Knagg Construction is a road building contractor seeking to reduce its worker insurance costs. Headcount at the time was about 3,000 – including office workers, an urban road division, and a rural road division. Claim costs had been rising for several years, primarily due to the increased use of counseling benefits. This led to increasing premiums from Knagg’s insurance provider. Meanwhile, the president of Knagg’s worker union was pressuring the company to take safety more seriously. Concerns about a lack of training and oversight at rural worksites were often raised.
Knagg’s occupational health and safety (OHS) unit had attempted to roll out an enterprise safety management system several years ago but failed. The software was effectively unusable in rural areas due to an absence of reliable internet. As before, a variety of disconnected analog and digital tools were used across the company. The executive team felt it did not have enough health and safety related data to form an intelligent strategy.
Where a company-wide software rollout failed, a pen-and-paper reporting protocol succeeded. Rural workers could not use software effectively, but urban workers could use analog tools. An index-card-sized incident form was created to replace all existing digital and analog forms. It had four colour-coded sections: minor near-miss, major near-miss, minor incident, and major incident. Each section had a diagram of the appropriate respond and report protocol.
A change control method was established, with the central OHS unit in charge of incorporating protocol improvements and distributing updated forms. The OHS unit was also in charge of collecting physical forms via the company’s internal mailroom. Administrative costs increased slightly as a result of this approach, but were balanced out by reductions in software costs.
Protocols can be compressed more than processes, especially those instantiated in off-the-shelf systems. This characteristic is important to consider in situations where internet connectivity issues are present. Going analog requires giving up some data depth and short-term efficiency, but can add value by increasing participation and resilience. Increased participation is the foundation for more intricate protocols, not the other way around.