‍What are EHS Analytics?

Environmental, health, and safety (EHS) analytics can be used by companies to assess the organization’s EHS performance. 

Analyzing data through comprehensive EHS data analysis is a great way for companies to identify safety trends, but as we know, data is useless unless it's organized and presented in a way that allows you to draw conclusions and make informed decisions. 

That's where EHS analytics comes in. By taking large data sets and making sense of them, EHS analytics can help you improve workplace safety, identify areas of concern, and track progress over time.

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Why are EHS Analytics Important?

EHS analytics uses data from a variety of sources to identify trends and potential hazards. This data can come from incident reports, safety audits, inspections, employee surveys, and more. 

When combining EHS software and AI safety technology, organizations can analyze this data to predict and mitigate risks, ultimately improving workplace safety and ensuring EHS compliance.

Enhancing Safety with AI-Powered EHS Analytics

For instance, AI safety technologies can gather important EHS analytics, allowing organizations to assess this data and identify points of weakness. 

Once they have gathered this data, it can be analyzed to identify patterns and trends. For example, if a certain type of incident occurs frequently, that may indicate a potential hazard that needs to be addressed.

Identifying Training Needs Through Employee Surveys 

If employee surveys reveal that employees are not confident in their ability to safely perform their job duties, that could be an indication that more training is needed.

Reducing Costs by Preventing Workplace Incidents

Workplace safety is extremely important. Not only do employers have a legal responsibility to provide a safe work environment for their employees, but incidents can also lead to lost productivity, workers' compensation claims, and lawsuits. 

By using EHS analytics to improve workplace safety, organizations can avoid these costly consequences. 

Boosting Productivity Through a Safe Work Environment

Happy and healthy employees are more productive employees. By ensuring that employees feel safe at work, organizations can create a positive work environment that leads to increased productivity.

Tracking EHS Performance Over Time

EHS analytics is also important because it allows you to track progress over time. This is especially useful for measuring the impact of new safety initiatives or policies.

By tracking key metrics over time, you can see whether or not your efforts are actually making a difference.

Communicating EHS Insights to Stakeholders

Finally, EHS analytics is important because it enables you to share your findings with other stakeholders–such as upper management or government officials — in a clear and concise way. 

This helps ensure that your recommendations are taken seriously and acted upon appropriately.

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How Can Companies Use EHS Analytics

There are a myriad of ways by which companies can utilize EHS analytics to evaluate safety performance. Here’s how it works.

1. Select a Data Gathering Tool

The first step is to select a data gathering tool to collect actionable data which can be used for EHS analytics. The traditional way to gather EHS data was to install sensors and cameras, and use simple ethnographic techniques like observing workers. 

As you can imagine, this has its limitations and it’s not always accurate. Instead, more and more companies are now using proactive safety AI and AI workplace safety solutions to help gather analytical data to assess internal safety standards. 

For instance, computer vision (e.g., safety video analytics and safety camera analysis) are now widely employed to detect workplace safety performance. It can identify whether employees are wearing proper safety gear, especially when moving around high-risk machinery. 

2. Select Key Metrics to Track

The next step is to select key metrics that you want to track. This depends on your overarching goals. Common metrics that you can track include:

• Safety events
• Near misses
• Accidents 
• Any safety anomalies
• Instances of non-compliance with safety protocols

3. EHS Reporting and Dashboards

Setting up a reporting function is very important to analyze all the data collected. EHS analytics can be reported through standard dashboards, giving safety teams a holistic understanding of the department’s safety performance. 

Modern AI tools now offer auto-generated real-time safety reporting and automated safety monitoring, making it easier for companies to assess data and set up multiple EHS reporting and dashboards to track safety incidents. 

4. Using EHS Analytics to Define Policies

EHS analytics data is only valuable if companies can use it to improve their safety standards. EHS teams can use this data to identify areas with lax safety protocols and take steps to improve it. 

They can also identify new hazards through risk detection by evaluating near misses or safety incidents, and then prepare a plan to mitigate or eliminate them.

These advanced analytics and policies can lead to better incident prevention and overall workplace safety improvements.

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Use Protex AI to Get Actionable EHS Analytics

Protex AI leverages artificial intelligence to offer insights into an organization’s safety performance. It connects to any modern CCTV system, offering detailed insights about safety issues and events. 

It can generate reports and send alerts for real-time incident reporting, offering EHS teams critical information about how safety standards are performing and if any changes are necessary.

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