Ep. 294 Best Practice for Risk Observations

Rancho Mesa's Alyssa Burley and Media Communications & Client Services Specialist Lauren Stumpf discuss best practices for setting up your Risk Observations in the SafetyOne™ application.

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SafetyOne™ App

Director/Host: Alyssa Burley

Guest: Lauren Stumpf

Producer/Editor: Megan Lockhart

Music: "Home" by JHS Pedals, “News Room News” by Spence

© Copyright 2023. Rancho Mesa Insurance Services, Inc. All rights reserved.

transcript

[Introduction Music]

Alyssa Burley: Hi! This is Alyssa Burley with Rancho Mesa’s Media Communications and Client Services Department. Thank you for listening to today’s top Rancho Mesa news brought to you by our safety and risk management network, StudioOne™. Welcome back, everyone. My guest is Lauren Stumpf, Media Communications and Client Services Specialist with Rancho Mesa. Today, we’re going to talk about best practices for setting up your Risk Observations in the SafetyOne™ application. Lauren, welcome to the show.

Lauren Stumpf: Hi Alyssa, thanks for having me back.

AB: For listeners who may be new to workplace safety, what is a risk observation?

LS: Yeah of course, so, risk observations provide a way for companies to create specific checklists for each project, facility, program or crew. The items on the observation checklist are often a direct result of a Job Safety Analysis, or JSA, sometimes known as a Job Hazard Analysis, or JHA. Whatever you call it, the questions on the observation checklist are there to ensure any potential safety hazards are checked, documented and corrected if an issue is found.   

AB: Within the SafetyOne™ App, the end user has the ability to document that they have completed an observation from their mobile device. Does the organization have to create their observation checklists starting from scratch?

LS: No, they wouldn’t have to. There is a library of over 260 different categories of observations that the organization’s administrators can make available to the mobile app user. Plus, custom observations can be created. If an organization decides to use one that is from our library, it’s best practices to fully review the questions that are within the category to ensure that it is covering all the hazards that may pertain to that specific observation, and that there aren’t extra items that don’t apply. We don’t want the mobile app user to get into the habit of just signing off questions in the checklist because there are items that don’t apply.

AB: Understood. And we don’t want people to get used to mindlessly checking off the observation questions. And, there are some analytics that administrators can use to see how many observations were done, the number of answers that were entered, resolved issues, and the average time that it took the user to resolve an issue. So, the user’s activity is being monitored in the platform to avoid those situations. As an administrator, should you turn on the entire observation category library so it’s available to all mobile app users?

LS: Well, we want to make sure that the mobile app user isn’t overwhelmed with options in the app. We’ve found that the fewer options, the easier it is for people to find and complete what they need to in the app. So, we recommend that administrators only turn on the observation categories that apply to the specific project, facility, program or crew that will be observed. If there are only a handful of categories for the end user to choose from that are directly applicable to what is being observed, it is a lot easier for them to find exactly what they need, versus a list of over 260 to scroll through.

AB: Lauren, if listeners are interested in learning more about the SafetyOne™ App or how they can utilize the risk observations, who should they contact?

[Outro Music]

LS: Clients should reach out to their Client Services Coordinator, or anyone at Rancho Mesa and we’ll make sure to get you in touch with the right person.

AB: Lauren, thanks for sharing all of that information and joining me in StudioOne™.

LS: Thanks, Alyssa!

AB: This is Alyssa Burley with Rancho Mesa. Thanks for tuning in to our latest episode produced by StudioOne™. For more information, visit us at ranchomesa.com and subscribe to our weekly newsletter.