Risk management tips and tricks

Every business faces a number of risks each day they operate. From occupational health and safety risks, to compliance breach risks, there are a number of reasons why businesses will want to prioritise risk management. If you consider the enormity of what can happen when standards slip and safety becomes an afterthought, risk management should be top of mind for all of us. 

Due to the number of operational risks, it can be hard to know if your business is effectively managing risks and across compliance. But with our helpful tips and tricks, you’ll know you’re on top of risk management at your company. 

Conduct audits

There are 2 types of audits you should implement as soon as possible. Let’s take a look at each:

• Internal audit

This is a one time audit that can be considered the first step of the risk management process. Conducting an internal audit is one of the best ways to identify possible issues or problem areas before they become costly. The last thing you want to do is wait for the government or accrediting body to come to you and deliver some big blows to your business! 

When performing an internal audit, you’ll want to take a long hard look at your policies and procedures, how you’re communicating with your staff, what the incident reporting process looks like and what systems you’re currently using. Take note of any areas for improvement as well as any possible shortcomings. This is when it’s a good idea to use a rating scale to indicate how soon issues need to be addressed like the one outlined below. This will help you prioritise major issues that are going to have the biggest impact on your business first. 

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• Regular audits

Regular audits are best practice for businesses wanting to keep consistency, maintain standards and prioritise risk management. When you have multiple sites - whether they are franchised or company owned - it can be hard to ensure standards are consistently being met across every site. Periodical audits will give you the reassurance you need that risks are being managed. 

Regular audits can come in many shapes and sizes. Traditionally, it would be the job of an area manager to go out to sites and assess them, however in Covid times, this isn’t always possible. A great workaround for this is allowing managers/franchisees to do their own self-audits. If you’re wanting to go down this route, you’ll need to make sure you have an amazing system (like Audit Central) in place that allows you to see instant, customised reporting from each location, can allow assessor comments and will restrict file uploads to camera (among many other things). The system you use should ensure compliance across the board!

Schedule ongoing training

Oftentimes, the biggest asset and risk to your business is your employees. With ongoing training, you can be sure your employees understand what is required of them, that they have the right knowledge to perform their work and that they are skilled enough to do their work. 

Onboarding training isn’t enough, training should always be continuous. Ongoing training can be simple quizzes attached to policy updates, refresher assessments, workshops, remote assessments (uploading a video), assessor sign-off or one-on-one. The key is to cater to all learners and learning styles by providing them with flexible assessment types and beautifully engaging content. 

Keep all information and instructional content consistent 

It seems like a no-brainer right? Obviously all instructional content and information you're sending out to your employees has to be consistent, otherwise everyone will be confused and you’ll be opening your business up to liability! Well, it’s easier said than done. Sometimes, businesses have policies and procedures sitting in Google Drive (with no way of making sure people have read and understood updates to the documents), are pushing out news blasts via Facebook Groups and emailing information to staff. It’s impossible to keep consistent when using all these different points of contact with no way of integrating. 

All content should follow a Single Point of Truth (SPOT) philosophy that allows you to connect all your information and instructional content (hint: there is a system that does this). The SPOT philosophy ensures that risks are mitigated and consistency is achieved.

Invest in software 

Risk management software is essential for every business. It makes the process of auditing, creating and pushing out training and delivering information and instructional content simple. There are many individual systems that can achieve all of these points, however if you employ the use of several different systems, you’re going to find that costs are pretty steep, the systems aren’t compatible with each other and that your employees begin to revolt because you’re using too many systems! 

With Ideagen Op Central, you’re able to achieve operational excellence, maintain compliance and manage risks easily. Ideagen Op Central gives you the tools to create and report on audits, supply your staff with engaging training and deliver all instructional and informative content. Everything is hosted on one simple platform that is tailored to your brand, providing you and your employees with the best user experience possible.

For more information on a system that can help you minimise and manage risks with ease, reach out to the experts at Ideagen Op Central.