hard to use. But the old static web-forms were not useful when collecting location-based information at all.Especially when outside cell phone coverage… so we set out to do a better job with one of our off-the-shelf smart city apps.The Hector’s Dolphin Sightings app was developed in partnership with Whale and Dolphin, DOC and project leader Gemma McGrath, and is now available:on Google Playand on the Apple StoreMaking citizen science accessibleLeveraging “the crowd” to improve science is not a new idea. However bridging the divide between scientists and the general public is hard to do well, especially in remote areas of New Zealand.Department of Conservation’s Hannah Hendriks, of the Marine Species team says, “This data will really help us understand what areas are important for these dolphins, at a local level”SaferMe excels at making location-based reporting apps which are designed for everyday people to use.The Hector’s Dolphin Sightings app allows citizens to record in moments the location of a dolphin on a map, collecting key data about the dolphin for analysis.Back at base, project leader Gemma McGrath is instantly notified of dolphin sightings and can see the location of all sightings instantly, to allow trend spotting and “API connection” of the data for further analysis in third-party systems. Reports are verified and then release for other app users to see.Every dolphin sighting is important. Data will be co-managed with DOC, universities and other scientists to assist in dolphin conservation and local knowledge gaps.“Locals are excellent citizen scientists. You’re out observing the environment every day. With correct species identification, you can provide real scientific data. Hector’s dolphins are very distinctive from other dolphins. There’s nothing pointy about their fins, they’re very smooth and rounded. All other dolphin species have pointed fins. It’s now really fun and easy to report sightings, at the touch of a few buttons,” says McGrath.Time to help out“It would be awesome if you can register on the app now, it’s super easy, so it’s ready to go when you see a Hector’s dolphin. They are more often seen during the summer months, but they could turn up anytime, anywhere. Now’s also a great time to enter any historical sightings you remember and make a test sighting,” says Gemma.“The beauty of this app is that you instantly have access to your own sightings, can edit them, and you can see all the data. With all eyes on the water, chances are you’ll see other species. This app enables you to record other whale and dolphin species too!”The Hector’s Dolphin Sightings app is free from Google Play and the App Store.About SaferMe:SaferMe makes apps that help keep people informed and safe – off the shelf mobile data collection apps for businesses. If you want to show your employees that you are invested in keeping them safe, or if you want to encourage communication for your organisation, contact the SaferMe team today!

1 December 2019 · thundermapsv3

Your awareness of danger drives your safety

We think your awareness of danger is going to improve dramatically in the next ten years, and that this change at an individual level, will significantly improve one of the world’s largest collective problems. Before we try and explain this all, firstly let’s state upfront that there are already hundreds of software products that allow businesses to collect risk information into a database – to enable a business to comply with localised health and safety legislation – essentially ticking a box.This information is poorly used, rarely shared, and never enriched to make a real impact on safety.That is not what we do at ThunderMaps.Let’s now look at how we try to measure risk awareness, and where we think this trend is going in the medium term.Awareness Drives SafetyOne of the largest benefits of ThunderMaps to any business is that risk awareness is tracked across the board.How many risks have our staff been exposed to? Alerted to?How many of the risk alerts that ThunderMaps has sent to our users have been opened?This data can be analysed at the user level, which allows managers to understand each individual team member’s risk awareness, and help with training and management of that person toward greater safety awareness.Awareness can also be managed at the company level, so that CEOs can measure, compare and manage their whole company toward a greater level of risk awareness.This applies to risks that were reported by that company, but it also includes risks that were reported by other parties.A first principles viewpointThe reason you could come to accidental harm varies, but there are two broad reasons you can have an accident or be injured.Your awareness of dangerYour ability to avoid dangerHere’s a handy depiction for you.The bottom left is where ThunderMaps is focused.Bad things are happening in the bottom left, but it’s where we think technology opens up an opportunity to do something important.Our hypothesis here is that when people have accurate information about the risks they face, they can make safer decisions.The first step to increasing risk awareness is to measure it. It’s why we’re building the largest database of dangerous locations in the world. We know where dangerous things are, what they are, and how severe they are. With that data we can do amazing things like proactively send you an alert when you are approaching a dangerous location. And measure your overall risk awareness at any given point in time and space.

1 December 2019 · Clint Van Marrewijk

Making safety a priority for small businesses

For the last four weeks we’ve been testing a safety product for small businesses.Taking on real user feedback is critically important, as it helps to drive user-focused change, so we got out and about with working versions of a small business safety product.The answers we found were very interesting.We’ve been on the phonesWe’ve been at trade shows and have run competitionsWe’ve run SME business surveys, and the first 30 small businesses are up and running on the productThere were a number of questions we needed to answer and get feedback on.One of the most important was: would a small business, often just struggling to make ends meet and with little time, care about the safety of their staff?The answer was a resounding yes. In many respects we were surprised with just how aware small businesses were of how important safety was to them. But it makes sense. If you’re a plumber, farmer, or electrician, an accident or injury can have an outsized effect on the total business.In addition we found that, time and time again, small operators were not happy with the working conditions of certain, more household name businesses: “you know [insert household-name company] they are notoriously bad with their health and safety”.Small businesses often do not feel they could do much about controlling the safety of their work environment, or that there was a practical method to improve safety that would actually work.Introducing SaferMeThere are already hundreds of software products that allow businesses to collect risk information into a database – to enable a business to comply with localised health and safety legislation – essentially ‘ticking a box’. This information is poorly used, rarely shared, and never enriched to make a real impact on employee safety. That is not what we do.With ThunderMaps our user knows where and what a risk is relative to where they are right now, and it allows the user to avoid or mitigate the risk.The result is safer businesses, safer people, a safer you and a safer me. This idea has inspired us to brand our health and safety app targeted at small to medium business as SaferMe.There are two main reasons for this.Ultimately we make workplaces safer for people. We want our end users (you or your employees) to feel safer and therefore SaferMe feels appropriate.Mapping is a core feature of our business because we don’t think the world’s problem with health and safety can be solved without it. Current health and safety systems rarely consider geography to be useful information, and most do not even record it. Safety software to date has been about simply ‘ticking the box’ because the law says you have to. Where ThunderMaps stands apart is that we use risk information to help users be safer. Knowing where a risk is, relative to a user’s location, is therefore a critical piece of information. When a user knows where and what a risk is, it allows the user to avoid or mitigate the risk. But, our mapping technology is a unique feature which gives us an incredible point of difference – it does say what we do, and that is we make people safer. SaferMe.Moving forwardWe are really proud to introduce SaferMe powered by ThunderMaps. If you are a business looking to actually make your people safer, rather than just ticking a box, we could be the people you are looking for. Signing up for a free trial takes just minutes and you will be up and running with all the safety forms you need out of the box. For large enterprise organisations, we will still provide the added benefit of branding the most advanced safety platform available, for your business. Contact the team here.

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

Three reasons why your business must share risk information

We think the benefit of sharing risk locations is so large that it is inevitable that your business will eventually do so.There are three main reasons for our strongly held belief on this issue.Reason 1: Workplaces are shared spacesAll companies have a legal responsibility to identify risks for their employees – to isolate, eliminate, or otherwise minimise the risk they pose. What is striking is that this is done by each company in almost complete isolation, either on paper forms, or on an app that emulates a paper form. Companies rarely share data with one another, and when they do it’s in an indigestible format that ensures that nobody really benefits. When you consider how many companies share geography, this situation is ridiculous. Take a port as an example. Any large port will have upwards of 100 companies all working in the same environment, identifying many of the same hazards, but they will often find and document these hazards independently. By contrast, when risk information is shared, the number of people that experience unrecorded risks can be significantly reduced.It is our hypothesis at ThunderMaps that being aware of something dangerous is the first step to avoiding it.Reason 2: The administration load is too high to tackle aloneWarning staff and keeping them safe is very time consuming.There is simply too much risk and too much danger for any business to do an effective job at documenting everything.And where exactly does the responsibility of each business start and end? The administrative load on each individual business is far too high to do an effective job.And the weight of evidence suggests that although businesses are legally impelled to try to keep their people safe, they are failing (2.3 million people still die every year).Everywhere you go you experience danger. But we can’t protect you from every little thing! Can we. Can we?We humans are good at spotting danger, but from time to time we fail. And the consequences of this failure can be very serious (870,000 injury causing accidents happen at work every day).This is one reason why we’ve just launched Proximity Alerts, a feature that sends users an alert when they are approaching something which will put them in danger. Health and safety should be about more than just a business collecting information and ticking boxes.It should be about using that information to make people demonstrably safer. If a truly comprehensive safety system is simply too difficult for any business to do a great job alone, why not share the load by sharing risks?Reason 3: Technology can help dramaticallyMuch of the risk data that a business needs to collect, store and warn staff about is already recorded elsewhere. For example, in the last few weeks alone, dozens of hazard data-feeds have been added into ThunderMaps.Why would you re-record something when it’s already recorded, and some of your safety obligations as a business can be taken care of automatically? In addition to the information that companies and their users collect and share on ThunderMaps, we also collect and share every single piece of public risk data that our agents find – from fires to car crashes, earthquakes to civil defence warnings.All information is seamlessly integrated so that our users are made aware of the things that might represent a risk to their safety.ThunderMaps is building the largest database of dangerous locations in the world. We are doing this so that we can warn people when they approach danger at work. Because when your staff have accurate information about the risks they face, they can mitigate and avoid the danger. When they don’t, they can’t.If you want to keep your people safe at work, and reduce the administrative load that your business is experiencing at the same time, then get in contact with one of our account managers today!

1 December 2019 · Clint Van Marrewijk

Grace period over for new health and safety legislation

Almost one year since the Health and Safety at Work Act (HSWA) came into effect, WorkSafe New Zealand is happy with the improvements many businesses have made, but there is a clear message for those who haven’t acted. Grace period over for new Health and Safety legislation.WorkSafe’s spokesperson told SaferMe “Nearly one year in, it’s impressive to see the positive progress kiwi businesses have taken to understand their requirements and duties under HSWA.”WorkSafe has no plans to change its enforcement approach. However, after almost one year in force, she said the expectation of compliance with the regulations was clear: “It’s fair to say we now do expect that businesses should understand what the requirements are and have taken action, if required.”Clint Van Marrewijk, managing director of SaferMe, urged businesses who hadn’t yet taken action not to wait: “If there was a ‘grace period’ for this new law, it’s effectively now over.”Van Marrewijk said the SaferMe mission is to keep workers safe and make that process pain-free and affordable.“SaferMe eliminates paper forms, allows hazard and H&S reporting from your mobile, and it’s based around engagement of employees who can all use the app. Team engagement and participation around H&S is a key aspect of the new law.Every day the SaferMe team meets smaller businesses who still need to improve their H&S processes, and provides an affordable option for this group.“Price should not be a reason for small businesses not to have good tools to manage H&S / hazards – so we offer SaferMe from $30 per month for small teams. Add in the time savings from eliminating paper reports and it’s exceptional value,” Clint Van Marrewijk said.WorkSafe’s spokesperson said anyone wanting more information about the HSWA can find it at https://www.worksafe.govt.nz/worksafe.

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

The technology behind the world’s largest database of dangerous locations

Building the most comprehensive worldwide database of dangerous locations takes some serious computing power. On top of this, making people safer by letting people know when they are in danger, in real time, needs reliable technologies.Building the most comprehensive worldwide database of dangerous locations takes some serious computing power. On top of this, making people safer by letting people know when they are in danger, in real time, needs reliable technologies.At ThunderMaps we are heavy users of Amazon’s web services and we recently acquired a grant from the AWS Activate program to help rapidly scale and grow our business. Along with ThunderMaps, some of the world’s hottest startups, including Airbnb, Slack, and Robinhood have leveraged the power of AWS to quickly scale.Starting an ambitious tech company and competing on the world stage in the first years of business was once an expensive and nearly impossible task. Thanks to advancements in cloud computing, high-growth companies like ours can deliver innovation on the world stage more rapidly than in the past.In days gone by a technology company creating a massive database of dangerous locations would have to be worrying about the scalability of the infrastructure they are using. Instead we get to focus on developing and delivering a product which customers love.And the focus is paying off.In the last two years, we have been able to secure European Union contracts and now compete head to head with incumbents like ESRI and Survey123.ThunderMaps is in the process of working with government organisations to share safety data, from person to person, around the world.This includes distributing information for Alabama Police Incidents, Baltimore 911 Calls, Boston Crime Incidents, Columbia Fire Service Dispatch, GDACS Global Disaster Alerts, North Dakota Roadworks, NZ Fire Service, NZTA Traffic Alerts, and San Francisco Emergency Response alerts.If you are interested in having your data added to our database of dangerous locations and having it distributed on the ThunderMaps platform, get in touch!

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

How to use health & safety software to improve employee engagement

If you work in a medium or large-sized business you probably use health and safety (H&S) software to help your organisation manage safety and risk processes and help ensure compliance with safety and wellbeing legislation. Most health and safety systems have been designed for compliance and replicate paper document-driven processes. But the fact that these systems are not engaging for staff poses a problem, because employee engagement plays a significant part in helping minimise injuries at work. A 2006 study by the Society for Human Resource Management Foundation concluded that engaged employees are five times less likely than non-engaged workers to have a safety incident and seven times less likely to have a lost-time safety incident. It’s a huge difference. So, while your H&S system allows you to do the important tasks of documenting risks, hazards and accidents, and managing workflows for the resolution of problems – you likely aren’t getting maximum value from this data. Who actually sees the data on a regular basis? Is the data being used to proactively alert your staff and make people safer? Key question: Is my H&S software helping me engage employees with H&S / risk management processes? Why engagement in safety matters now more than ever The growth of smart mobile devices in the past decade coupled with workplace health and safety law changes across many countries (which enshrine engagement in law) mean there are few excuses for not improving engagement around safety and risk issues. More modern health and safety systems which provide mobile capability and have features to aid with engagement are now available on the market. (An important note however: a mobile reporting app and/or web forms will not alone drive engagement.) But, uprooting and changing an entire health and safety and risk management system is a significant project. It’s time-consuming and expensive, and may not be easy to get into your roadmap. There is a better alternative. Don’t replace your H&S software: Add an “engagement layer” Software does not have to be difficult to use. We have built a mobile safety and risk alerting product which adds an engagement layer to your existing H&S solution. You keep the system you have for compliance and reporting – and add in the branded mobile engagement tool which will help you drive employee engagement. It’s not just any mobile tool. Our European Commission innovation prize-winning solution with patent-pending technology is a unique solution in the health and safety and risk management market. We focus purely on driving user engagement. How do we do it? We are all about dangerous locations. We map risks and hazards from your organisation (and from shared and public databases) and then we alert your teams in real time, based on their location, of anything that could affect their safety. By being proactive we actively keep people engaged with important updates on the device we know they are using! Of course we make the reporting part super fast and simple too. And as a manager – you’ll be able to use powerful analytics on who reads alerts, who engages with them, and who is making safety observations – in order to better understand who the less and more engaged employees are. Sound interesting? Read more on our health and safety product page, or for a no-strings attached discussion on how to make your H&S system more engaging simply fill in your details in the form below and we’ll be in touch!

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

Our secret plan to increase risk awareness

It’s an interesting intellectual exercise. How would you go about building a system that literally keeps people safe? Before I explain what we think needs to be done, and how, let me first show you why we should try. Here are some numbers for you: 6,300 people die from avoidable accidents every day (2.3 million per year) 870,000 people are injured at work every day 4% of world GDP is lost as a result. Yes, four percent of world output! Okay, so the problem is big. But this is not a post about “the why” – we’ve written about why we share danger here – this is a post about “the how”. It’s not a question of whether there’s a very big issue that needs to be solved – the figures above indicate it is a big issue. The relevant question is how can we do something about it. A first principles view point The reason you could come to accidental harm varies, but there are two broad reasons you can have an accident or be injured. Your awareness of danger Your ability to avoid danger Here’s a handy depiction for you. The bottom left is where SaferMe is focused. Bad things are happening in the bottom left, but it’s where we think technology opens up an opportunity to do something important. Our hypothesis here is that when people have accurate information about the risks they face, they can make safer decisions. But let’s get back to the question at hand. How would you go about building a system that literally keeps people safe? Step 1: Collect risk information from people, machines and data feeds. Here at SaferMe we are accumulating truly massive amounts of risk and “danger data”, from any relevant source we can find or mine. Step 2: Make it really easy for people to access relevant risk information. We make it easy to view and be warned of the risks that are reported by other people, companies and machines. Step 3: Make it economically advantageous for businesses to use. It’s that simple really – how do we increase risk awareness? Collect a lot of risk information. Make it very easy to access and share that information. Help businesses save money doing it. More about SaferMe: SaferMe builds advanced safety technology for large global businesses. To learn more, just contact the SaferMe team today!

1 December 2019 · Clint Van Marrewijk

Why we share danger worldwide

SaferMe warns you when you’re about to experience danger. But let’s take some time to explain why, and a little bit about how. Firstly the problem we have set out to tackle is very real. 6,130 people die at work, from avoidable accidents, every day. Not every week. Every day. That’s 2.3 million deaths per year. In addition, nearly 1 million workplace accidents and injuries happen worldwide, every day, with a worldwide economic burden of at least 4% of world GDP per year. It’s important to remember too, that many of these accidents are happening at legally compliant workplaces. There has got to be a better way. The way we think about the problem is that if we can give people accurate, real-time risk information, we can help people make safer decisions. Let’s look at an example. Here we measure the danger awareness of each user: Why measure each individual’s awareness of danger? The above snapshot of the analytics dashboard shows a one-week period of risk alerts sent, and risk reports received in a client’s workplace. With this information, our client can find and identify those people that are unaware of risks and put in place non-technical initiatives to improve user safety. What we typically find at each company is that the most aware and most unaware people are at the same “age and stage”. It is also common for safe and unsafe workers, respectively, to have the same boss. But it’s not our job to make people be safe. All we can do is make sure each individual (and their machines) has real-time access to information about the risks they face, so they can make smart and safe decisions. So far so good – we’re on the way to 20 million active dangerous locations mapped, photographed, categorised and shared. Here’s a map of the locations that we’ve mapped so far: This time-lapse map contains all sorts of things – real-time fires, dangerous dogs (yes that’s a thing in some people’s jobs), sinkholes, bluffs and cliffs, overhead wire locations, extreme weather warnings, fall risks, natural disaster warnings, heavy machinery operating areas, etc… We’ve released the SaferMe integration module too, so that any developer or business can “plug in” danger data (for free) to be made useful to people. How do we make money? The value we provide each business is in making it really easy to record and manage the risks, near-misses, hazards, incidents and accidents that they are legally required to – taking the pain out of health and safety, and turning it into something that’s easy and engaging. The value we get back from every business is being able to share non-confidential hazard information, from one business to another, from one person to another, when people are at risk. Sharing risks is something we encourage, but don’t force, all our customers to do. If your organisation wants to be a leader in keeping people safe, we can deliver your organisation an easy to use safety interface, that’s integrated with your existing safety system, branded for you, configured for your company, inside 20 days. If you’re interested in learning more, just make contact with our team.

1 December 2019 · Clint Van Marrewijk

Harnessing location reporting technology for mobility parking – the Access Aware app

Harnessing location reporting technology for mobility parking - Access Aware app

In 2017 the number of mobility parking permit holders in New Zealand has skyrocketed to over 130,000 (up from 95,000 five years ago). With New Zealand’s aging population this number is set to continue to increase. And, like many countries, New Zealand has a problem with misuse of mobility parking by able-bodied people. Research by CCS Disability Action finds that levels of parking misuse have not improved in ten years, and are still unacceptably high, despite increases in fines and attempts to grow awareness of the problem. The increase in demand for mobility parks and for accessible businesses in general is putting pressure on New Zealand’s local authorities to either introduce more mobility parks, or to be smarter with how they are used. That’s why, for our latest charitable project, SaferMe has partnered with CCS Disability Action to develop Access Aware for iPhone and Android, world-first apps designed to optimise access to mobility parking for permit holders, and to make it simple and fast for users to report misuse of mobility parking. The Access Aware app allows users to see the known locations of mobility parks on a map in real time, so they can find a park when they need one. Users can also use the app to report any parking misuse they observe. Parking misuse reports are then immediately available to any parking enforcement officer within a 400 metre radius. The reports are also shared in real time with Access Aware partner councils and businesses, so that they can easily monitor the use of their mobility parks. By downloading and using the Access Aware app on their smartphone, users can make a real difference to the disabled community. We envision that the data collected on mobility parking misuse will influence council strategy on mobility parking provision and enforcement. We are excited to be able to enable changemakers in the community using SaferMe technology. We know this will make a real difference to people’s lives and to accessibility in New Zealand. Get in touch with us here to find out more about how our technology can make a difference to your organisation.

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

October update: state tracking, offline reporting & bulk edits

Heading into the last quarter of 2017, we have added the first batch of many planned speed and backend improvements to handle the increased load of more users of our products. There are also three new areas of development that we’re pleased to deliver to our users. Read on and we’ll talk you through them. Tracking Where States are Edited Many of our clients need to manage and change the state of their assets in the field, and when this happens, it’s really useful to track not just what the change was, but where it happened. Now, users can do this through the app. This means that a business owner or project manager can use this feature to confirm that a worker was present when an action was performed, for example, checking a hazard at a site to verify it has been resolved. Editing Offline Reports Over the years we’ve been pushing the boundaries of what a phone can do in offline remote areas. Many of our clients go into offline areas without cell coverage for weeks at a time and so it’s important that we deliver advanced features to service their needs. We’ve added an extra feature that allows those in offline areas to update their offline reports when they get back into range, in case someone back at base has changed the form they took with them… it does happen. This extra feature makes for a better user experience for thousands of offline users. Change the state of multiple reports at once Administrators can now select multiple reports and change their states all in one go – improving the user experience for power users. How-to: On the Channel Manager, click the ‘Channel Data’ panel. Select the reports to change by clicking the checkboxes next to each report. Then click ‘Bulk Edit’ and select the state the reports should be changed to. It will save heaps of time! The final months of 2017 will see more exciting product improvements rolling through the pipeline – ‘til next time when we can share them with you.

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

Branded safety web apps - a seamless interface with your brand

Why a branded safety web app? We know that improving safety culture and engagement is on the minds of CEOs and executive leaders. Is your organisation seeking a focus on safety engagement? Do you want to send a clear message to your people that you are dedicated to their safety, and not just to meeting legislative requirements? This is an area of expertise for us at SaferMe. Our mission is to markedly improve user safety with technology. We do this by making sure each person has full information so they can make informed and safe decisions. With company-specific branding, there’s also an extra powerful layer that can be added – when your people know the product is theirs it can empower them to take ownership of safety. SaferMe now offers a complete branded product to complement our mobile apps for large enterprise customers. It’s designed to provide our clients with a great user experience and a seamless transition between the mobile app and the web app. How can I use the apps? The mobile app lets you make quick mobile reports, even offline, and gives you proximity alerts on the move. The web app displays an intuitive map interface, giving you a complete picture of your team’s current activity. You will automatically receive alerts within your ‘safety bubble’ – the area around your known location – but you can also easily create alert areas to make sure you’re receiving information about locations that are important to you. You can customise the information you collect, and how you collect it, with the user-friendly drag and drop form-builder. You just see what is relevant to you, with no clutter. You can also integrate your systems to update or collect new data from existing sources. Branding for your organisation makes it easy for users to understand how to sign up. Our branded web app can be completely customised for your needs. Who is using SaferMe safety web apps? ThunderMaps has recently built branded safety apps for several large New Zealand organisations. BAYGOLD, a kiwifruit orchard management enterprise, uses its app to collect and share safety information, to ensure safety for orchard workers: https://baygold.thundermaps.com/ Downer, a large engineering and infrastructure company, uses its app to collect and share safety reports among its widely distributed teams, and provide proximity alerts about hazards: https://downerapp.com/ OSPRI, an organisation set up to protect New Zealand’s primary industries, uses the app as part of its TBfree New Zealand programme. OSPRI requires offline reporting of hazards for workers in remote locations, and the mapping and analysis of safety data, including proximity alerts about hazards. The OSPRI app is also used for the logging and management of infield assets: https://ospriapp.com/ Where to next? The innovations in technology that led to the introduction of our branded web app open up more exciting possibilities for future product development and use. ThunderMaps is proud to be breaking new ground in location-based reporting technology. We can deliver your organisation a user-friendly safety interface, that’s integrated with your existing safety system, branded for you, configured for your company, inside 20 days. Get in touch with us here to find out more about how our technology can make a difference to your organisation.

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

Five important focus areas for health, safety and wellbeing professionals

Another year has whizzed by and it’s time to take a look forward to what is coming in 2018 for safety professionals. What are the future trends, issues and challenges that lie ahead? We were recently in London to join more than 100 senior safety leaders for the X Health, Safety and Wellbeing forum (http://thecrowd.me/x-health-safety-wellbeing-2017) and it was clear there are major challenges facing the industry in coming years – including AI (artificial intelligence) and the automation of jobs, and the ageing workforce in many countries and the impact that will have as this group head to retirement in large numbers. During panel discussions and roundtable sessions we got a good sense of the pulse among these leaders, and from that we’ve picked our five key focus areas for safety leaders to take into 2018: Make your safety and wellbeing measurables matterIf you are still using accident metrics as a primary safety and wellbeing indicator, read on. Many of the more innovative companies connect safety improvement to the number of absent/sick days and to company productivity. These measures help reinforce the value-driving part of what you do (as opposed to “reducing accidents” or “because we should”) and can put hard numbers to the ROI case for innovation when discussing with senior management / C-level executives. Wellbeing and mental health is a growing focusThere is no question that stress-related illnesses and absences have risen in recent years. There was a consensus at the conference that mental wellbeing is a growing challenge and an increasing area of focus for many large companies. It was pointed out that while 35 people died in the UK from work safety accidents in 2016, more than 400 people committed suicide. Focusing on mental health support, and making it “OK” for employees to ask for help and get it is a key issue for 2018 and beyond. Many companies are still lagging in the use of safety dataDuring roundtable sessions which I chaired at the conference we discussed the use of safety data. Only one of the more than 20 senior safety leaders I spoke with rated themselves better than five out of 10 when it comes to collecting, analysing and proactively using safety data to keep people safer. Several spoke of getting data in effectively, but facing difficulty getting useful information out to workers in the field. For us at ThunderMaps, that confirms that we have plenty of work to do – because we are focused on helping organisations get important safety data to people when and where they need it, to help keep them safer. Augmented reality solutions are starting to enter the marketThere are a number of companies now entering the AR-safety space and we heard from a supplier of AR-visored helmets. Don’t expect mainstream adoption in 2018 but do expect to see more and more examples of AR playing a role in workplace health and safety. We’re excited about what the future holds in this space – as we build the world’s largest database of dangerous locations we are enabling our customers and partners to be in a strong position when AR does become more widespread. Engagement is still the most important thingYour role as a safety leader is a challenging one! You need to engage people in vastly different roles across the organisation with safety and this remains an improvement area for many safety leaders heading into 2018. A comprehensive Gallup survey (of 1.8m workers) tells us the importance of employee engagement. Workers who are highly engaged with safety have 70% fewer accidents than those who are less engaged. For you it’s not just important for the wider workforce, but you also need to engage senior leaders. One of the best pieces of advice we heard for engaging senior leaders (outside of clear business cases showing ROI potential) was “making safety real” for them. Putting the leaders themselves in the shoes of workers who face certain risks. Virtual reality experiences are being used to good effect here, allowing executives to get a feel for real-life risk scenarios. When it comes to workers out in the field, our location-based mobile alerting platform remains at the forefront of worker engagement technology. Being able to send location-relevant data to workers from your own intelligence or our global danger datasets in real time shows you are taking all possible measures to keep your team safe. SaferMe is helping companies that face these challenges to address them successfully. We look forward to talking and meeting with you in 2018. To find out what SaferMe can do for your team please contact us here, and if you would like to share your plans and focus areas for workplace safety and wellbeing in 2018 please comment below. Mike SteereManaging Director – Sweden mike.steere@safer.me

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

Dynamic map creation - layering technology that helps us keep your workers safe

At SaferMe, we believe in maps as a way of communicating. Traditional maps are one-way. You have to search to find what you want. SaferMe technology allows you to design maps to communicate the right information to your users, at exactly the time that they need it – especially information about things that can hurt people. We do this by allowing you to leverage a huge range of hazard data, to provide your users with the information they need to stay safe. SaferMe apps use a standardised map “layer language” so that users can easily interface with other data sources, around the world. In our New Zealand operation, we are fortunate that the government is focused on making many types of data public. Because of this, we are now accessing LINZ (Land Information New Zealand) imagery to add an extra layer of information to our maps to benefit our NZ clients. The LINZ maps add details and higher zoom levels for users, helping people figure out what’s dangerous nearby, faster. Slide the below visual to see the contrast between an aerial image in a part of NZ where the map has been obscured by weather, and the same location when a LINZ aerial image has been overlaid. Use your mouse to slide the red line: function TwoFace(t,e,i){if(!(this instanceof TwoFace))return new TwoFace(t,e,i);var a=document.createElement("canvas"),n=document.getElementById(t),s=.5;this.ctx=a.getContext("2d"),this.images=[],a.addEventListener("mousemove",d,!1),a.addEventListener("mousedown",d,!1),a.addEventListener("mouseup",d,!1);var r=this;function d(t){t.layerX||0==t.layerX?(t._x=t.layerX,t._y=t.layerY):(t.offsetX||0==t.offsetX)&&(t._x=t.offsetX,t._y=t.offsetY);var e=r[t.type];"function"==typeof e&&e.call(r,t)}a.setAttribute("width",e),a.setAttribute("height",i),n.appendChild(a),Object.defineProperty(this,"ready",{get:function(){return this.images.length>=2}}),Object.defineProperty(this,"width",{get:function(){return e}}),Object.defineProperty(this,"height",{get:function(){return i}}),Object.defineProperty(this,"divide",{get:function(){return s},set:function(t){t>1&&(t/=100),s=t,this.draw()}})}function createImage(t,e){var i=document.createElement("img");return i.src=t,"function"==typeof e&&i.addEventListener("load",e),i}TwoFace.prototype={add:function(t){var e=createImage(t,function(t){this.images.push(e),this.ready&&this.draw()}.bind(this))},draw:function(){if(this.ready){var t=this.images.length-1,e=this.images[t-1],i=this.images[t];this.drawImages(this.ctx,e,i),this.drawHandle(this.ctx)}},drawImages:function(t,e,i){var a=this.divide*this.width;t.drawImage(i,0,0),t.drawImage(e,0,0,a,this.height,0,0,a,this.height)},drawHandle:function(t){var e=this.divide*this.width;t.fillStyle="rgb(220, 50, 50)",t.fillRect(e-1,0,2,this.height)},mousedown:function(t){var e=t._x/this.width;this.divide=e,this.dragstart=!0},mousemove:function(t){if(!0===this.dragstart){var e=t._x/this.width;this.divide=e}},mouseup:function(t){var e=t._x/this.width;this.divide=e,this.dragstart=!1}};var twoface=TwoFace("twoface-demo",528,554);twoface.add("https://s3.amazonaws.com/tm-public-dropbox/linz-before-after/before.png"),twoface.add("https://s3.amazonaws.com/tm-public-dropbox/linz-before-after/after.png"); Let’s get technical: How do we do what we do? Our mobile and web solutions can pull geographic, satellite, point and shape data in real time and display this to the user in an intuitive and interactive way. We do this by providing a schema for each client app, that specifies which map layers need to be visible, and where these layers should be sourced. We can work with our clients to pull in data from a wide range of sources, and then display it in a user-friendly way. The schema is composed of a collection of TileJSON layers, which are merged and processed by the client application in real time. Using this standard, we can composite imagery using a variety of data types from virtually any data source. The TileJSON specification can also allow us to control which layers are visible at various zoom levels. Adding in our own dynamically generated point and shape data, alerting, and customised report forms, we can generate beautiful maps that reach out to you, protecting you from dangerous locations and real-world hazards. As a technology team, we see our value in taking traditional GIS capability and making it widely available, not just to experts, but to people working in the field who need it to stay safe. It’s not just pins on a map anymore! Chris Noldus Head of Development

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

Introducing Teams – growing the ThunderMaps product with our customers

Introducing Teams - growing the SaferME's product with our customers

Over the past few years, the customers we service have become larger. Now they mostly work in teams, in organisations of all sizes.As our customers evolve, so too does our product alongside them.We are happy to share that we are changing the product to embrace a structure that’s designed to serve distributed teams of all sizes. From 3 people to 30,000!With the new Teams structure, you will be able to view and manage all your team members at a glance, and easily give them access to your safety channels in batches.You will also have an overview of the channels and forms that belong to the team, and have an easy entry point to edit them.This is a first step towards making ThunderMaps even simpler to use for customers working in groups.In the coming months, we will expand Teams with many more features that facilitate your workflows. Features like a dashboard overview, and analytics of your team’s health and safety performance.The basic Teams features will be available from March on request.We’d love your feedback on how we can make ThunderMaps product features deliver the best value for teams and organisations like yours.Want to test drive the Teams features for free, and manage the health and safety reporting of your team with ease today? Get in touch.

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

SaferMe welcomes new Board members

SaferMe has welcomed two new board members recently and we’d like to introduce them: Nick Gerritsen Nick has joined the board of SaferMe, focusing on the board portfolio of investment strategy and capital raising. Nick specialises in developing technology propositions from the ground up, and has been a leader in promoting New Zealand’s contribution to emerging megatrends such as Clean Technology, the Internet of Things, and GovTech. Nick has an impressive background in law and business, specifically in the technology sector. He loves BIG ideas – ones that will lead to global structural change – and is committed to a culture of innovation. Aden Forrest Aden is an experienced director with significant expertise in cloud-based technology and digital sales and marketing. Aden has a particular passion for business initiation and growth planning. His career history includes establishing and running Salesforce, the world’s number one CRM brand, in Australia and New Zealand, and then heading Marketo, the category leader for marketing automation, in Australia. Aden has joined SaferMe with the board portfolio of sales, market and SaaS metrics. We are thrilled to have both of these leaders on board to drive SaferMe forward. To find out what SaferMe can do for your team, request a product demo here.

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

Important changes to processing of personal data - privacy policy

The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) enters into force today (May 25). One of the key aims of the GDPR is to protect citizens from privacy and data breaches in an increasingly data-driven world.ThunderMaps takes seriously our responsibility to safely and properly manage any data you provide and also to ensure you are aware and in control of what information we collect and hold that may relate to you.In addition to our existing processes we have taken several new measures to ensure that you – our customers and community – feel even more secure about your personal data; and to ensure our processes and systems comply with the specifics of new GDPR legislation.Some of the main measures include:We’ve updated our Privacy Policy to make sure it is as simple as possible to read and understand. Check it out hereWe’ve updated our contact database and have implemented new processes to ensure clear and specific consent is sought for communications and personal data processing.We released a new update to our apps (for non-enterprise clients) seeking new consent for processing of personal data to continue to deliver our services to you. This includes simpler and clearer explanations of the data we process and why, and gives you options about use of your data.We have put new Data Processor Addendums in place with our enterprise clients so clear roles, responsibilities and checks are in place with regards to management of the processing of personal data.We communicated all of these changes with our user community and stand ready to provide support or answer any related questions.We are committed to carefully and respectfully managing personal data so we can continue to provide our services to you. If you have questions or would like to talk with our team further about this, you can reach us on support@thundermaps.com

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

What does ISO 45001 mean for safety engagement?

In March the highly anticipated ISO 45001 standard was released and as organisations look to integrate the new standard into their work – or at least understand the best practices it brings – there are questions arising about what it means for one of safety’s biggest challenges: driving safety engagement. Key themes of ISO 45001 What differentiates ISO 45001 from previous safety management standards at a high level is its shift to a more process-driven, dynamic system that involves all interested parties in safety. (Read more here on ISO website.) In terms of engaging workers with safety – there are several important takeaways: Prevention of harm through empowering workers with information is at the heart of the standard Worker consultation and participation in the system: all workers must be included, not just management Active involvement of senior management: promoting and protecting the health and safety of workers is the fiduciary responsibility of the leadership – this includes subcontractors and outsourced operations What does this mean for your organisation? To be successful with safety engagement, and with ISO 45001, your organisation must have an effective and efficient process for identifying and communicating safety hazards, your workers must actively participate in the system, and your EHS management system must be integrated with other key business processes. The same goes for incident, near-miss, safety observations, inspections and other safety management reporting. How can you achieve this? Continuous proactive hazard identification is imperative. Workers, including subcontractors, must be made aware of any hazards or risks that are relevant to them and should have the ability to remove themselves from a situation that they consider to be dangerous. The effective flow of information between all staff and along the supply chain is fundamental. This means that digital transformation of safety is paramount to driving better safety engagement and to aligning with ISO 45001. Workers need systems and tools in place to be able to easily contribute to and benefit from safety data and processes. The health and safety processes should be documented in a simple, accessible and user-friendly way, and continuously analysed and improved. Senior management are accountable for eliminating any barriers to health and safety reporting and participation. Removing barriers, and terms such as “user-friendly” and “easily” should be at the core of all changes you make – because focusing on these means you’re focusing on workers themselves. This is the correct path to lead you to better safety outcomes, to improved productivity and to realising the wider benefits of a digital transformation of safety. How can SaferMe help? We can play a key role in helping you succeed with the digital transformation of your safety processes and provide a technical backbone to your efforts to comply with ISO 45001. These efforts help to transform safety from a cost center to a driver of shareholder value. Our practical mission is mobilizing safety data to make people safer. Our safety software delivers web & app-based tools which work proactively to keep employees and contractors safe – using a combination of data sharing, premium danger data, proximity alerting and easy-to-use mobile apps. Engagement is a central theme to what we do – because workers who are engaged with safety are 7 x less likely to have a lost time safety incident (LTI) than non-engaged workers. In addition, near-miss reporting, observations, audits, inspections and toolbox talks can be progressed to the next level of efficiency and simplicity. We also integrate with existing safety databases and software so your can fit the solution to your needs. Start your safety transformation journey today: Talk to one of our friendly team to get some assistance

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

What is EHS 4.0 or Safety 4.0?

EHS 4.0 or Safety 4.0 is a term which defines the current state of safety technology and processes and the specific ways it is advancing with the help of digitalization. The ‘4.0’ is a reference to the term ‘Industry 4.0’ term which describes the ‘fourth industrial revolution’ which includes “cyber-physical systems, the Internet of things, cloud computing and cognitive computing” and is delivering automation and new capabilities to many industries. LNS Research describes EHS 4.0 as the following: “EHS 4.0 provides the means to harness today’s technology to enable fresh approaches to EHS management. EHS 4.0 is not a technology per se but rather is enabled by technology innovations. It’s a framework of capabilities that can help organizations go beyond traditional EHS management to transform how they manage performance improvement.” LNS argues there are seven dimensions to EHS 4.0 / Safety 4.0 which are: Strategic; Systematic; Risk-based; Connected; Smart; Agile; Engaged. How can your organisation advance towards EHS 4.0? Register here for a free personal demo session showing how safety technology can help you transform. In a recent article discussing EHS 4.0, EHS Today focuses on the important role of culture and engagement in EHS 4.0 / Safety 4.0. “The driver of this revolution is technology, but the implications of it go much deeper. Changes in technology without accompanying strategic and cultural changes can cause more problems than they solve,” the article by Terry Mathis of ProAct Safety states. For us at ThunderMaps, the EHS 4.0 concept combines all of the above points, and it underpins the key advances we are taking as we help our clients on in their digital transformation of safety. It’s about process, engagement, culture, and mobilizing data. We are driving forward the digitalization and automation of safety processes; we are help businesses engage employees and improve safety culture; and we help companies to mobilize hazard data to proactively protect workers. For a free demonstration and trial of how our safety software can help your organisation progress on the journey to EHS 4.0 / Safety 4.0 – register here on our website.

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

Remove the hassle from OSHA electronic safety reporting

How can American businesses ensure they comply with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) electronic reporting of safety data? How can you make the reporting process easier? Is a safety app available which meets OSHA electronic reporting requirements? The initial July 1, 2018 deadline for safety data submission has passed and OSHA has now started to enforce electronic reporting requirements for US businesses. If you’re like many companies – the 67% which LNS Research estimates aren’t using a digital EHS reporting solution – then you likely found the OSHA electronic reporting was a hassle. However, with no option but to comply for businesses subject to OSHA’s electronic reporting requirements then you need to find a way to make this process easier. To ensure you have an easy time at the March 2019 deadline for submitting 2018 EHS data, now is the time to switch to digital and away from paper forms or other manual spreadsheet-based reporting. Rather than spending time manually entering your data from paper forms at each year’s deadline, you can have a simple flow which starts with giving end users mobile apps to make reporting simple and quick at any time; includes a digital EHS suite so you and your team can report, view, share and analyse safety data in real-time; and ends with easy data export or direct integration via API (Application Programming Interface) so you can instantly assemble and submit your company’s data to OSHA without additional effort. Switching to a digital system like this will not only save time and ensure you comply with OSHA’s electronic reporting requirements, but will also drive higher employee engagement with safety in your business and help build an advanced safety culture. Safety can become a business function that actually drives value, rather than an administrative burden. Leading companies experience higher productivity, reduced risks, accidents and related costs, cost savings across the organisation, and increases in revenue. Improve your OSHA reporting now: Request a free consultation to discuss how your business can switch to digital EHS reporting and make your OSHA electronic reporting a breeze.

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

ThunderMaps is now called SaferMe

From August 1 ThunderMaps is changing and we are now called SaferMe. You’ll notice this change across our whole business and product starting today. Our mission is to mobilize the world’s hazard data to make people safer. We wanted a name which reflects the laser-focus we have on this objective. We feel the name SaferMe is a good fit with our mission and the people-first focus of our platform. We care about more than getting EHS boxes ticked – we care about making people safer wherever they go. SaferMe is a brand we have owned for some time with our SaferMe app so it was the natural progression for us. The change of name is a small but important step for us in this evolution to the future-focused safety company we have become. Leaving behind the ThunderMaps name isn’t without some emotion for our team. It has been an exciting ride since we opened the doors as ThunderMaps in 2012. We’ve done many things in these years – from multi-million dollar Smart Cities work with the European Commission, to groundbreaking citizen science projects in New Zealand, to bringing in tens of thousands of users worldwide. But the journey ahead as SaferMe looks brighter than ever. Seeing the power of our data + mobile technology play in the safety world is inspiring – and even more so is seeing our growing list of clients taking advantage of what we offer. With our organic growth and international investment we are able to push the boundaries further and over the coming months we’re working on several innovations that will further disrupt the world of safety. We’re excited about helping more businesses transform into advanced safety organisations (and experiencing the benefits of this), but most of all we can’t wait to help more individuals – the real people at work – to get home safe from their job every day. Welcome to SaferMe! Psst: Want a personal preview of what our safety platform can do for your business? Register here. For existing customers and users: a small group of customers impacted by the change have been contacted and updated accordingly. For the rest you should not experience any disruption or changes from the name change. Feel free to contact your friendly Customer Success contact if you have any questions.

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

Elon Musk, a SpaceX rocket launch and workplace safety?

What do Elon Musk, last week’s SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch, and workplace safety have in common? Apart from the obvious – the high-risk environment in which rocket launches take place – there is a broader EHS (workplace health and safety) relevance between Musk, his recent SpaceX launches and health & safety. Last week’s launch of Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral in Florida delivered the Merah Putih geostationary commercial communications satellite into orbit. This satellite is being integrated into the network of PT Telkom (an Indonesian telecommunications giant) and it will help provide millions of people with better mobile data connectivity over the country – in both rural and city areas. Where this gets exciting – and where it gets relevant to workplace health and safety globally – is that it’s just one of many launches that SpaceX is conducting to send communication satellites into orbit. In fact – the firm’s planned ‘Starlink’ programme will start sending 4000 satellites into orbit from 2019. The vision? Affordable connectivity everywhere on the planet for every human. This can be game-changing for health and safety in the workplace. Why? Services like ours at SaferMe enable real-time proximity-based data sharing and alerting for workers wherever they go. In a wide range of industries mobile workers face significant risks every day. Unlike most other safety reporting apps, data in SaferMe doesn’t disappear into a database. Whether it is internal data, or data shared from a third party, we get it those who need it in real-time. We mobilize safety data to make people safer. While, in most countries we already offer a strong service, there are some rural blackspots, and the SMS messaging alternative lacks some of the power of data messages. That’s why the SpaceX mission to bring connectivity to the whole planet is a noble one. It will better enable companies like ours to put data that can prevent injury in the hands of workers where and when they need it. So, thanks Elon – we’re excited and we applaud this initiative. It will make a difference in many ways, and we’re convinced that in the field of workplace health and safety this will help save lives. More on SaferMe’s safety data alerting

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

Spreadsheets vs mobile apps for safety reporting

What is the best and most cost-efficient way to manage digital safety reporting for processes such as observations, hazards, near-misses, accidents, toolbox talks, inspections and audits? Are mobile safety apps worth the investment? Or can spreadsheets achieve what you need? Many of our customers come to us with these questions. They’ve ‘digitized’ safety reporting using spreadsheets such as Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets, and wonder if it is worth switching to a specialised mobile EHS software solution. What is the difference? The Answer (short version) Straight up: it’s not even close. A spreadsheet solution is only marginally better than paper (arguably worse in some contexts), while a well-designed safety app delivers many tangible benefits. But SaferMe sells mobile safety apps – which makes me completely biased. So, here’s a more pedagogical explanation: The key to why quality safety apps are far superior than spreadsheets is the difference between just “digitizing” a process (putting it into a digital format) versus using digital technology to transform the process so it becomes more efficient, engaging and valuable for all stakeholders. Spreadsheets will allow you to achieve only the digital format; while a safety app can make the process of reporting and analyzing data much more efficient. Choose the world’s smartest safety app – SaferMe – and you’ll also be able to mobilize safety data and keep your people proactively safer with the app too. No matter how hard you try, that’s something you’ll never manage with Excel! One of our clients said it best: “I could not sleep at night knowing that we had information stuck in an Excel spreadsheet that, if shared, could have prevented an injury or death.” (James Knapp, EHS Director, OSPRI) Curious to understand more? Request a free personal demo. Four things Smart Mobile Safety Apps will do for you that spreadsheets won’t 1. Engagement Research shows that engaged workers are seven times less likely to have a lost-time injury than engaged peers, which is why driving engagement is a major focus for EHS leaders. Mobile apps which are quick and easy to use, and which engage users with proactive alerts will help drive engagement and data up, and incidents down. 2. Time Savings Allowing staff to report safety observations, near-misses, inspections and more on the go, in a user-friendly interface, saves your workers time and helps lower the barrier to participating with safety initiatives. Spreadsheets lack user-friendliness, and generally require a worker to record data while on site, and then later spend more time entering it into the spreadsheet format. 3. Real-time Data Insights Want to know what’s happening with your team now, rather than after the end of the week or month? Mobile safety platforms like SaferMe give you the ability to track safety report data and user engagement data in real-time. Have workers read the safety alerts they’ve been sent? You’ll be able to follow important metrics like this with a smart safety platform. 4. Keep Users Safer Using spreadsheets, or what we call “dumb” mobile safety apps sends safety data into a void. It will end up in a database of an administrator, and action may or may not be taken as a result. The timeframes for this can vary. A smart mobile safety app on the other hand will share data with other users based on the relevance of the information in real-time. This data can even come from third parties. The data could be anything from a near-miss report, an alert to a hazard, or real-time data from third parties such as lightning strike or severe weather warnings. This means the safety app is working to keep your people safer. Would you like to see how the apps work in practice? Register your details here for a free no-obligations demo.

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

BBC Radio Interview - Safety at work

SaferMe’s founder Clint van Marrewijk and SaferMe app user Mallory Dawes were interviewed by the BBC’s international tech show ‘Click’, discussing real-time hazard sharing for EHS (workplace health and safety). Listen to the audio below.If hazard sharing sounds useful for your team, request a personal demo & free trial here.

1 December 2019 · thundermapsv3

Why Safety is an Important Digital Transformation Project

Digital transformation and its modern enablers such as mobile, big data, APIs and IoT is changing the way we manage business processes and the models that drive them. Safety, far from being exempt from this revolution, is in fact at the heart of it. With many organisations still in the early stages of their digital transformation (67% of businesses according to analysts IDC), transforming safety is an achievable digital transformation project that is worth getting on your roadmap – because it can both shift important metrics which drive shareholder value, and protect your most important asset: your people. Below we explore some of the key reasons why a safety transformation is a rewarding digital transformation project for any large enterprise. A full guide – Accelerating Digital Transformation with Safety – is available on our website and details the business case with research and real-world examples to help guide your safety transformation efforts. 4 Reasons Why Safety is an Important Digital Transformation Project: 1. Safety moves the needle on key business metricsSafety is about keeping people safer: but the benefits this delivers to businesses are multi-faceted. In our new report we’ve detailed how safety drives increases in productivity; reductions in safety-related and safety incident-related costs; new business; and a stronger brand for attracting and retaining customers, employees, partners and investors. As a teaser: France-based Schneider Electric invested in safety with the aim of identifying and eliminating hazards that could hurt someone. As a result, the company’s recordable injury rate dropped from 3.6 per 100 full-time workers to 0.5 … 900 fewer people injured than would have been a decade ago, while for the business it experienced more than $15 million in direct annual savings as a result of its investment. 2. Gain a competitive advantageSafety’s influence is far-reaching: not just productivity and cost-savings, but also brand, reputation and new business. Because only 33% of organisations have implemented EHS (health and safety) software, this means transforming your safety to an advanced state now can give you an advantage against many of your competitors. 3. Safety is an achievable projectSafety issues are well-known and common to many businesses, and a multitude of tools are available to help drive success. Although adoption rates aren’t yet high, safety transformation is a road that has been traveled, and there are plenty of case studies and research highlighting the benefits. A PwC report commissioned by the British Government summarizes this concisely:“There is a wealth of evidence that suggests a positive link between the introduction of wellness programmes in the workplace and improved business key performance indicators. The available literature suggests that programme costs can quickly be translated into financial benefits, either through cost savings or additional revenue generation.” Our executive guide Accelerating Digital Transformation with Safety provides practical advice on the types of safety processes that can be digitally transformed and how to get started. 4. Safety delivers for shareholdersBritish food producer Uniq Plc’s Board Chair stated that the company “recognised that both the Group’s corporate performance and its value to stakeholders are affected by its occupational health and safety performance.” The company then embarked on a programme to invest in safety technology and engagement. Three years later the company was experiencing £100,000 annual savings thanks to a 36% reduction in the number of staff days lost due to accidents; a reduction of more than 45% in the cost of civil claims per member of staff, and an 8.5% reduction in employers’ liability insurance premiums. The Board, shareholders, the executive were happy and the Uniq brand value was strengthened. (Source) Cases like Uniq’s demonstrate how a transformation of safety is an achievable project that can deliver strong results for staff, the business and shareholders, and add further impact to other digital transformation activities. Adding greater weight to the shareholder value in safety is accident reduction. A recent iCheme study found that company valuation fell by between 5% and as much as 30% in the aftermath of major incidents at companies across multiple industries. The message is clear: safety affects shareholders pockets directly. These are just four reasons of many more why safety is a vital component of the digital transformation of every business. Download our new report Accelerating Digital Transformation with Safety for the full story.

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

Five signs your health and safety software is outdated

Like all software, health and safety software systems don’t stay relevant forever. But is it time to upgrade to a modern health and safety platform now or can you survive using your existing system?Here are five signs that your health and safety software is out of date and a modern H&S solution will deliver benefits which outweigh costs associated with making the switch. 1. It lacks a proper mobile interfaceSafety incidents, near-misses, observations, audits and the like rarely occur when you’re seated at an office desk. So it begs the question why old H&S software systems still require login from a desktop internet browser to enter data? It shouldn’t be that way, and it doesn’t have to be. If you’re stuck with this scenario your H&S is not engaging workers, it’s taking up their valuable time, and it’s not keeping them safer. Time for change. 2. For workers it is only useful for inputting dataEngaged teams are seven times less likely to have an accident at work – and that’s a key reason why it is important your HSE software engages workers. If the software allows workers to input reports only which then disappear into a database then your software is part of a problem, not a solution. This includes mobile apps which only allow one-way data reporting. Modern H&S solutions offer two-way communication through the interface; they share important safety information with other workers instantly, and they proactively engage workers. If your EHS software is useful for EHS management, but not for workers – it’s time for change. 3. It’s difficult to get real-time data insightsMany clients come to us because they can’t get up-to-date insights on key metrics that will help them improve their health and safety. For example, if you can’t easily pull up data every day/week/month (preferably with visualizations) on what your key near-misses are in the business, then your software is failing you. Time for change. 4. Getting data out into other systems is difficultOne of the drivers of digital transformation and the rise of business intelligence is increasing interoperability between software systems. The ability to share data between systems means you can do more with safety data, bringing better analysis, awareness and enabling better decisions and results. Easy integration of data and export of data is a must for any modern safety leader. If you don’t have this it is time for change. 5. It doesn’t proactively make your workers saferFor workers in the field shouldn’t safety software be more than just a tool for data entry? It already can be – modern mobile safety software like the SaferMe platform puts a safety alerting tool in their pocket. The workers will be notified instantly if they come near danger, if a colleague has had a near-miss, or if important safety information needs to reach them. Two-way communication is the future for modern health and safety software, and leading organisations are already utilising this technology today.Book a free 30 minute briefing with one of our experts and discover how your organisation can benefit from a modern health and safety software platform. We’ll throw in a free trial of the SaferMe platform too. Register your interest here.

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

How to drive a successful safety innovation project

An innovation project to digitally transform health and safety reporting processes – and capitalise on other benefits of true mobile EHS solutions – requires a broad but clear vision of the desired outcomes and journey ahead.Once you’ve identified core ingredients such as your organisation’s maturity stage, established objectives and project leadership, then the following themes can help guide you down a successful path.Below we’ve outlined three key drivers or factors behind a successful digital EHS transformation. (The post is an excerpt from the full report: Accelerating your Digital Transformation with Safety)1. Map and improve processes with digital technologyYour organisation will already have safety reporting processes such as near-miss reporting, incident reporting, hazard reporting, safety observations and more. In many organisations (67% according to LNS Research) these processes are run with spreadsheets, paper or clunky legacy software.By first mapping the processes to understand how they work for users and how data needs to flow, you can then assess opportunities for improvement. With the right approach and technology these processes are relatively straightforward to address – delivering the benefits of saving time, increasing engagement and helping to secure compliance and alignment to modern safety standards such as ISO 45001.2. Increase data collection and qualityDriving an increase in safety data is a key element of a digital transformation of safety. Increasing data enhances theopportunity you have to understand, analyse and take targeted actions to prevent safety incidents, while ensuring the quality of this data is the key to succeeding.There are a number of mechanisms through which you can grow your safety data:• Efficient collection / reporting of data from staff and contractors• Connected wearables generating and sending data• Devices and machines connected to the industrial internet of things (IoT)• Other machine-generated data• Utilising a global database of hazard dataYour initiative to drive more safety data collection should be multi-faceted, involving a combination of these different mechanisms, with controls and checks on data quality.3. Mobilize your data – proactive safetyWith a wealth of safety data at your disposal the pivotal action your business needs to take is to mobilize the data so it protects your people and provides tangible benefits to your business. This can involve tactics such as real-time communication and notification of data by proximity or other relevance measures; smart and automated workflows triggered by data; or data interrogation and analysis to uncover key trends between safety issues.Follow-up actions from these insights will be powerful drivers of transformative improvements.Vice President of EHS at GE, Ann Klee, captured the importance of mobilizing data as a key driver to safety success in an article on the topic.“Data from sensors, robots, and the cloud will enable the most transformative part of the new industrial revolution — data analysis.“We are beginning to apply those techniques to improve safety and compliance, and over time, will be able to use data analytics to prevent injuries, environmental releases, and unplanned downtime. In 2015, GE generated 3.5 million EHS data records to support compliance and operational obligations.“We are now combining that data with a huge stream of other information (about weather, business activity, etc.) and using data visualization and analytics tools. This provides risk managers with real-time, actionable insights about our highest risks and allows for more efficient resource allocation and risk control,” Klee wrote.(1)Research also spells out the importance of mobilizing data. Harvard Business School professor Marco Iansiti has pointed out that the way in which organisations utilize their data is a key determinant of their digital transformation success.(2)Read the full report: Accelerating your Digital Transformation with Safety(1) Ann Klee (2016 ELI Forum), “The Digital Transformation of Environment, Health and Safety”, https://www. linkedin.com/pulse/digital-transformation-environment-health-safety-ann-klee-ann-klee/(2) Clint Boulton, CIO Magazine, ‘Digital laggards must harness data or get left behind’, https://www.cio.com/article/3122806/it-industry/digital-laggards-must-harness-data-or-get-left-behind.html

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

Personal realtime lightning alerts to your mobile

SaferMe is proud to announce a significant advance in lightning safety with the release of world-first personalised realtime lightning alert products. Download SaferMe for free lightning warnings here: iPhone SaferMe Android SaferMe The products – a global realtime lightning data package which can be plugged into the SaferMe health and safety app platform and a standalone app WeatherHalo with this data included, has been brought to market together with SaferMe’s partner MetService. It further strengthens SaferMe’s advanced safety platform offer for EHS professionals. See a short preview of the service below: Lightning safety is an important issue in health and safety for many industries. According to latest figures, the earth’s surface experiences an average of 45 lightning strikes per second. In peak times, this figure can be as high as four hundred per second. Tragically, it is also estimated that at least 6000 lives are lost each year because of lightning strikes, in addition to almost 240,000 serious injuries. SaferMe founder Clint Van Marrewijk says the company is excited to release another product that can improve the personal safety of workers across the globe. “We have the world’s first mobile lightning safety app that displays a “safety bubble” around the user, warning workers of lightning risks in real-time.” Van Marrewijk says that amongst all types of workplaces, it is those workers in mining, oil and gas, electrical utilities, fencing, and scaffolding who are extremely susceptible to the dangers of lightning. The app uses a map interface so users are able to see their locations and have their own “safety bubble” relative to where they are. If lightning occurs near their place of work or within the company’s stop-work guidelines, they will receive alerts instantly. The individual-level alerting marks a step forward from the old ‘control-room’ style lightning alert products. It enables companies to improve stop-work decisions while minimising downtime by empowering workers with better knowledge in the field. Some of the most important features of WeatherHalo and the data package include: – Personalised lightning alerts to keep the workforce safe from harm while working – Helps minimise downtime and only stop work when it’s necessary – The drag-and-drop form builder ensures that the app is flexible and can be adapted for other data purposes Click here to request a one-on-one demo of the platform with one of SaferMe’s experts in your region today.

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

WeatherHalo app warns workers if they're in danger of lightning strikes

This post was first published on the Herald. An app warning outdoor workers when they’re at risk of being hit by lightning is part of a Wellington man’s plan to tackle slack workplace safety attitudes. Clint Van Marrewijk, a former mechanical engineer and farmer, created his safety app WeatherHalo, which sends caution and danger alerts to users when a lightning strike is predicted to hit near them. “Globally there’s a lot of lightning sensors and they measure every lightning strike that happens,” Van Marrewijk said. “We measure where these strikes happen and we use that data to put some predictive power on where the next strike might happen.” App users – who could be people working in industries such as scaffolding, roofing, mining, and oil and gas – will receive the alert directly and can decide whether it is safe to continue working or not. The idea is to improve stop-work decisions and empower workers with better knowledge in the field. Van Marrewijk started mobile safety platform SaferMe in 2017 and launched WeatherHalo in November last year. “We launched SaferMe to change the perception that ‘danger is just a part of my job’ – which is a concept many workers believe. Our apps disrupt how businesses and organisations have typically dealt with health and safety, by sending the safety data straight to the worker. The app uses sensor data to predict where lightning might strike next. “You might get up in the morning and by the time you get out to site, the weather could have changed. The benefit of WeatherHalo is that it’s accurate and workers can feel confident about their lightning protection safety.” The app was accurate to within 10km, he said. “I think what’s interesting when it comes to workplace safety is a lot of things are often seen as ‘part of the job’. Something like lightning’s a perfect example. Traditionally, people think ‘we just can’t avoid it and you’re unlucky if it happens to you’.” Across the world there are between 6000 and 24,000 deaths by lightning strike per year, but the rate of injury is much higher, with 200,000 seriously injured, he said. SaferMe is now the largest specialist safety app creator in the world – with clients in 11 countries. WeatherHalo was developed over six months in partnership with MetService. Since launching, SaferMe has worked with clients such as Vodafone Global, Department of Conservation of New Zealand, Veolia, AngloGold Ashanti and TB Free New Zealand.

1 December 2019 · Mike Steere

The one big challenge all H&S consultants have in common

We’re an international business and as such we work with Health and Safety consultants across different parts of the world. Consultants and their clients are a big part of the tens of thousands of professionals using SaferMe.We work with health and safety initiatives across industries and regions.Analysing trends across our health and safety consultant network, our team has seen interesting regional nuances in how H&S consultants operate in different areas. However, surprisingly the trend that stands out most of all is actually a challenge that H&S consultants around the world share in common.Everywhere we go, we hear a consistent message: consultants want to increase their engagement with clients (especially regularity), and shape better health & safety engagement within their clients’ organisations. This makes sense: After all, consultants manage safety for multiple clients and they want to be able to engage meaningfully with each and every client – because they know this is immensely valuable:– Engagement builds closer relationships and a greater presence in client organisations …– This means better safety outcomes and it means ‘stickier’ and more valuable client relationships …– It means a more successful business.But if safety consultancies are to increase engagement they need a scalable way of doing it – a method that doesn’t exhaust all their time and resources.In this respect it is fair to say many consultants have felt short-changed by technology thus far.Legacy H&S systems (you know, those applications that still today make Windows 95 look modern) have likely done more harm than good to safety engagement and they’re unaffordable for small consultancies.Have you used a H&S system that reminded you of this? (Credit: ToastyTech)The first mobile safety apps brought a positive step forward because they saved time on lengthy audits, inspections and assessments – and as we all know, time is money. But most often the audit-focused apps are used only by consultants themselves. There has been little flow-on to end clients. So they save time, but they don’t strengthen engagement. In many cases rollouts to large numbers of end users could be prohibitively expensive.—So, what about that dream of better engaging with clients? And giving clients modern H&S technology with a simple but engaging mobile app?—That’s why we created SaferMe and the SaferMe H&S Consultant Partner Programme.SaferMe is the only health and safety app that promotes safety engagement and proactively makes users safer.In addition to the basics of creating forms for all types of safety reporting (all from audits, inspections and assessments, to near-misses, hazards and incidents), SaferMe offers instant sharing of safety data, mobile alerts, commenting and engagement on reports.Advanced features like premium location hazard alerts (real-time lightning warnings), fatigue calculator and safety culture surveys give the platform a punch that other mobile HSE apps lack. Importantly for H&S consultants they can offer the app to all of their clients, and monitor their use of report forms and engage with them when they are active (or not!).It enables consultants to have real-time insight into what is happening at their clients’ organisations. No more waiting for the quarterly meeting to find out what has or hasn’t been happening. They’re always across it.Our consultant partners report that clients are happier after being provided with a modern mobile app that saves them time, and they feel more closely engaged with clients. We often hear that consultants credit the SaferMe offer with helping them win new and bigger contracts.But don’t take our word for it.Right now we’re offering a free training session + free one month trial so you can test the app with a client.Don’t miss out on this offer: Register here now and start improving your engagement with clients today

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

A billion dollar mistake: How badly CEOs are underestimating health and safety

New figures from the British Standards Institute (BSI) reveal that health and safety costs are now the biggest driver of financial loss in organisations globally. The ‘BCI 2019 Horizon Scan’ which studies more than 500 organisations worldwide found that health and safety (H&S) incidents were the biggest driver of financial loss last year – costing a total of $1.186 billion to surveyed organisations that suffered losses of over 7 percent of annual turnover. Despite the billion dollar price tag on health and safety incidents and costs it appears business leaders aren’t in tune with this reality – and are instead more focused on ‘high-profile’ fears such as cyber attacks. Leaders in the survey overall ranked H&S as only their 12th highest-priority risk for 2019 – a stunning discrepancy given that it is the biggest cause of financial loss.SaferMe founder Clint van Marrewijk has reacted to the findings and is urging business leaders to reassess their approach to health and safety.“Many CEOs and business leaders think they have safety ‘covered’ because they have a health and safety manager and a H&S software system.“This is flawed. As the research shows, their old systems aren’t working. “Leaders should ask themselves: ‘how holistic and engrained is our approach to safety?’ “Finding out if their H&S software proactively makes workers safer is also really important. If their software is just ticking boxes and filing documents then they need to realise it is now 2019 and modern software solutions have moved on, “ he added.Modern Proactive Safety -> Request a 30 min executive demo of SaferMeVan Marrewijk said that because business leaders are ultimately responsible and liable for health and safety incidents, it is up to them to start a serious conversation about this.Howard Kerr, BSI Chief Executive, also reacted to the surprising discrepancy: “It is easy for leaders to be kept awake at night by high-profile risks such as cyber-attacks, technology disruptions and IT outages. “But they must not ignore the smaller, more frequent risks that steadily erode the bottom line. Organisations that do not take all threats they face seriously, or develop plans to manage them, are exposing themselves to not only reputational loss but what can become quite severe financial costs. “Achieving true organisational resilience means identifying not only the big risks but also the under-rated issues that may just seem ‘business as usual’ and can easily be missed,” Kerr noted.Interested business executives can register for a free 30 minute demo and we’ll share how SaferMe’s award-winning mobile safety apps can proactively make your employees safer and take your health and safety to the next level.

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

The Internet of Things creates a new OSHA challenge

The term “The Internet of Things” was coined by Kevin Ashton in a Procter & Gamble presentation in 1999, and since then it has caught on as a general description for connecting machines and even everyday objects to the internet. Most commonly in the business context, the Internet of Things (IoT) is all about collecting data. It’s about putting this data to use to make businesses more profitable and safe. What types of data do businesses collect? Data about the vibration of pumps, so that you know when to replace them. Or the pressure in pipes, so they can be monitored for when they will split. Or the quality of air, so that the danger to workers can be monitored. The list of data collection applications is endless. But what does the Internet of Things mean for the OSHA obligations of large businesses? Let’s leave aside for the moment the implication of what it means for a business to “know everything”, and firstly just look at the IoT trend itself. Is this IoT trend catching on? Yes. Yes it is. There is an exponential growth in the number of connected devices, and this trend according to Cisco, will see connected devices at 50 billion by 2020. Note above that this trend is well established now, but it is also coming from a low base. This means that although an astounding amount of machines and objects are already connected to the internet, that experts agree that we are still in the very early stages of the IoT trend. There is much more room for this trend to continue. Many large businesses have woken up too, and they now have explicit IoT programs in place to capitalize on this new technological trend. What this means in practice is that businesses, and in our experience especially very large businesses, have a lot more safety data on hand nowadays… What does the IoT mean for safety? All this extra data creates a new OSHA problem for large businesses and their HSE professionals. Why? Because the legal implications for a business that “knows” something is going to go wrong, but then doesn’t act, can be very significant indeed. For example: If a business is measuring the fact that an oil well is experiencing a pressure spike and may well explode, it’s imperative that workers nearby have this knowledge too, so they can avoid the explosion. How exactly does a business do this? How do you move all this new HSE data into the hands of workers, so that they can keep themselves informed and safe? Let’s look at a practical example of one IoT dataset, and how a business may tackle the challenge of pushing the right HSE data into the hands of the right workers. Example – Lightning strike risk: It was once the case that lightning strike risk was very difficult to share with those workers at risk, but because of the IoT that is no longer the case: As with the lightning warnings above, the same safety techniques can also be used for other IoT data types. That’s what SaferMe is built for. SaferMe is set up to make sure workers have the real-time safety information they need to, no matter where they are. This includes safety data from within each business, but also external to the business, so that workers can take safe and real-time corrective actions. You can get a free demo of the SaferMe platform here.

1 December 2019 · thundermapsv3

How can Health & Safety Consultants save time?

If you’re a Health and Safety consultant you’ll know that (like in all services businesses) your biggest restriction is your own time – the total possible hours you have to work for each client.This limits the number of clients your business can have, the amount of work you can do for them, and of course, how much money your company makes.On top of this, your role as a health and safety consultant involves some highly time-consuming activities, for clients who often have only limited budget allocated to HSE.What consumes so much of your time?Travel time is a good example (am I right?) visiting client sites in all directions. Some audits can also be very lengthy on site, and even longer when you need to go back to the office and compile notes into a report for the customer.Another time-grabber is managing report data and managing client interactions at scale. How do you stay up-to-date with what all of your clients have or haven’t been reporting? Do you use a file-sharing system of uploading and manually checking documents? Or paper?How do you keep a constant, ongoing dialogue about safety with clients so they know you are always connected with them – instead of just showing up at your agreed visits?And how long does it take collating or requesting data to find out how clients have been managing their safety processes before or during your scheduled meetings?All of this takes an incredible amount of time. Surely there has to be a better way?Can you save time AND strengthen client relations?Joining as a partner on the SaferMe platform enables you to manage multiple health and safety clients via one modern digital safety platform. We can save you time on manual, paper-driven (or Word document) tasks and help you improve your connection with your clients too.We work closely with our health and consultant partner community and we’re constantly collaborating to solve more of your day-to-day challenges.The SaferMe platform does several key things to help you:Monitor all your clients’ activities in realtimeSee when report forms are filled, who has been active (and who hasn’t). You can track this whenever you like from your own dashboard. Ahead of your next catch up with each client you’ll already know exactly what’s been happening.Engage with clients instantly via the SaferMe appYour clients and you will get to move safety reporting from paper or word documents to a beautifully designed, modern safety app. The app allows you to be notified when clients have taken action and you can respond quickly to let them know you’re across it by leaving a comment in the app.Make audits less time consumingWe help put all your forms and your clients’ forms into the app so you can save time when conducting audits or assessments or just simple hazard, near-miss or checklist-type reporting. These can be saved into report formats – saving you hours.Offer the ‘X’ FactorOffering your clients SaferMe as their safety app opens significant possibilities for them. SaferMe includes industry-leading features such as data sharing (between teams and organisations); instant proximity-based hazard alerts – include premium data such as real-time lightning strikes; a scientifically-backed fatigue monitoring service – and more.We’d love to show you so you can see for yourself.Request a partner demo with one of our teams in North America, Europe, Australia or New Zealand and we’ll get you going. There is currently a one month free trial offer for all new users – so don’t delay.

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

The KISS approach to safety

KISS.In English, it’s a little peck on the cheek.For the staff in our Swedish office, it means something else entirely (don’t Google it at work).In design? ‘KISS’ is a principle that means ‘keep it simple, stupid’, and this principle has been lacking from health and safety software, and programmes for many years.Making HSE complex and bureaucratic is one of the biggest reasons why most initiatives fail to engage workers at scale.This is no secret, of course. British health and safety consultant David Cant (CMIOSH) framed this issue well when he published the below tweet recently: (Our team loved it … 👏David!)So, if KISS is an important principle for health & safety engagement and success – how do we simplify procedures, make it easy for workers, and encourage hazard reporting – as David suggests we need to?The Simplest Safety Form you’ve seenInstead of rabbiting on about theory, let’s get granular and show you how to create the simplest safety form.When your organisation’s workers are using SaferMe (or your HSE clients in the case of health and safety consultants) you can create the simplest report forms imaginable. We don’t pre-prescribe how your forms must be, with unnecessary fields and stuffy language. We let you make them human.Our clients have become champions at this. There are even some with report forms that have no fields! (We automatically collect the employee name, ID, the time & date and their location all at the press of one button).If you want to get a live demo of this and other SaferMe functions with one of our friendly SaferMe experts, just register your details at this link.Make forms as simple as you like, and set them up in seconds.

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

The difference between risk and hazard data

The area of a hazard on a map is different to the area of the corresponding risk. That’s a simple sounding statement. However, a common error we come across is confusion between a hazard and the risk of a hazard. When building software designed to keep workers safe, this distinction is important. Let us try and explain, and hopefully help. A practical example should give you a deeper understanding of what we mean. Here is a hazard captured by a user on the SaferMe platform: As you can see above, a worker has photographed and tagged a significant hazard on a road. Warning the next worker about this hazard, when they are right on top of it, would be too late. From a practical perspective, the risk of the slip above is more important to the next worker than the hazard itself, and the risk area is a different shape to the hazard. This “risk area” extends beyond the area of the hazard. Confused? Let’s delve deeper now, into how risks and hazards can be mapped. Let’s look at a dangerous weather event, where the same principle applies. Below is a snapshot of the risk of lightning to a worker in Dallas Texas: How risks & users interact on SaferMe can be found on this video Above is a map that shows the areas with a high risk of a lightning strike to workers. These risk areas need to be communicated to at-risk workers before they are underneath lightning activity. The different colors above represent triggered risk warnings to the user, and when the worker crosses into a colored area, where they are at risk, they are warned. The darker red area is where it’s not safe to work if you are a high-wire worker, crane operator, scaffolder, etc. The companies we meet with often have large databases of hazard locations similar to the above examples. They know their workers need to know about these risks, and sometimes they are already trying to build systems to make their people aware of them. However, a simple map of hazards isn’t enough – but it is the common starting point. Companies try and map things like: Dangerous dog locationsAsbestos locationsExtreme weather eventsCrime hotspotsCliffs and bluffsChemicalsMine shafts and sinkholes The main point of this post is to try and help those that are trying to “build their own” advanced safety system. Naturally, as a builder of advanced and off-the-shelf safety apps, we don’t recommend this course of action… but if “it’s too late to turn back now” we’d strongly urge the need to do more than simply map your hazards. More important for the worker is the risk of each hazard, and this data is not the same shape as the hazard itself. Background: SaferMe is the world’s specialist builder of engaging safety apps. SaferMe provides pre-emptive risk warnings to workers as they move from place to place, and believes that the future will be incredibly safe, when compared to the danger of today. We’re on a mission to build a global shared database of risk. To get in contact a SaferMe account manager in your timezone, just go here

1 December 2019 · thundermapsv3

Modernising supply chain safety in complex multinational businesses

The importance of good health and safety throughout the supply chain of large enterprise businesses cannot be overstated. Not only are serious legal and business operating consequences in play, but the ramifications of poor supply chain actors and/or practices can be particularly harsh in today’s world where negative social influence is enough to severely harm an organisation. One of the controls used in many organisations is audits or site tours of supplier organisations. This is not a new phenomenon and as was even noted as a recommended measure for monitoring supply chain safety by European regulators as early as 2012.Modernising the Supplier Audit / Site Tour ProcessWhile the idea of supplier site safety tours or audits isn’t new, improved technology that is now available allows us to make better use of this opportunity and maximise the impact these audits can have.SaferMe builds custom apps for large multinational enterprise businesses to manage supply chain safety tours in an efficient and engaging way – one that improves focus on the important part: data from the site tours themselves. Each app, branded and secure to the enterprise owner, provides a globally accessible mobile tool that takes the pain out of filing supplier site safety tours. One of our multinational clients has experienced a significant reduction in time taken to file reports by moving from spreadsheet documents and photo attachments to the modern mobile app interface. The branded, easy-to-use app has also driven higher engagement within the global supply chain organisation.Another benefit of SaferMe in the context of a multinational organisation is the platform’s ability to share information and awareness among regions, and to map out the data from the tours and what their outcomes mean.SaferMe is the modern and scalable way for multinational businesses to manage supply chain safety audits. If you’d like to see what we can do for your organisation, register here for a free demo and one of our regional experts will be in touch.

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

Inactive safety data and the $300,000+ risk it poses your organisation

A new court ruling and hefty $300,000 claim bill for an Australian supermarket chain has highlighted a shortcoming in managing hazard information that many businesses suffer.Most responsible businesses in the developed world have processes in place for reporting hazards or health and safety concerns in their workplace. This is a basic compliance step in many countries.There are also myriad tools available to make this reporting quick and easy, although many companies maintain paper and pen as a reporting method.However, the recent court ruling in Australia highlights that just collecting hazard information is not enough, and not managing the information properly poses a significant risk in terms of both employee safety and company liability.The $300,000 rulingThe case Rhodin vs Coles Supermarkets Australia Pty Ltd (2019) saw the supermarket forced to accept liability – and a $300,000 claim for an injury to a worker in one of its stores.Health & Safety Handbook explained the situation: When a worker at a Coles store in the ACT noticed ice leaking onto the seafood cool room floor – creating a slip hazard – she quickly reported it to both the branch’s 2IC and main manager.The worker also wrote a report of the incident in the store’s communication book, which is used to communicate between employees and higher management.Three days later, at the start of the worker’s shift, she entered the cool room again and slipped on ice on the floor and crashed into a metal trolley, injuring her left arm and body.Australian Supreme Court Justice Berna Collier, ruling on the case, found Coles liable for the compensation claim, explaining that the issue had not been addressed, and in the absence of any warning for the worker, the employee was right to assume that it should have been safe to work.“There was no reason for [the worker] to believe anything other than that the workplace was safe, that the ice had been removed from the cool room floor, and further that the cause of the ice had been addressed.” Justice Collier said.What does this mean for managing hazards?Documenting the hazard occurred in this case, so the real issue actually lies in the action taken (or lack thereof) and the communication about the hazard. In other words, the vulnerability sits with the human responsibility in the next part of the process. In this case what resulted in a serious accident and a $300,000 compensation bill was the human errors of failing to fix the issue behind the hazard, and failing to warn of the hazard with signage or by other means.Yet, this human vulnerability in managing identified hazards is easily solved by automating alerting and removing the potential for human error.Instead of having a hazard filed into a database with no visibility for those exposed to it – SaferMe is a safety reporting app that proactively keeps workers safer by providing proximity warnings to known hazards.In this case, once the hazard had been reported and until it was resolved – any workers coming into that area would have automatically been notified by SaferMe of the danger that existed. If this didn’t prevent the accident – it would have at very least demonstrated proactive efforts by the employer in delivering information to keep its people safer.ConclusionThe overall lesson is simple: your process for managing hazards is a huge risk to your business if it is vulnerable to human mistakes. Do you have a foolproof system in place?A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and in this case, a large Australian brand’s vulnerability to human error in managing hazards has resulted in a major physical setback for a worker; a significant claim cost and damaging negative publicity for the business.All of this for something that could have been solved with automated hazard notifications in an affordable mobile health and safety app.Reach out to one of our regional experts and we can explain further how the system works and could improve your process. REGISTER HERE.

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

Data collection company says onsite hazard information should be publicly available

This article and the radio interview were first published on RNZ, full credit to Emma HattonAn online data collection company says property owners should make onsite hazards publicly available, so outsiders are better protected.SaferMe is an app that alerts users to hazards on a property like asbestos, old mineshafts and natural hazards, but getting the information to feed it can be difficult.Tauranga electrician Kerry treats nearly every home he goes into as a potential asbestos site.If found onsite it can slow a job down by days, and bring up the cost up significantly.“You only need one fibre to react in your lung which would not probably happen for 20 or 30 years so you’d never know, it can’t be tested for.“We had a situation with an apprentice drilled one hole into asbestos soffit, didn’t realise at the time. He was very concerned, as he was a young guy, married with a young baby so he was very concerned.”That situation also cost Kerry thousands of dollars in cleanup fees.The kicker was – a builder had been onsite beforehand and knew asbestos was there.This is where SaferMe comes in. A lot of the data that feeds the app is collected by workers after being on a job site.Kerry said better asbestos data would be a good thing.“To actually pinpoint on a building for asbestos would be a pretty tough ask but if that particular address or building could be listed that it has, or potentially has asbestos onsite – yes that would be good.”But SaferMe chief executive Clint Van Marrewijk said getting that information and making it available often clashed with the issue of privacy.SaferMe chief executive Clint Van Marrewijk Photo: RNZ / Emma Hatton“Privacy concerns do come up, but our position on hazard data is hazards don’t have privacy rights people do, so we can strip out personal information and actually just leave information about the hazard or the risk that can impact somebody and make that data as freely available as we can.”He said an asbestos register was an example of something that should be achievable, but was not, due to scattered and withheld data, and no central collection point.“It’s really common for workers to interact with asbestos that someone knows about and it’s just because it’s not recorded or easily available.”The opening up of data is something Stats NZ has been heading for some time and something the government committed to in 2011 when Cabinet passed the declaration of open and transparent government.Paul Stone from the Open Data programme said the example of setting up an open asbestos register, conveyed the difficulty in weighing up the public good against an individuals privacy.Paul Stone from the Open Data programme. Photo: RNZ / Emma Hatton“You talk to one person and they’ll say it’s a no brainer – public health and safety is far more important than your personal information about this particular aspect of what’s on your property. Others will say everything about my property is private, you’ve got no right to know.”He said government and local government data should be open by default, unless there’s a good reason for it not to be.And it gets bigger than tradespeople walking onto an asbestos site, open data has also been pitched as a gamechanger for climate change.Gavin Starks from the Open Data Institute in the UK said if agencies, private companies and government departments shared their climate data between them it would be more efficient and save money.However, not all information should be fully open, just better shared.“An element of that will be open, but I would imagine a lot of it will be not open to anyone for any purpose for free. So if you take for example, our infrastructure information, some of that will have national security implications. So you don’t necessarily want that just being public on the web.“But you do want the right people to be able to access it to help make investment decisions, about flood risk, for example, where to build houses or were to build the next railway and so on.”Mr Stone said after privacy concerns, agencies were hesitant to release data due to resourcing constraints and because they were worried it was not comprehensive enough.He said Stats NZ was working to come up with templates they could use because some data was better than no data at all.Article first released on RNZ, by Emma Hatton.

1 December 2019 · thundermapsv3

Tips for identifying workplace hazards

This blog post is a repost of the original by Roger Ward from UK consultancy Maple SHEQ Management Services. The original post can be found here. We decided to repost this with Roger’s consent as we thought his post was an excellent reminder and it provides a good straightforward framework for spotting more hazards – an important topic to us at SaferMe! An important aspect of your risk assessment is to identify potential hazards in your workplace. A good starting point is to walk around your workplace and consider what activities, processes or substances could injure your employees or harm their health? Here are some pointers to help you spot them: Check manufacturers’ instructions and safety data sheets, these will assist in determining the hazards and putting them in their true perspective. Look at previous accidents, injuries, ill health records, and/or near-misses, these often help to identify the less obvious hazards. Consider non-routine operations, such as maintenance, changes in production layout etc. Consult with employees, for their knowledge of the process or work activity, as very often they have a feel for some of the more specific work-related hazards. Think about long-term hazards to health, such as high levels of noise, exposure to harmful substances and those associated with mental ill-health at work. The only thing we (at SaferMe) add to the above is to make it accessible and make it easy for everyone to contribute and share hazards at your workplace. Engaging everyone and having everyone involved in the process is key to a healthy safety culture. For more about Maple SHEQ’s services in the UK – visit their website here. Read here for more about easy-to-use hazard reporting in SaferMe

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

Announcing Safety Task Management

Tasks is a new way to collaborate and get things done on SaferMe. In this article we explain how it works, so you and your people can get cracking.How to create a taskYou will now see the ‘Tasks’ tab on all of your reports. When you go to this tab, you will see the button ‘Create task’. Click on this button and you will be taken to a separate page to create your task.Tasks tabA task contains three fields. All the fields are required.Task titleGive the task a title so your team knows exactly what the task is. The title will be the main point of recognition on all other pages where the task appears. Make it clear and concise. The title is limited to 80 characters.Task descriptionUse the description to dive into the specifics of what needs to be done. There is no character limit here, so you can be as detailed as you need. Remember, users can easily see the report that each task is associated with.Select assigneeThis person will be responsible for completing the task. They will be notified that the task has been assigned to them and will be able to view it when logged into the app. You can assign a task to yourself and should document all actions this way.Create TaskView all of your Tasks in one placeOn mobileFirst, log in to the app. Then click on the top left icon which will bring you to ‘Activity’.Home page on mobileOn ‘Activity’, you will see three tabs. Tap on the middle tab named ‘Your Tasks’ to see all tasks assigned to you. Tap on any task to view it, or mark it complete.‘Your tasks’ on mobileOn webLog into the web app. It should bring you straight away to the Activity page. Otherwise, click on the navigation menu at the top of the page called ‘Activity’.The navigation menu on webOn ‘Activity’, you will see three tabs. Tap on the middle tab named ‘Your Tasks’ to see all tasks assigned to you. Tap on any task to view it, or mark it complete.‘Your tasks’ on webView a taskThere are two ways to view a task. Via ‘Your tasks’Go to the ‘Your Tasks’ tab under ‘Activity’. Then, click on the task.Via a reportFirst, find your report. Then, go to the ‘Tasks’ tab and click on the task you want to modify.Modify a taskOn mobileTap the ‘More’ option on the top right corner of a task. Then, select the edit or delete option. Note that once the task is deleted, it can’t be retrieved.The ‘More’ menu on mobileOn webBelow the task title, you will find both the ‘Edit task’ and ‘Delete’ options. Note that once the task is deleted, it can’t be retrieved.The ‘Edit task’ and ‘Delete’ options on webChange a task from complete back to incompleteOnce a task has been marked as complete, it will disappear from the ‘Your tasks’ tab. However, completed tasks will always be displayed on the report on which they were created. Locate the report, select the ‘Tasks’ tab, and scroll down to the section named ‘Completed tasks’.The ‘Completed tasks’ areaOn mobileClick on the ‘More’ option on the top right corner. Then, select the option ‘Mark as incomplete’.The ‘Mark as incomplete’ option on mobileOn webBelow the task title, you will find the option ‘Mark as incomplete’.The ‘Mark as incomplete’ option on webNotificationsNOTE: There are two types of notifications: email and push. Both can be enabled on the mobile app. Each user has control over these notifications. This means they can turn them off and won’t get notified about anything.What: Task CreationWho gets notified: An assignee (unless assigned to self)What: Re-assigning TaskWho gets notified: A new assignee (unless assigned to self)What: Task completionWho gets notified: The task creator (unless the creator is the assignee)What: Putting Task back into the incomplete stateWho gets notified: The task creator (unless the creator is self) and an assigneePermissionsRefer to the matrix below:New Tasks vs Report AssignmentThe ability to assign reports to team members has not changed. You can still assign reports to team members by going to your report and then the ‘Manage’ tab. When a report is assigned to you, it will show up under ‘Your tasks’. However, the report assignments and new Tasks will be displayed differently to make it easier for you to differentiate.Difference between New Task and Report Assignment in the ‘Your tasks’ tabFAQsIs there a limit to tasks?No, you can create as many tasks as you need.Can I set the due date?We currently don’t support due dates on Tasks.Can I have multiple assignees?Currently, you can only have one assignee per task. However, all users can see all tasks and administrators can resolve any task.For administrators and team owners onlyAs an administrator or a team owner, you can view all outstanding tasks by going to the control panel and then ‘Channel data’. You will see a new column titled ‘Incomplete tasks’.The ‘Incomplete tasks’ column

1 December 2019 · Alina Bochkacheva

How should you store a health and safety policy?

Where is the best place to store an organisation’s health and safety policy to ensure it is accessible?The new universal standard for health and safety, ISO 45001, makes it clear that organisations need to create and implement a health and safety policy, but importantly sections five and seven of the standard (in particular) emphasise strongly the need to communicate the policy and keep it accessible and available to all workers.That means a printed health and safety policy, in a folder, on the shelf in a manager’s office isn’t just missing the standard – it is a liability to your business. Even if workers have signed a document to say they read the H&S policy once – that is not enough. It should be available to them when and where they need it – when they are working.This is a critical question for health and safety consultants too. Most H&S consultants are involved in creating relevant health and safety policies or management systems for their clients. However this work is undermined if the resulting policy is not made easily accessible to the client organisation and its staff on an ongoing basis.The question is more than one of simple inconvenience – it could become a question of risk and liability for the consultant or organisation in the event of an injury or accident. Did the consultant/manager fulfil their duty when they printed a paper copy of a policy and didn’t make it easily accessible to employees and contractors?This question is more relevant today than ever before with readily-available and affordable technology that can solve this issue.Offer your team mobile access to H&S policiesSaferMe’s mobile safety system makes it simple to share a H&S policy with all workers in an organisation of any size.The policy is securely hosted online and accessible via the SaferMe app, opening in the worker’s device whenever and wherever they need it. It is always available, it is easy to scale and to give access to contractors too.It’s not just excellent accessibility – there are further benefits to offering mobile, digital access to your health and safety policy.Firstly it allows you to appropriately segment the policy into sections to make it easier to digest and search, and with SaferMe you can even deliver access to relevant parts of the policy based on the employee’s role. This can make a document – which often runs into dozens of pages – more relevant than ever before to workers.Finally, the SaferMe system allows you to see if someone has read a document and even get them to sign it off as read. You will know which workers are engaged and those who need to be given a helping hand.Don’t drag the chain on getting your H&S policy in front of workers. Contact our team for a demo today to see how easy it is to use SaferMe to make your teams better engaged with safety.

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team

Why health & safety consultancies need a client-facing safety app

We live in a digital age, where our mobile device is attached to us most of the time.But for many small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) health and safety processes haven’t caught up with reality: paper forms, Excel templates and printed out policy documents are still commonplace.We’ve developed a mobile safety software platform that helps H&S Consultants to change this for their small business clients, and we partner with consultants so they can roll it out to customers.As a Health and Safety Consultant working with SMEs you have a unique opportunity to bring their H&S processes up to date with technology. Here are six compelling reasons that should convince you to make the jump with us.1. Gain an advantage over competitorsModernising your offer to customers means you can set yourself apart from other H&S Consultants. You are competing with them to win the business of customers – and in a world where most managers have digital transformation on their mind, you want to be able to offer a digital package with seamless data integration – not a 1980s offer of printed paper forms in folders. Think from your clients’ perspective! Our network of consultants partners across the UK, USA, Australia and New Zealand tell us that having SaferMe as part of their pitch helps them win new clients.2. Improve your clients’ engagement and user experienceThere are good reasons clients are seeking digital options. In the case of health and safety software it offers three clear benefits: it makes it easier and more efficient to report on safety both in the field and in the office; it drives further employee engagement with safety; and it provides the digital storage and documentation of actions they need to prove they comply with the law. SaferMe makes health and safety both mobile and easy for end users.3. Real-time insights into clients’ safety issuesSaferMe isn’t just about making your customers’ user experience better. Your administration portal allows you to manage each client and track their reporting activity across all their health and safety forms. Are they completing regular checks? Are there specific recurring issues happening? With SaferMe you will already know all of this when you arrive for your inspections or meeting – enabling you to provide even more tailored service.4. Support compliance with ISO 45001ISO 45001 offers a framework for high quality health & safety practices. Some of the key requirements in achieving ISO 45001 accreditation – such as communication of safety information, availability of safety data and policies, and engaging staff with health and safety are best supported with mobile safety technology like SaferMe. Partnering with us gives you a chance to offer this to clients.5. SaferMe works offline – ideal for rural industriesLocation of work is no longer a reason not to use a modern mobile health and safety solution. SaferMe works offline so you can file your important reports and inspections on the go and they will upload automatically when you come online again. You can even download hazard data before you head into an offline area – so you will know what risks you are facing when you get there.6. It’s affordable – even for one-person consultanciesWe have designed our H&S Consultant Partnerships to work and to scale for our partners – even the smallest of businesses. We have competitors in the mobile H&S software market – but their pricing doesn’t allow you to affordably scale to your clients’ end users. Sure, you can afford one or two users to conduct audits – but if you really want to engage their workers and move health and safety culture forward then you need a solution that allows you to do this at a low cost. The answer is SaferMe.Leave us your details below and we’ll give you a free demo and free trial of SaferMe so you can judge for yourself. Request Demo & Free Trial here

1 December 2019 · SaferMe Team