I have just moved into a new post and one of my current annoyances is the terrible software packages I have to put up with different systems for things like incident recording and monitoring compliance at the Uni. Not only are the individual systems clunky, non-intuitive and difficult to use but they don’t talk to one another and are very self-contained which means a lot of frustration all around-in fact sometimes I thing that going back to folders and spreadsheets would be an improvement. I know what I would like but it would have to be a bespoke system and that of course would cost money both to set up and to maintain. So be careful if you are ordering a new system and make sure that it is exactly what you want or else you end up with something that is worse than useless.

As Dawson stated-  try a few. They will all provide ademonstration and trials as they want your business. There are good ones which people may recommend, but they wont neccessarily fit you and your company. Shop around.

Originally Posted by: Rob E

Can anyone suggest any software or an app that combines health and safety compliance / audit and facilities management. I am working in an adult education environment across 2 medium size sites and a number of satellite centres. Currently swamped with excel spreadsheets and folders and looking for a fairly easy system to make life that bit easier. Any suggestions gratefully received. Notice I haven't mentioned the 'budget' word. If anyone willing to demonstrate at their venue I'd be happy to travel midlands area.

What do you think a sofware system will give you that the excel spreadsheets will not ? I have found in the past that any off the shelf software has to be fairly broad in its design to accomodate all industries and so you always end up compromising.

I prefer to remain in control of the software ( if nothing else for future changes in requirements). All a software system could do for you is effectivly join the information you currently have on spreadsheets together and restrict users, but you can do that yourslef with links etc. Have you considered making one more spreadsheet as a pure control sheet with links to all the othhers.

Just a suggestion

Chris

What do you mean by “health and safety compliance”? Do you expect your system simply to present users with a simple tick box- yes they have done the daily check sort of thing or do you want it to  manage reports and establish actions for individuals, then to chase them up with increasingly snotty emails and then to record any outstanding non-compliances?

This sort of thing can be done as Chris suggested using spreadsheets and the like but if you do rely on it, it has to be designed specifically for what you want to do, so that people are not lumbered with spurious actions which are not relevant to what you are trying to achieve.

A poor system will suffer pushback and you will end with massive non-compliance not because people don’t want to do things safely but because they find the system that has been imposed on them too difficult to use. This means that you will be spending time and energy getting people to use the system rather than maintaining a safe work place.