Page 72 - OHS, October 2020

COVID-19 MANAGEMENT
With a large volume of data, Excel or in-house resources may be unsuitable. Many data analytics programs offer utilities for data cleaning, modeling, and visualization. Software makes it easy to quickly identify actionable areas for enhanced HSE compliance and risk reduction. Before such a purchase, consider:
■ What systems do you need to use the software?
■ What are the data requirements?
■ Cost (rental or purchase the product)
■ What type of training and personnel would be required to
use the software effectively, or cost-effectively?
■ Support from the vendor
■ What is the market resilience of the vendor? (Could the
vendor be merged or be divested and what quality of service do you get then?)
■ Survey current users, get their opinion on the product value, service/help they received from the vendor, startup difficulties, and others.
With the current pricing levels of software, data analytics software becomes an economy of scale issue—smaller data volumes (such as small organizations) may find data analytics not justifiable in the short run.
To sum up, data analytics would be helpful if results of statistical analyses are viewed in proper context along with relevant assumptions. Full discussion of descriptive and inferential statistics is beyond the scope of this paper, but worth considering while embarking on data-driven HSE management.
Workforce Management
While this is not a new issue, it is the essence of HSE management. Today, an HSE manager faces three key issues:
■ Ethnic/geographic diversity
■ Gender diversity
■ Generational diversity
Today, most of the work force is diverse. Workers respect
and recognize ethnic and geographic diversity and work as a cohesive team. For multi-site or multi-national organizations, HSE managers should stay familiar with cultural differences, differences in societal norms, their sensitivities, and language differences. The bottom line is all workers must have unambiguous understanding of HSE policies and procedures.
In the HSE field, anecdotal data suggests teamwork transcends gender differences. The key goal is to instill a strong company cultureandworkforthecommongoodofthecompany.
Generational diversity sometimes shows up as follows: Older workers are less enthused about new digital “gadgets,” while younger workers tend to take safety practices for granted. Strength of both groups could be harnessed: Consider developing training programs that could enhance the acceptance of new devices by older, or more experienced workers. Often poor instructions (As is, sometime, the case with IT instructions.), or lack thereof tends to turn off experienced workers.
Younger workers can learn from their experienced counterparts: say, interpreting results of confined space monitoring, completing
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