Newly developed Safety Office SharePoint site expands convenience, accessibility for employees

U.S. Army Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville
Published Nov. 1, 2019
Whether you need to report a hazard, update your Position Hazard Analysis, keep current on safety training, or request an ergonomic assessment, you can double-click on the orange and red Safety and Occupational Health icon on your computer desktop to access the HNC Safety Office Collaborative Team Site to do all of these things and more. But the convenience of a desktop icon is only the start. The Safety Office has overhauled their entire SharePoint site for employees, optimizing it for accessibility and usability.

Whether you need to report a hazard, update your Position Hazard Analysis, keep current on safety training, or request an ergonomic assessment, you can double-click on the orange and red Safety and Occupational Health icon on your computer desktop to access the HNC Safety Office Collaborative Team Site to do all of these things and more. But the convenience of a desktop icon is only the start. The Safety Office has overhauled their entire SharePoint site for employees, optimizing it for accessibility and usability.

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (Nov. 1, 2019) – Safety is everyone’s responsibility, and the Huntsville Center Safety and Occupational Health Office is ensuring safety resources remain at Center employees’ fingertips.

Whether you need to report a hazard, update your Position Hazard Analysis, keep current on safety training, or request an ergonomic assessment, you can double-click on the orange and red Safety and Occupational Health icon on your computer desktop to access the HNC Safety Office Collaborative Team Site to do all of these things and more.

But the convenience of a desktop icon is only the start. The Safety Office has overhauled their entire SharePoint site for employees, optimizing it for accessibility and usability. SharePoint is an internal web-based document management platform that organizations like Huntsville Center use for collaboration and information sharing.

Many of the changes are part of the Corps of Engineers Safety and Occupational Health Management System, or CE-SOHMS. The Center recently finished Phase II.

One addition to the newly designed site is the automated version of the Position Hazard Analysis, or PHA, which identifies job-related risks and associated mitigating factors. The interactive version resulted from work among three people: Kellie Williams, Huntsville Center’s chief of Safety and Occupational Health; Kyle Shireman, safety manager; and Jane Mason, ACE-IT web service specialist.

The three of them developed the new PHA between Stage I and II of the CE-SOHMS assessments. Williams needed a way to track the PHA using measurable metrics.

“At first it was my idea to use SharePoint and then we could have them upload it,” Williams said. “And then Kyle, who should take the credit for it, said, ‘Let’s make it interactive.’”

Williams wants employees to know about the multifaceted “Inspections” part of the site. It’s in this section that employees can not only review the results of past safety inspections and spot checks, but they also create and upload their own.

This includes the new spot check form, which makes it easier for any employee conducting a site visit to check on the safety at the location as well as of the contractors working there. On site, engineers and project managers answer 10 easy questions on a spot-check form and input their findings on SharePoint. This information is then forwarded to the Safety Office.

Because Huntsville Center executes missions and projects around the world, contractor safety oversight can be a challenge. The Center simply does not have safety representatives near all projects 100 percent of the time. This challenge was detailed in the latest CE-SOHMS findings.

“We now have all the project managers, engineers, contracting officers – anyone who goes to a site – to do a site inspection,” Shireman said. “It’s very minimal. It’s not in-depth, like what [safety managers] do, but now we can trend that data and identify where we’re having issues, and then focus our more detailed inspections more appropriately.

“This has provided more contractor oversight,” Shireman added, “because instead of just 10 people going and doing inspections, we now have 1,000.”

The site features plenty of other tools such as mishap reports, the ability to report a hazard, safety policies and regulations specific to both the Corps of Engineers and Huntsville Center, training, product recall information, safety news, and safety points of contact.

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Learn more about the revised PHA by reading our article on it at www.hnc.usace.army.mil/Media/News-Stories/Article/2005088.