How Sofvie facilitates successful digital adoption - a guide to change management

It’s no secret that adopting new business software comes with some risk. Any time an organisation rolls out a new application, there is a fair chance of having it fall apart. This is especially true and impactful when the software in question is used throughout multiple sites and departments like CRMs, accounting systems or ERPs.

Health and safety software fits that description. EHS apps are typically rolled out through health and safety departments, human resources, upper management for analytics and throughout the entire front line for data collection.

With such a substantial change management project, significant time and attention must be committed. Prior to developing sofvie, we investigated the most common difficulties organisations experience. Findings include poor communication, poor planning, and workers outright refusing to adopt new tools due to complexity or lack of leadership ownership.

To ensure that adopting health and safety software is successful for your organisation, Sofvie has taken intentional precautions:

Purpose-driven design

The first step in Sofvie’s evolution was collaboration with the front line of an operating Canadian mine contracting firm. Although the ability of management to analyse and interpret data is tremendously important, we didn’t want to limit the system. Putting data collection power in the hands of everyone produces a larger volume and more accurate information. It also pushes health and safety initiatives from the top down and the bottom up, which can sometimes stimulate a drastic cultural shift. When pushed from the top down, health and safety professionals and practices can be viewed as an obstruction to productivity. However with strong leadership and an inclusive culture, health and safety becomes an engrained facet of work when pushed from the bottom up.

Because sofvie’s health and safety system was designed around the needs of frontline workers, supervisors and above, they develop a passion for protecting themselves, their coworkers, and their tools and equipment. Beyond that, data is delivered in real time, enabling managers to create quicker, better controls or at the very least understand the unfiltered facts of the daily operations.

Define success and determine a way to measure it.

Sofvie focuses on goals and customizations. Most organisations struggle with one facet of occupational health and safety or another. Identifying existing opportunities such as reducing the number of incidents or their severity, achieving compliance certification and beyond, or building a training matrix, means that you understand the consequences, which are usually financial or productivity in nature. There is a value attached to this.

Customising Sofvie around solving a specific problem gives you visibility into how a full rollout will function within your organisation and provides meaningful data to prove the value of your choice to work with us.

Leverage your designated success team

Sofvie consists of industry experts who are familiar with each role within mining and who take your success very seriously. Our  Client Success Specialists and Solutions Engineers are dedicated to helping you learn the system, planning a successful rollout, and customising sofvie to address your health and safety goals. 

In our experience, it’s best to start with 1-3 of the biggest opportunities for improvement. By focusing on (for example) reporting hazards, refining your training matrix, or streamlining incident investigations, your team becomes more familiar with what sofvie has to offer and how it could impact your business, improving both safety and production. This also provides a great opportunity to phase into sofvie so that all its capabilities don’t become overwhelming. The absolute key to success is to start small and get really good at refining your process. Once your team is familiar with the environment you can scale into other areas of your operations. Too much at once can quickly result in confusion and resistance to change.

Create an internal team and name a champion

The easiest way to succeed in adopting new technology is to provide end users with resources when they need help. This is best accomplished by naming and training a team of experts. Sofvie helps with this training to ensure that your team is well equipped as subject matter experts and change leaders.

Get end users involved

Getting this powerful tool in the hands of end users produces a safety-centric cultural shift reinforced by camaraderie. It also produces much richer, real-time data from the field, making it easier and faster to create controls, identify trends, and to start building predictive models that prevent future incidents.

Getting to this juncture starts at the top with a solid communication plan. People are typically comfortable with how things are and may be averse to change. Top-down communication via emails and other company-wide information will effectively prepare them for the upcoming change, answer their questions before they become concerned, and inform them of the personal benefits they can expect. Repeating this message is often highly beneficial.

If you are not familiar with the communication required for effective change management, we can help with that too.

Adopting Sofvie is not a transaction. It’s a proper relationship that we are highly invested in. If you are successful, our dream of a zero-harm workplace becomes one step closer to reality. 

Gus Minor

The visionary behind Sofvie’s current and future abilities and potential. As a former underground worker, Gus possesses first-hand experience and knowledge of all of the organizational and communication obstacles that many industries face.

Having his own personal experience with workplace tragedy, you can count on Gus to be the proponent of change that pushes EHS management software which will drive the path towards a Zero Harm and well informed workplace. Starting by putting people first!