How to Launch EHS Software Successfully: Your Digital Safety Foundation

Executive support is the #1 predictor of successful digital transformation. Without it, safety initiatives often fail due to a lack of resources, conflicting priorities, or insufficient organizational commitment.

To gain C-suite support, focus on speaking their language. Calculate the true cost of incidents, including direct costs like medical expenses and indirect costs like lost productivity and legal fees. If you can align your goals with the company in general, you’re going to be in a much better position to get that funding.

Key strategies include:

• Building a business case that shows ROI, not just compliance benefits
• Finding an executive champion who understands safety’s value
• Creating visibility through executive dashboards showing key metrics and incident costs
• Benchmarking against competitors to show how digital safety provides competitive advantage

Resistance to change is natural, especially when moving from familiar paper processes to digital systems. Success requires deliberate change management to address fears, build enthusiasm, and support adoption.

Effective change management strategies include:

• Assembling a diverse team of digital advocates from different departments
• Clearly communicating how digital tools will make jobs easier, not eliminate them
• Addressing generational differences in technology comfort levels
• Celebrating early wins and sharing success stories
• Creating psychological safety around technology adoption

Nobody likes change because nobody wants to be a senior beginner. Getting our employees to embrace the change was half the battle. Once they saw KPA’s value, they were all over it.
– Chris Gafford, EHS Manager, Ring Energy

Digital transformation succeeds with clean, organized data. Migrating messy data leads to a messy digital system that undermines trust and makes it harder to demonstrate value through analytics.

Before migration, organizations need to:

• Conduct a data inventory of all existing safety data sources
• Establish naming conventions for locations, departments, and job titles
• Clean data by removing duplicates and updating contact information
• Assign data owners responsible for maintaining quality
• Create processes for ongoing data maintenance

But it’s worth it. Chris Gafford emphasizes the power of good data:
“The ability to quickly and accurately mine through the data for stats or even specific incidents was a game changer.”

Even user-friendly software requires training for effective adoption. Monica Patel, KPA’s Software Product Manager, emphasizes starting with a pilot program: “You really want to make sure that the software is an upgrade to what you’re doing. A lot of people focus on one or two processes to start, which is overall less overwhelming for your team.”

Successful training approaches include:

• Identifying and developing “super users” who can champion the system
• Creating role-based training for administrators, field workers, and managers
• Building protected learning time into work schedules
• Establishing ongoing support structures for continuous learning

Beth Woodbury, Vice President of Safety at Aunt Millie’s Bakeries, discovered the key to success:
“Moving from paper to electronic – just keep talking about it! Repetition, repetition, repetition.”

You can’t digitize chaos. Digital systems work best with standardized processes. Trying to automate inconsistent, poorly documented processes amplifies problems rather than solving them.

Steps to standardize effectively:

• Document current safety processes step-by-step
• Identify why different locations do things differently
• Keep what works while eliminating unnecessary variations
• Choose 1-2 well-defined processes for pilot digitization
• Involve process users in standardization decisions

We had to overcome a nervousness about changing the way things are done. After some projects were launched, those who were nervous quickly saw the benefits of the software and how it could make their jobs easier.
– HSE Technical Specialist, Oil & Gas

Digital safety tools require basic technology infrastructure to function. Without adequate devices and connectivity, even the best software becomes useless.

Infrastructure considerations include:

• Ensuring field workers have access to mobile devices
• Planning for areas without consistent connectivity
• Adopting a mobile-first approach for field adoption
• Partnering with IT early in the planning process

However, as Tony Conte, EHS Manager at J. Mullen & Sons, discovered, sometimes you need creative solutions:
“Employees did not want to put KPA on their phones, so I have set up ‘Safety Kiosks’ where they can sign in.”