Sick of your safety processes being stuck in the Stone Age?
Well, you’re not alone. According to construction consultancy firm HazardCo, thousands of small tradie businesses across the country have been caught slacking by inspectors in recent years thanks to outdated, paper-based safety systems slowing up jobs on the work site.
Thankfully, there seems to be a fix. Build-it sat down with the company’s senior health and safety advisor Glenn Smith to talk about the benefits small businesses can reap from streamlining safety into the palm of your hand – courtesy of their tradie-friendly app.
“Everything was really, really heavily paper-based and it was a struggle to keep up to date with what was being changed in legislation,” said Glenn when asked about the idea behind bringing construction safety needs online.
“The company Hazard Co. started with the whole concept of keeping a bloke on the top of the ladder as safe as they can get him.
“The way they did that is they literally created a product that you can use on your phone or your iPad, where you can comply with the legislation like really, really simply.
“We’ve got safe work methods templates, we’ve got toolboxes, we’ve got the ability to do reviews of sites, we’ve got risk assessments, we’ve got custom safety plans and more.”
With dedicated support services and unique products designed around different legislations across Australia’s states and territories, it’s an undeniably handy tool for businesses looking to get their head around confusing site safety checks.
But according to Glenn, the real benefit comes from freeing up more time for tradies to tackle the tools while leaving the “complicated safety stuff” that you “probably don’t love doing” to the pros.
“The bulk of our clients are sole traders or partners and they just don’t see the value in generating all of that safety compliance document station. And I’ll be really honest, I can’t blame him,” he said.
“Like you get a guy who builds pergolas and decks for a living. He doesn’t want to come home and do another hour of stuff at home. He struggles enough with his books and his insurance and balancing his workload, and work-life load as well. A product like HazardCo actually just makes it easy for you.
“I’ll give you an example. If you’re the principal contractor on a build and you want to build a house, you register a project in our system. As you fill in the project details, it automatically creates a safety plan for you.
“So don’t even have to think about it. It gets created in the background. If the safety regulator rocks up, can go, yep, here you go.”
Watch the full interview above.
