The world of occupational health and safety is constantly evolving. As our teams and workplaces change, the regulations, patterns, and practices which govern or inform our ways of working must also change, and adapt.
From accommodating a more remote workforce, to keeping up with the pace of digitalisation across almost every sector, 2023 saw notable advancements in how teams are defining efficiency and success throughout every facet of their operations.
This has been particularly true when it comes to monitoring and managing workplace risk. Driven by the popularity of sophisticated, purpose-built solutions for tracking worker habits and improving organisational controls, risk management in the workplace is on track to becoming more streamlined, more efficient, and more effective than ever before.
And in 2024, we predict that these solutions will continue to gain traction, quickly becoming the rule for teams operating in regulated environments, not the exception.
Below, we’ve rounded up our team’s top-three predictions for what the world of risk management in the workplace will look like in 2024, particularly with regard to occupational noise monitoring:
Technology-driven solutions will replace traditional methods of risk management in the workplace:
The pace of business - specifically, the speed of innovation and decision-making - is accelerating quicker than it ever has before. Over the last decade, nearly every industry in every sector around the globe has seen processes, programmes, and systems transition from traditional methods to more sophisticated solutions - all designed to facilitate more comprehensive, more competitive go-to-market plans and business strategies. And as organisations drive forward in an effort to stay ahead, every corner of operations will eventually be touched by advancement and progress.
Driven by the need for real-time information that promotes more immediate, more informed decision-making, businesses will continue to seek out and adopt solutions that increase accessibility to information and accelerate speed-to-insight.
When it comes to health & safety and compliance, this innovation will continue to take the shape of purpose-built solutions for risk monitoring and management. Cloud-powered wearable technology will take the top spot away from traditional methods of resource tracking (like pen-and-paper or spreadsheets), promoting communication and collaboration where siloes have long existed.
Individual workers will gain unprecedented access to risk management tools and insight:
The democratisation of data is a key pillar to success for organisations in nearly every sector. Making critical insights available to individual workers (business users) is a critical step forward for businesses looking to streamline operations, improve efficiency, and increase the pace of informed decision-making. Put simply: expanding access to information and insight throughout a team is one of the easiest, fastest ways to facilitate collaboration and ensure the exchange of valuable insight.
In the world of health and safety, data accessibility plays another key role: ensuring that individual workers have direct and uncomplicated access to information that they can use to instantly reduce their exposure to dangerous sources of risk.
This level of real-time insight is a revolution for occupational risk management. Never before have individual workers been able to redirect their own health and safety trajectory in such an informed, confident, impactful manner.
Worker health and safety metrics will become a KPI for duty holders and Safety Managers:
Analytics are, officially, everywhere. From Finance to Sales, Marketing to Operations: Analytics are the bridge between business-as-usual and business as anything but usual.
Analytics are information that’s been automatically collected and collated over time before being turned into meaningful insights about trends, ways of working, and much (much) more. Generally presented in a dashboard format, Analytics are meant to be easily digestible: Complex data is transformed into simple charts and graphs that almost anyone can use to quickly identify areas in need of attention, and opportunities for improvement.
In 2024, we expect to see duty holders and Safety Managers who operate in regulated industries to be measured against the Analytics of their teams. Businesses will start assigning KPIs (key performance indicators) to ensure that managers are evaluating their team’s analytics and taking appropriate action to refine, improve, or implement controls.
Noise monitoring and management continues to be an area for organisations to focus upon as we enter the New Year. Noise-Induced Hearing Loss (NIHL) impacts millions of workers worldwide, and there is ample opportunity for safety-savvy businesses to make strides towards more effectively tackling this known and potentially debilitating issue.
By adopting purpose-built solutions for occupational noise monitoring, teams can preserve the health and safety of their workers while also streamlining processes and improving operations.
To learn more about exactly how Smart Alert by Minuendo is redefining noise monitoring in the workplace, you can read this article. We’ve also written about how analytics can transform the construction and manufacturing sectors, and about the importance of personalised data for better decision-making.
Ready to explore Smart Alert in more detail? Just schedule a free, quick demo with our team by clicking this link. We’d love to speak with you about how you can level-up your team’s approach to health and safety in the New Year.
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