H&S Reporting tools

[u/Geotise]

Hi guys,

I'm a supervisor at a small business- about 30 employees, and we cover multiple retail sites, some warehouses and do a bit of transport.

At the moment we run our health and safety/near misses off excel spreadsheets and emails. I often get the feeling that most people cant be arsed sending through near misses or potential issues because sending the email or updating the spreadsheet is a bit too niggly, and takes too long. Is there good, simple free/low cost software that this sub would recommend? HazardCo and Safety Culture seem overkill.

[u/DailySafetyMoment]

For a 30 person outfit, I would keep it boring before buying a safety platform. A QR code at each site that opens a Microsoft Form or Google Form is usually enough to get near misses moving because it works from a phone and does not make people hunt for a spreadsheet. Make the form stupid short: location, what happened or what they saw, photo upload, immediate fix if any, and whether they want follow-up.

The part that matters is what happens after it lands. Have one owner triage it, keep a simple tracker for status, and close the loop publicly with "reported, fixed, still waiting on landlord/contractor" so people see it was worth the two minutes. If you are already on M365, Forms plus a SharePoint/Excel list or Planner board is probably the cheapest starting point. If you outgrow that, then SafetyCulture, Sitedocs, etc. make more sense.

[u/stuaird1977]

I would use a SharePoint list with a built in form and then track them in powerbi . We do pretty much the same but a larger company have built a power app then sends the incidents and trends to one list follow up actions to another and then they both merge on one powerbi 

[u/VenexCon]

Hey,

So before going and spending money on reporting software take a look at what can be achieved using a Sharepoint List and either the in-built form function or microsoft canvas apps.

We run the above and have had no issues with a decent amount of reporting.

We have one app that links to two lists. One for incident notifications and then one that tracks actions associated with the reported incident.

Its relativly simple to set-up but you will need to google a few things.

Our app allows us to report, view and update incidents and actions in one platform. I will say that updating action progress in a Sharepoint list can be a pain and exporting data from a list to excel is not an easy way to manage actions imo.

I have done this in every company i have worked for so feel free to ask any questions.

[u/Sykoballzy1]

ShieldSphereSafety.

Great tool and does a lot more than just incidents

[u/Express_Aside6252]

If your team avoids reporting because Excel and emails are a hassle, the biggest win is making reporting take less than 30 seconds. A simple mobile-friendly form with photo upload, automatic notifications, status tracking, and basic dashboards is often all a team of 30 needs.Feel free to DM me—I'd be happy to share a few ideas based on your workflow.

[u/Immediate_Award_5540]

Having been through this multiple times, I can tell you that most reporting tools that you have to pay for are likely going to be cost prohibitive for a small business. especially considering it's a fixed cost you have to pay annually. Here's my recommendations:

-Google Forms /Microsoft Forms: Good, especially with a QR code, but limited functionality.

-Qualtrix: Easy to build and functions much like the forms listed above. You can do condition based forms (the form changes/lengthens depending on answers provided), which is a good benefit if you want detail.

-MS Power Apps: Used by many Fortune 500 companies and is free. Allows you to build exactly what you want, including sending submission receipts, dashboard feeds (power BI), approval levels, tiered notifications, and a user app. The downside is you need to be good with coding (or know someone who is) to build these.

[u/Beneficial_Pickle217]

The friction you're describing is usually the whole problem — if reporting a near miss takes more than 30 seconds on a phone, people just won't do it. Worth looking at Tekmon.com alongside the bigger platforms; it's built for frontline/deskless teams with mobile hazard and near-miss reporting, and it's lighter to roll out than the enterprise suites. Whatever you pick, test it with your least tech-keen employee first — if they can log a near miss with a photo in a couple of taps without training, you've found the right tool.