At Least Half of Employees Feel Under-Equipped to Work Safely, New Study From Foresight Shows

Though digitization and safety technology is helping make high hazard workplaces safer, there is still room for improvement. A study released today shows 40% of employees feel pressured to work unsafely to meet deadlines; 49% have witnessed unfair treatment of an injured worker and 37% say their employer has concealed an incident from OSHA.

“The State of Safety in High Hazard Environments” presents research conducted by Foresight Group—which comprises Foresight, the first workers compensation insurtech to focus on the middle market, and Safesite, an award-winning risk management platform.

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As much of the workforce shifts toward remote or hybrid working environments to safeguard workers from emerging hazards, core industries like construction, manufacturing and agriculture rely on safe, structured field or factory environments to thrive. In these environments, even though employees rated their employers’ (55%) and their own (76%) safety compliance records well, 68% of respondents indicated they would like better on-the-job safety training.

Another area of the study examines how safety information is stored, shared and accessed, and highlights that despite the pandemic-induced surge in remote working, 62% of respondents still use paper to document safety@ activities. As 74% of respondents indicated fewer safety-related incidents since their company’s safety program went digital than there were before, representatives of Foresight and Safesite see an opportunity here for businesses to improve.

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“Business leaders and their brokers know that making the move to smartphones and tablets isn’t a quick fix for risk management issues, so they often don’t take the leap,” said David Fontain, CEO of Foresight. “However, digitization is not only more effective long-term but it also opens up opportunities to improve every other business process touched by workplace safety.”

Together, Foresight and Safesite tie safety engagement to insurance savings, removing cost as a prohibitor for businesses on a journey toward eliminating workplace accidents. Foresight has demonstrated an impressive reduction in the frequency of policyholders’ workplace safety incidents by an average of 31%.

“Commercial insurance brokers frequently express a desire to streamline their clients’ safety programs,” added Peter Grant, CEO of Safesite. “We’ve been able to speed adoption by connecting those clients with dedicated professionals that guide them through the rollout of their first digital safety program. Foresight then rewards engaged businesses with savings upon policy renewal, further incentivizing the proper use of Safesite in the field.”

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