Meeting mandatory legal compliance standards in your business becomes much easier with the help of workflow automation and workflow management software. These take your compliance and safety auditing to a new, more thorough level and help you acheieve operational excellence.
Find out how Lumiform streamlines compliance today
Table of contents
What are OSHA regulations?
OSHA, or the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, is part of the Department of Labor and strives to make sure employees everywhere have a safe work environment by enforcing regulatory compliance. OSHA regulations therefore apply to the majority of private sector companies and their workers, as well as public sector businesses in certain states.
Because OSHA covers so many different industries, there’s no universal set of requirements. Different businesses have different safety standards to adhere to. Some of the most common OSHA regulations include:
- OSHA in construction: The requirements for construction businesses will include things like making sure workers are wearing their PPE, making sure floors and hallways are clear, emergency exits are marked, and scaffolding/railings are in good condition
- OSHA in food safety: OSHA regulations for food businesses focus on protecting both workers and customers from safety hazards. They include things like food storage, equipment handling, presence and use of appropriate kitchen cleaning supplies, and making sure there are fire safety measures in place.
- OSHA in manufacturing: OSHA regulations that apply to the manufacturing industries also cover general safety matters like equipment status and the use of PPE, but pay special attention to how processes are performed. Activities like welding, cutting, or anyhing else involving power tools need to be undertaken safely, and workers need to have recieved proper training.
One of the most important things you need to do as a manager is to make sure you know the health and safety regulations that your company is subject to. Regulatory compliance is essential not only for legal reasons, but also for employee wellbeing and the health of your business.
What is compliance workflow automation?
Compliance workflow automation is the name given to workflow management software that makes identifying and resolving compliance violations easier for you. Compliance workflow automation generally proceeds in four steps, which are:
- Workflow creation: Creating a workflow means deciding on a series of complinace tasks or steps that need to be performed, such as by writing checklists
- Task automation: These tasks are then automated by your chosen workflow automation software. Examples of tasks you can automate include data entry, record keeping, and document storage.
- Real-time monitoring: Measuring and auditing your compliance practices is essential to maintaining a safe workplace
- Alerts and notifications: Should any violations or issues be found, workflow automation software sends out alerts to help you fix problems ASAP
This is how workflow automation software performs each of its functions. A robust software platform should be able to handle all the routine bureaucracy associated with maintaining regulatory compliance. That means you’re looking for several features.
Document management
Document management is an essential feature of regulatory compliance. When inspectors and auditors visit your business, they will want to see that you have relevant safety and legal imformation stored somewhere. Workflow automation software should store and file any documentation you collect during the workday, so it can be presented as evidence.
Risk assessment
Ensuring safety in your business means performing regular risk assessments. A risk assessment is an inspection of your workplace where you identify potential threats to employee safety. In addition to helping you find these health risks, good workflow management software will allow you to document your findings and will help you eliminate issues by assigning tasks to employees.
Reporting
Data analysis massively improves OSHA compliance by showing you where changes are needed and guiding you towards needed reforms much faster. Such analyses should not only be automatic and regular, but also customizable and easily digestible, so you can measure the things most important to your business. Visuals are a great way to draw conclusions at a glance.
Assigning tasks
Workflow automation software is intended to help your business run on its own, which is why being able to assign and monitor employee tasks with one click is incredibly useful. When employees have visibility of their responsibilities at all times, it reduces confusion and increases productivity. The flexibility of being able to adjust assignments enables you to react to issues or changes in real-time. Lastly, tracking task status helps you understand and continously improve employee processes.
How does workflow automation drive compliance with OSHA regulations?
Efficiency
Workflow automation makes the process of inspecting your environment, reporting complinace violations, and resolving those violations much faster. One reason is because it removes many manual processes that are more time-consuming than necessary. Another way workflow automation makes legal compliance more efficient is by improving communication between managers and employees such that there’s no downtime caused by decision-making.
Accuracy
Automated compliance processes are almost always more accurate than their manual counterparts. When it comes to OSHA compliance, inaccurate processes can mean heavy fines, and missing an issue might lead to an accident. By eliminating individual variance in the way processes are carried out, workflow automation improves the quality, clarity, and consistency of regulatory compliance efforts.
Cost-saving
Assuring compliance is a lot of work for a team to do manually, and that work requires a fairly large team. When you automate key compliance functions, you reduce the amount of staff you need, so you save money. Another important way workflow automation saves money is that since it’s both more efficient and more accurate, you’re less likely to be fined for noncompliance.
Teamwork
Workflow automation helps employees share critical information and know how their responsibilities intersect. Being able to quickly assign tasks helps ensure that all your workers share a common goal.
Decision-making
Workflow automation is the best way to easily collect large amounts of data regarding your workplace safety and OSHA compliance. With that data, you are able to make more informed decisions that will improve your business. Data-driven decision making is more objective than other forms of decision making, and assesing visible patterns makes your conclusions stronger.
OSHA regulatory compliance is easier with Lumiform, an all-in-one workflow automation solution specifically for frontline workers. By streamlining safety and other inspections, allowing for issue reporting straight from the mobile app, automatically collecting and compiling analyses on a regular basis, and automatically storing all documentation, Lumiform provides all the tools you need to optimize your compliance processes. With a mobile as well as a desktop app, your workers can carry out compliance inspections no matter where they are, even offline.
One of the biggest concerns for businesses in industries such as construction or manufacturing is ensuring workplace safety, particularly as it relates to regulatory compliance. Depending on your industry, you’ll have a hefty list of legal obligations intended to keep your workers safe and healthy. These are likely to be OSHA regulations; as of the most prominent regulatory bodies in the United States, OSHA sets out and enforces standards across nearly every industry.
Meeting mandatory legal compliance standards in your business becomes much easier with the help of workflow automation and workflow management software. These take your compliance and safety auditing to a new, more thorough level and help you acheieve operational excellence.
