With vaccines popping up left, right and center, we slowly see some light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel. This pandemic has had a tremendous impact on lives and businesses all around the world. Despite all the bad things that have happened, there have been some positive changes as well when it comes to business. And as QHSE managers, we’ve no doubt learned a lot during this pandemic as well.
Home Office
Working from home became normal overnight with all the advantages and disadvantages that come with it. People that have been working from home started to see that the interaction with colleagues and the social element of it is pretty important to them. From a safety perspective, the home office became a point of interest. People worked from home on the kitchen table while they have all kinds of ergonomic desks and stands at work. This new way of working will need a lot more attention from a safety perspective in the near future.
Remote Audits
Thanks to COVID-19, remote audits became somehow the norm. A way of working lots of Certifying Bodies has been fighting against for years. This approach will be more common even when COVID-19 is out of our lives, companies will start to demand these audits more often. Also, this gives much more opportunities for picking the CB you want, not just the one closest to you. No, the remote audit cannot capture every aspect of the management system, but it can make time on site a lot less, which reduces the impact an audit has on the organization.
Highest Level
While working from home, most QHSE managers found out that maintaining the same level of quality and safety isn’t easy but doable. You cannot just quickly walk to your colleague and ask him/her something. However, with the right tools, you can make sure the management system functions properly without much negative impact. This is not limited to a QHSE platform but also the necessary communication tools and collaboration solutions. A significant investment is required to accomplish this.
Implication on Culture
The QHSE culture can be negatively impacted by this pandemic. It is hard to have all kinds of awareness sessions due to all kinds of limitations. However, with the right mindset and the right solutions, lots of things can still be accomplished.
There are numerous ways on how to uphold the QHSE culture. You can use online training sessions and schedule online meetings, but also it is good to keep track of the data created. Yes, production might have slowed down but still, things can go wrong. If the number of incidents/NCRs goes down significantly, there might be a different cause for this. Leverage the data to keep a good idea about the engagement of employees.
With Qooling, you can easily interact with colleagues and external experts. The automated tasks such as reminders and scheduling will push the QHSE culture forward.
