Safety and Health Disclosure System Takes Effect, Shifting Corporate Safety Management to “Always-On Data Management”
IT DAILY ·
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The Safety and Health Disclosure System took effect on August 1, making employers with 500 or more full-time workers, employers in construction with annual project values of more than KRW 120 billion, and public institutions and local public corporations subject to disclosure obligations.
Disclosure items include the safety and health management system, industrial accident status, the previous year’s safety and health activity results, the current year’s activity plan, safety and health investment, measures to prevent recurrence of industrial accidents, and implementation plans, and prime contractors and public institutions must disclose additional items.
The industry sees continuous year-round data retention as the key response, while Arom Information Technology and NDLabs are developing and supplying the safety and health management SaaS “Saferyn (Saferyn)” and expanding its functions and application scope.
The “Safety and Health Disclosure System,” which mandates external disclosure of workplace safety and health conditions, took full effect in August, prompting changes in how companies and public institutions manage safety. As a result, there is a growing need to move away from managing outcomes after accidents and compiling materials only at the time of disclosure, and toward systematic year-round recordkeeping and management of safety and health activities, as well as a data-driven management system.
The revised Occupational Safety and Health Act was promulgated in February, and the Safety and Health Disclosure System took effect on August 1. The disclosure requirement applies to employers with 500 or more full-time workers, while for the construction sector it applies to employers with annual construction contract values of more than KRW 120 billion. Public institutions and local public corporations are also subject to the disclosure obligation, and a fine of less than KRW 10 million is imposed for violations.
Safety and health disclosure is not limited to the number of industrial accidents; it is a system that covers the full range of statutory items. Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act, disclosure items include the safety and health management system, industrial accident status, the previous year’s safety and health activity results, the current year’s activity plan, safety and health investment, measures to prevent recurrence of industrial accidents, and implementation plans. In addition, prime contractors must disclose the status of fatal accidents involving subcontracted workers, and public institutions must additionally disclose the status of fatal accidents at construction sites for projects they order.
The basis for how disclosures are made is set out in the Enforcement Rule. Those subject to the disclosure requirement must, after confirming with the company representative, post workplace safety and health information on the internet website designated by the Minister of Employment and Labor by April 30 each year. If there are errors or omissions in the disclosed information, or if factual verification is needed, authorities may request corrections or supplements and may also request submission of related materials.
In the industry, the key to responding to the Safety and Health Disclosure System is seen as securing data continuously throughout the year rather than simply preparing disclosure documents. This is because data from multiple worksites are managed separately through risk assessments, TBM (Tool Box Meeting), safety inspections, training, and corrective actions, and the data are also scattered across Excel, HWP documents, and paper records. As a result, there is a growing recognition that data must be recompiled separately at the time of disclosure and that fact-checking must also be done separately.
In safety management, there are differences in the forms used by headquarters, worksites, and managers from site to site, and there are also differences in management standards among them. In particular, for companies and public institutions operating multiple worksites, the importance of a unified management system based on the same standards is increasing. Under such a system, it should be possible to verify whether safety activities were carried out, what items were not implemented, the status of improvements to risk factors, and training results using the same standards.
For prime contractors, accidents involving workers at partner companies are included in the disclosure scope. Accordingly, prime contractors need to manage the safety activities of partner companies as well.
To respond to these changes, Arom Information Technology developed “Saferyn,” a cloud-based SaaS for safety and health management, and NDLabs is supplying it. “Saferyn” focuses on managing on-site safety activity data and covers risk assessments, safety inspections, and safety training. It also supports linked management across PC and mobile, and provides functions for drafting safety activity documents, collecting attendee signatures, approval, and gathering worker feedback on a single platform.
In August, Arom Information Technology added a “safety activity status” scoring module to Saferyn and strengthened safety activity management functions for each worksite. The module uses training completion rates, risk assessments, corrective actions, regular inspections, and industrial accident status as data to be scored. By scoring system-recorded data, it made it possible to compare the level of safety management by worksite.
Saferyn has obtained the CSAP standard grade and GS certification Level 1, and has been listed on the Public Procurement Service’s Digital Service Mall. Arom Information Technology is expanding Saferyn’s application scope by securing supply cases centered on the public sector. Saferyn is being operated in public institutions and at construction and manufacturing sites, including the Korea Marine Environment Management Corporation, Gwacheon City Corporation, Sinhongseon Construction, and Myeongjeong Plant.
Gwacheon City Corporation used Saferyn to complete a shared performance project. The corporation is expanding its use to a wider range of on-site tasks, including facility inspections.
A representative from Arom Information Technology said the Safety and Health Disclosure System is not a once-a-year report submission program, but a format that reveals safety activity records accumulated throughout the year. The representative also said Saferyn was designed so that risk assessments, inspections, and training records entered on-site can be used as source materials for disclosure.
As the Safety and Health Disclosure System takes effect, NDLabs, the official general distributor of Saferyn, is expanding its business from public institutions to private companies. NDLabs and Arom Information Technology jointly operate the product and technical support system.
Source: IT DAILY · Kim Ho
Original: https://www.itdaily.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=242069
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Source: IT DAILY
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