Records. Records. Records. The Key to Mitigate Risk
Proper Records are Key to Mitigate Risk
The trucking industry can be a risky business. Every business has moving parts, but the moving parts for the trucking industry weigh several tons and are rolling down the road at 60+ mile per hour.
You also have the financial risk that includes millions of dollars in cargo, plus significant health and safety hazards to deal with. These risks can lead to devastating financial losses if you are not careful.
So, how can you manage and mitigate risk associated with your industry? The best answer is improved safety practices and proper documentation.
KEEPING UP WITH THE PAPERWORK
The best way to manage and mitigate risk is to develop a strong safety program for your organization. But, to really make a safety program work the way it should, you must keep up with the paperwork.
Not only do solid records keep track of training needs and completions, but these records also act as proof that you are keeping up with proper safety training. When the risk associated with your industry leads to an accident, incident, or inspection, that proof is key to protecting your company.
Remember:
If it’s not signed, dated, or you can’t find it, it didn’t happen!
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Records and Court
You never want it to happen, but in the trucking industry you always run the risk of being sued after an accident. If you find yourself in that situation, plaintiff attorneys will look for areas to attack you on your training record. They will want to know:
- Was the involved driver properly trained?
- Were they trained on relevant issues?
- When and how often did the necessary training occur?
- Did they understand the training material covered?
Even if you have the best training program out there, if you don’t have the records to back that up, the court will assume the training never occurred. Without records your company can find itself liable for the accident, opening the door for lawsuits that can cost you $10 million or more.
However, if you have a strong driver training program, and you have the records ready to back that up in court, you can prove you have done your due diligence. This reduces the opportunities for plaintiff attorney attacks, reducing potentially large payouts that can easily bankrupt your company.
Records and D.O.T. Audits
D.O.T. audits are part of working in the trucking industry. When this happens, drivers that are seen as operating unsafely can raise flags. Too many of these can put your company on a watch list which leads to further audits and inspections and can eventually put you out of service.
A good training program not only reduces the number of unsafe drivers, but also shows your due diligence during these audits. That’s only if you have the records to back up your training and corrective action activities. These records mitigate risk when it comes to your company liability, protecting you from fiscal, legal, and social risks to your business and reputation.
A good record of training can also help you deal with past warnings from these audits. These records show you are working to deal with the issues raised.
Records and Investigations
Your risk isn’t just on the road. Any part of your company operations that involve physical risk to your employees requires proper safety training. That training needs the same level of legal protection as your driver training.
This means you need good documentation of all training provided to employees. This includes maintenance, warehouses, or any other areas where employees are required to follow OSHA regulations.
Any time an incident happens in the workplace, you need to show you have done your due diligence to prevent these issues as much as possible. Investigators will look first thing at your training records to see if employees operating equipment have had the proper training to deal with the safety requirements.
Create a Safety Culture and Prove It
We want to see “safety culture for the win” became the slogan for North American trucking. It’s all about companies doing their du diligence, and even going beyond, then proving it. This makes the roads safer for everyone, lives are saved, and companies can thrive and grow.
Even when unwanted incidents occur, a prepared company can greatly reduce or eliminate associated damages if they have a safety program backed by real documentation. That’s why records are key to mitigate risk but knowing this is one thing. Pulling it all together is another.
It’s way too easy to lose track of training records. You have several drivers working for you, plus other employees. You have to deal with employee turnover which creates even more paperwork. Documentation changes hands, regulations can change, and the fast pace of business can get in the way.
On top of this, documents can be altered, and hard copies of paperwork can get lost. No matter how diligent you are, you can’t guarantee those hard copies will be there when you need them.
How Do You Ensure Proper Documentation?
How can you make sure that your training records are signed, dated, not tampered with, and exactly where you can find them when you need to? This is where Infinit-I Workforce Solutions can help. We provide the reporting and documentation tools you need so all your training is time-stamped, recorded, and held in a third-party server.
Your training documentation is secure, easily retrieved, and no one can alter it in any way. In fact, companies have been able to easily defend themselves in court more than once thanks to our record-keeping tools.
The Infinit-I system can mitigate risk to your company with a robust training library available for driver training as well as regulatory compliance materials such as:
- Personal protective equipment
- Use of power tools
- Forklift safety
- Lockout/Tagout
- Heat stress
- Confined space entry
- Blood-borne pathogens
When you send training content to employees, you have an automatic record of their interaction with it. If there are problems with completion, you will know and can act right away. Proper tracking and recording tools are the key to mitigate risk.
A System that Integrates with Your Business
We’ve built a system that integrates with your business, able to customize to your needs, and will help you build a better safety culture. Safety culture is the foundation of success in the trucking industry.
The need for a strong safety culture is seen time and time again. So, how can we help you make that happen?
Contact us for a free demo of the Infinit-I Workforce system. Check out the features and user interface that lead to a better experience for users and admins.
