LONDON, July 1, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --

It's quite worrying that in some organisations, the only way employees get any health and safety education is from a dog-eared poster in a corridor.

In this era of digital and mobile, where company newsletters can be delivered in seconds and staff work on projects across multiple sites, such digital convenience should be applied to health and safety. After all, huge fines, significant punishments and negative publicity are the consequences for firms falling afoul of regulation. In many cases, it's literally a life-or-death issue.

Applying the advantages of social computing to safety regulations helps keep everyone informed, no matter where they are. It's a far more satisfying step, compared to citing the legal small print in office meetings.

It's the ideal platform, as regulations typically get updated every few months. Workers stay on top of changes, regardless of their demographic or location. It's this speedy response that's driving companies to look at IBM's social business solutions.

The two major benefits for business are that the risks of accidents are heavily reduced and that every employee is able to be educated on full procedures in a manner that suits them. Companies can cut or minimise project execution delays arising from potential or actual safety issues.

In this transition to strengthen health and safety through the use of technology, the convenience of mobile devices can't be underestimated. Health and safety specialist Martin Stear has observed how these digital companions help out in various sites; "Tablets are now used extensively for some areas of health and safety".

Social analytics can be applied to sites, predicting the likelihood of incidents. Communications tools can give employees on-the-spot expertise for rapid decision-making.

By cutting the number of accidents, productivity levels are increased by having fewer absent employees.

"We have the technology for people who have issues in safety areas, where they want to improve processes, feedback, safety documentation, incident handling in a more open way, and with the ability to get feedback earlier," says Alan Hamilton, social business value and adoption consultant, and evangelist at IBM.

"We are demonstrating how creating a social business can help in these areas."

By embracing IBM's collaborative technology, you have a platform accessible to employees, ready to reach those on site, working from home or outside of the office.

Learn more on how IBM's technology applied to health and safety drives up productivity (http://bitly.com/1poQ6HP).

SOURCE IBM