Health & Safety

Choosing the best health and safety software for construction

For buyers in the construction industry, this comprehensive guide will cover all the boxes your chosen software solution will need to tick to be truly effective on-site.

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By Laura Fitzgerald

November 10, 2026

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Summary

Choose software around construction risks and the decisions your field teams make before work starts.
Connect subcontractor information, pre-task plans, inspections, and work restrictions.
Test US and Canadian reporting processes separately, including the authority and deadlines that apply to each site.
Make reporting practical for subcontractors, multilingual teams, and lone workers with limited connectivity.
Use a realistic jobsite scenario to compare the proposed packages before you commit.

Introduction

The best construction health and safety software helps general contractors and subcontractors connect job hazard analysis, field inspections, work authorizations, and corrective actions in once place. When it comes down to choosing the right provider, look for a system that people can use on the jobsite and that supports the rules for each project.

US OSHA requirements and Canadian provincial or territorial duties need distinct workflows. Start with the work your teams need to manage. A concrete subcontractor may prioritize pre-task planning and inspections. A general contractor overseeing several projects may also need contractor coordination, consistent reporting, and clear visibility of unresolved risks.

This comprehensive guide will cover all the boxes your chosen software solution will need to tick to be truly effective on-site.

Table of contents

Click on a specific section below to navigate to that area:

What construction health and safety software should help you manage
Why managing safety in construction creates distinct challenges
8 criteria for choosing construction health and safety software
How the software should support local construction duties
A software comparison for construction buyers
Why EcoOnline is the right choice for the construction industry
FAQs

Square CTA leading to the safety drift quiz

What construction health and safety software should help you manage

Construction safety software helps you organize site risk information and turn findings into action. Core workflows include job hazard analysis, hazard and near-miss reporting, inspections, incident investigations, and corrective actions. Depending on your needs, the system may also support contractor onboarding and permit processes.

Effective health and safety management in construction connects these records to the job site. When a crew changes its work method or another trade enters the area, supervisors need to review the risks and communicate the change.

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics recorded 1,034 workplace deaths in private-sector construction in 2024. Falls, slips, and trips accounted for 389 of those deaths. These figures describe the construction industry, rather than the separate occupational category of construction and extraction workers.

For buyers, the practical question is how a software system helps teams confirm that essential controls remain in place as work progresses.

EcoOnline Deep Dive – The Piper Alpha Oil Rig Disaster

At about nine forty five on the night of July sixth nineteen eighty eight, something went wrong on an oil platform in the North Sea. A pump stopped. And for the people in the control room on Piper Alpha, that pump mattered because when it stopped, liquid levels started rising. The process wasn’t stable anymore. And if they couldn’t get things back under control, the platform was gonna have to shut down. So they did what operators are trained to do. They looked for the backup. There was another pump, pump a. They knew pump a had been taken out of service earlier that day. But from what they understood, the actual maintenance work hadn’t really started yet. So they checked the information available to them, and from what they could see, there wasn’t a clear reason they couldn’t use it. So they made the logical decision. They started pump a. And in that moment, they unknowingly pressurized a section of pipe that was missing one of its most important safety devices. Because earlier that day, a pressure safety valve had been removed. And that one fact, the fact they needed most, wasn’t connected to the decision in front of them. Real quick, before we begin, if you find stories like this interesting, hit the thumbs up button. It really helps the channel. And if you’re not subscribed yet, subscribe and turn on all the notifications so you don’t miss the next episode. Alright. Let’s get into it. Piper Alpha sat one hundred twenty miles northeast of Aberdeen, Scotland. It was one of the most productive platforms in the North Sea. Originally, Piper Alpha was built for oil production, but over time, it was modified to handle gas as well. And that change matters because it added more complexity, more equipment, and more ways for one failure to become something much bigger. On a platform like that, everything is connected. Pumps, compressors, pipes, valves, alarms, permits, shift handovers, and people. And that’s the part that’s easy to miss because when people think about offshore disasters, they picture fire, smoke, steel collapsing into the sea. But before Piper Alpha became one of the worst offshore disasters in history, it was something much smaller. It was a maintenance job, a pressure safety valve, a pump that was supposed to stay off, and a night crew trying to solve a problem with information that looked complete, but wasn’t. Earlier that day, during the day shift, maintenance work was being done on pump a. Pump a was one of two condensate pumps. The other pump, pump b, was running. Pump a was the standby. And as part of the work, the pressure safety valve connected to pump a was removed for recertification. Now a pressure safety valve is exactly what it sounds like. It’s there so that if pressure gets too high, the system has a way to relieve it before something fails. So if that valve is gone, that equipment can’t just be treated like it’s ready to run. The open ends where the valve had been were covered with blind flanges, basically flat metal plates bolted over the openings. That might be fine as a temporary measure while the system is isolated and everyone understands the equipment is not available, but it’s not the same as having the safety valve back in place. And that distinction, temporary but not safe for operation, is where the story starts to turn. The work was controlled through the platform’s permit to work system. And in theory, that system should have made pump a status obvious, not just to the person doing the maintenance, not just to the supervisor on days, but to anyone who might make a decision about that pump later. Because that’s what a control of work system is supposed to do. It’s supposed to carry the truth of the equipment forward across people, locations, shifts, especially when the people who start the work aren’t the same people who’ll be dealing with the consequences. But that night, the truth about pump a didn’t travel cleanly. Shift handover sounds ordinary. It sounds like a routine conversation at the end of a long day. What’s running? What’s down? What needs to be watched? What maintenance is still open? But in high hazard work, a handover isn’t just an update. It’s a safety system. Because if one crew leaves with critical knowledge in their heads and the next crew doesn’t receive it clearly, then the plant doesn’t care that the information technically existed. The pressure doesn’t care. The hydrocarbons don’t care. The next decision happens anyway. And on Piper Alpha, that’s what happened. The night shift knew pump a had been taken out of service for maintenance. But according to the incident summaries, they believed the maintenance work hadn’t actually begun. And that’s the detail that matters. Because from their point of view, pump a wasn’t obviously dangerous. It wasn’t clearly missing a critical safety valve. It was a backup pump that had been unavailable, but maybe could be brought back if they needed it. And later that night, they needed it. At around nine forty five PM, pump b failed. The running pump went down and couldn’t be restarted. Now imagine the pressure of that moment. You’re offshore. It’s night. You’re watching levels rise in a process system that needs to stay under control. You know there’s another pump. You know that pump was taken out of service, but you also believe the work on it hasn’t actually started. So the question becomes, can we use it? Can we avoid a shutdown? And this is where after the disaster, it’s easy to sit comfortably outside the moment and say, they should have known, they should have checked, they should have stopped. But that’s not how the moment looked from the inside of the control room. From inside the control room, they were trying to solve an operating problem. They weren’t trying to take a shortcut to disaster. They were trying to keep the platform stable with the information they had. And that’s what makes the story so uncomfortable because the decision wasn’t irrational. It was logical. It was just based on an incomplete picture. What they couldn’t see, at least not clearly enough to stop the decision, was that pump a’s pressure safety valve was gone. The valve had been removed. The pipe openings had been blanked. And when pump a was brought back online, pressure found the weakest link in that setup. Gas condensate began leaking from the blind flange assembly, and then it found an ignition source. That first explosion happened in the process area. And even then, this still didn’t have to become the disaster it became. And that’s important because if we stop the story here, we make Piper Alpha sound like a simple paperwork failure, a missing permit, bad handover, a pump started my mistake. That explains the beginning. It doesn’t explain why one hundred sixty seven people died. After the first explosion, the platform’s other weaknesses started showing up. The design of the platform, the fire protection, the emergency response, the connection to other platforms, the way production systems interacted, the way people were trained to evacuate, the way authority was handled in a time of crisis, all of it mattered. Piper Alpha wasn’t just a platform. It was part of a network. Nearby platforms continued sending hydrocarbons through pipelines connected to Piper Alpha after the first explosion, which fed the fire and made the situation even worse. High pressure gas lines ruptured as the disaster escalated. Fires grew. Smoke spread. Escape routes became unusable. Helicopter evacuation became impossible, lifeboats couldn’t be used safely in the conditions people were facing, and for many of the people on board, the place they’d been trained to go in an emergency couldn’t protect them from what was happening outside. So workers were trapped between the procedure and the reality, between what the emergency plan expected and what the platform had become. And that’s why this can’t be told as one bad decision. It was one decision entering a system that had already lost too many layers of protection. Some people stayed where they’d been told to gather. Others made their own decisions. Some jumped from the platform into the North Sea, a choice that is almost impossible to imagine. At a certain point, the official escape plan no longer matched the conditions people were actually living through. And when that happens, people stop following the plan. Because the plan can’t carry them anymore. They improvise. They guess. They run. They wait. They jump. And afterward, we can analyze the design, the permits, the alarms, the training, the regulator, the operator, the emergency systems. And we should. That’s how safety improves. But inside the moment, for the people on Piper Alpha, it was no longer investigation, it was survival. By the end, one hundred sixty seven people were dead. After the disaster, Lord Cullen led a public inquiry. The inquiry ran for one hundred eighty days. And the final report examined not just what happened that night, but the deeper systems that made the disaster possible. And the report didn’t come back with one lesson. It came back with one hundred six recommendations. All of them were accepted. Those recommendations helped transform offshore safety, including the move toward a goal setting safety regime and the safety case approach that became central to offshore regulation. The system had information. It knew pump a had been touched. It knew a valve had been removed. It knew work wasn’t complete. It knew the equipment wasn’t in its normal state. But the person making the decision didn’t receive that truth in a way that stopped the action. And safety information that can’t reach the decision is not control. It’s history. History. Piper Alpha happened in nineteen eighty eight. So it’s tempting to treat it like an old offshore story, a paper permit story, a North Sea story, a history lesson. But that’s too easy because every hazardous workplace still has some version of a pump a. A machine that’s almost ready, a valve that’s been removed, a temporary fix everyone understands until one person who doesn’t understand it has to make a decision. A permit that technically exists but isn’t connected to the asset. A handover that mostly happened. A maintenance status that’s clear to one crew and invisible to the next. A warning that lives in one system while the decision happens in another. And that’s the real lesson. Not that people need to be more careful. That’s what organizations say when they don’t wanna look at the system. The people on Piper Alpha didn’t need a poster telling them to think twice. They needed the truth about pump a to be impossible to miss. They needed the equipment status, the permit, the isolation, and the handover to point to the same answer. Don’t start this pump. The night crew didn’t wake up that day planning to take a risk. They weren’t trying to be careless. They were trying to solve a problem. A pump had failed. The process needed stabilizing. Another pump appeared available, so they started it. And only afterward did the missing piece become obvious. The valve was gone. The permit existed. The maintenance existed. The hazard existed. But at the moment that mattered, those facts weren’t connected. And that’s the lesson Piper Alpha keeps teaching. A safety system can’t just store information. It has to move information across shifts, teams, decisions, pressure. Because the question isn’t whether the information exists somewhere. The question is whether it reaches the person who needs it before the decision gets made. On Piper Alpha, it didn’t. And one hundred sixty seven people never came home. If you enjoyed this story, please take a second to hit the like button, subscribe, and turn on all notifications so you don’t miss future episodes. Thanks for watching. See you in the next one.

On the night of July 6, 1988, a series of massive explosions and intense gas fires tore through the Piper Alpha oil rig, situated off the coast of Scotland.

Communication breakdowns, poor safety management, and a litany of design flaws were among some of the reasons blamed for what remains the worst ever offshore oil and gas disaster in terms of lives lost.

This documentary explores the 1988 Alpha Piper Oil rig disaster, which resulted in the deaths of 167 people.

Why managing safety in construction creates distinct challenges

Many construction businesses face the same set of challenges:

Several employers share the same jobsite

When different employers have workers completing projects in the same area, several challenges can arise. For example, a subcontractor’s work can change conditions for everyone nearby. Excavation can affect access. A lift can cross another crew’s work area. Concrete cutting can expose adjacent workers to dust.

Contractor management capabilities are key. The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) recommended practices on communication and coordination encourage employers to exchange information about hazards and controls at shared worksites. In British Columbia, section 20.3 of the OHS Regulation addresses coordination on construction projects involving multiple employers.

Look for clear ownership of shared risks, alongside records for each subcontractor’s work.

Yesterday’s inspection may miss today’s conditions

Weather, ground conditions, equipment, and work sequencing can change the risk. Your software should help supervisors recognize when the team needs another check.

For example, OSHA’s excavation standard at 29 CFR 1926.651(k) requires competent-person inspections before work, as needed during the shift, and after rainstorms or other events that increase hazards when employee exposure is reasonably foreseeable. A recurring calendar reminder alone won’t cover those changes.

Health risks need their own controls

Construction safety management also includes exposure risks that may not cause an immediate injury. Ask how teams record dust controls, exposure assessments, and follow-up.

For covered construction work, OSHA’s respirable crystalline silica standard includes a written exposure control plan and a designated competent person to implement it. Your software should help the responsible people keep task information and controls current.

How safe work practices can protect your schedule

Read the construction productivity playbook to see how you can turn safety into a competitive advantage.

Read on

8 criteria for choosing construction health and safety software

Here are 8 points to judge vendors by when you’re still in decision mode, and some associated tasks and questions for your demo:

#1. Make job hazard analysis useful at the start of work

A job hazard analysis, or JHA, breaks work into steps so teams can identify hazards and plan controls. Some businesses use the term job safety analysis, or JSA. Agree your terminology and connect the record to the crew, work area, and date.

Demo task: Ask the supplier to demonstrate a pre-task plan that changes after a delivery blocks the intended access route. Can the supervisor revise the plan and communicate the change to affected workers? The system should preserve the history and identify the current instructions. Your supervisors still need to confirm understanding and conditions in the field.

#2. Coordinate subcontractor readiness

Look for a clear way to check orientation, training evidence, task documents, and outstanding restrictions before a crew starts work. Test the process with a replacement worker and a subcontractor who only needs occasional access.

Keep site orientation separate from task-specific competence. A completed orientation tells you something about the information a worker received, it doesn’t establish that the person can perform every activity safely.

Demo task: Ask who reviews the evidence, who can authorize work, and how the system communicates a missing requirement. Include the cost of subcontractor access in your quote.

#3. Connect control of work and permits to field conditions

Control of work coordinates risk assessment, authorization, execution, and handback. Where your procedures or applicable rules require a permit, test the complete process, including suspension and revalidation.

US construction confined-space requirements provide a useful example. 29 CFR 1926.1203(h) sets information-sharing duties for host employers, controlling contractors, and entry employers. Your system should support those responsibilities where they apply.

Demo task: Ask how the proposed workflow communicates related work, current restrictions, and changes in conditions. Keep competent human review central to authorization.

#4. Support inspections by the right people

29 CFR 1926.20(b)(2) requires frequent and regular inspections of jobsites, materials, and equipment by competent persons designated by employers.

Choose software that records the inspection location, findings, responsible person, and follow-up. Test scheduled inspections alongside checks that a change in conditions triggers.

Demo task: For an excavation, ask the supplier to demonstrate a failed inspection and the escalation before anyone enters the affected area. Software can record the decision and communicate it. The responsible person must assess the excavation and implement the necessary protections.

#5. Make reporting practical for field crews

Give a supervisor and a subcontractor a reporting task during the demo. Ask them to identify a hazard, attach a photo, and find out who will respond.

Check language options, shared-device access, and offline capture. Ask which functions need a live connection and how the system handles conflicting updates when devices reconnect.

Demo task: Urgent risks need a direct site response. Test how the reporting workflow supports that response and shows workers what happened after they raised a concern. Keep personally sensitive information out of general project views.

#6. Separate internal records from regulatory reporting

Your software needs to distinguish an internal incident report, a recordkeeping decision, and a notification to a regulator. An internal submission doesn’t automatically complete the other steps.

OSHA’s reporting rule at 29 CFR 1904.39 sets federal notification deadlines of eight hours for a reportable work-related fatality and 24 hours for a reportable inpatient hospitalization, amputation, or loss of an eye. The rule also defines event windows and when the reporting clock starts.

Demo task: Ask how the system prompts the responsible person to assess reportability, identify the authority, and record submission. Confirm the applicable State Plan or Canadian jurisdiction’s requirements separately.

#7. Follow corrective actions through to verification

Look for action owners, deadlines, escalation, and evidence of completion in the software you’re considering. For significant risks, add a review before closing the action or allowing affected work to restart.

Use an example such as damaged edge protection. Ask the supplier to show the immediate work restriction, the repair, and the verification. Your site procedure should identify who has authority to release the area. Look at reporting participation alongside reporting volume. A project with few near-miss reports may need a closer conversation about access or confidence in the process.

At business level, track repeat critical-control failures and overdue high-risk actions alongside injury measures. Compare projects using consistent definitions and appropriate exposure data, including subcontractor hours where you have reliable records.

#8. Check implementation effort and total cost

Ask each supplier about software adoption and to price the same scope: modules, projects, field users, subcontractors, configuration, migration, integrations, training, and support. Include data export and access to completed-project records.

For a cross-border business, test US and Canadian workflows in the proposed configuration. Check permissions and retention for incident and occupational health information.

Demo task: Pilot the system with a project team that includes subcontractors. Measure how long reporting takes, where access fails, and whether supervisors can find current work information without extra administration.

Calculate your safety ROI and build a business case the decision-makers can’t ignore

Get the ROI of safety software in minutes with our free safety ROI calculator.

Start calculating!

How the software should support local construction duties

Choose a platform that lets you apply common company standards while keeping jurisdiction-specific duties clear.

Region	Relevant framework	Workflow to test
US federal OSHA	29 CFR Part 1926 and applicable Part 1904 requirements	Competent-person inspections, task controls, recordkeeping decisions, and serious-incident notification
US State Plan locations	Applicable state occupational safety and health requirements	Local rules, responsible authority, forms, and notification workflows
Ontario	Occupational Health and Safety Act and O. Reg. 213/91 Construction Projects	Constructor, employer, and supervisor responsibilities, with project-specific controls
British Columbia	Workers Compensation Act and OHS Regulation, including Part 20	Multi-employer coordination and construction-specific controls

OSHA-approved State Plans operate their own occupational safety and health programs and must meet federal effectiveness requirements. Check the rules for your project location.

Canada doesn’t use OSHA as its national legal framework. The Canadian Centre for Occupational Safety and Health (CCOHS) explains Canada’s 14 jurisdictions: one federal, ten provincial, and three territorial. Most workplaces fall under provincial or territorial law. Canada Labour Code Part II covers federally regulated workplaces.

For Ontario projects, review the province’s constructor guideline and Construction Projects Regulation. For British Columbia, use WorkSafeBC’s searchable OHS Regulation. Don’t assume that one province’s workflow covers another.

Why supervision matters – a real world incident

WorkSafeBC’s investigation summary describes a fatal trench collapse at a residential construction site in February 2016. The summary, published in July 2020, identifies missing sloping, benching, or shoring, alongside failures in training and supervision.

Use this established investigation to test how the software supports excavation readiness. Can a supervisor find the work procedure, record the inspection, identify the responsible people, and communicate a restriction before entry?

The physical protections remain essential. The investigation doesn’t show that buying software would have prevented the death.

A software comparison for construction buyers

Start with your requirements, then build a shortlist.

Provider	Evaluation emphasis	Question to resolve in a demo
EcoOnline	Connected risk, incident, inspection, and control-of-work processes.	How will our project teams connect a reported concern to a work restriction and a verified action?
HammerTech	Day-to-day contractor and site coordination.	How will a replacement subcontractor crew complete the checks for this project and task?
Procore	Safety processes alongside project delivery.	How will our safety records connect to the project information our teams already use?
Cority	Oversight across a complex construction business	How will we preserve local project responsibilities while comparing risks across the business?

Confirm regional support, configuration, integrations, and licensing with each supplier, and ask for evidence from the actual workflow you intend to buy.

Put your shortlist through a construction site test

Consider this illustrative scenario: a subcontractor needs to start work near a roof opening; however, the work method changes, and the next shift takes over that evening.

Explore if the software you have chosen can help you accomplish the following:

1. Confirm orientation, task information, and the responsible people.
2. Review the JHA and the need for another excavation inspection.
3. Record the inspection findings and restrict affected work if controls fail.
4. Communicate the restriction to both contractors and assign the correction.
5. Verify the controls before the responsible person releases work.

Score each step from zero to three: unavailable, needs substantial manual work, meets the need with some manual steps, or works as required in the demonstrated configuration. Treat an unresolved critical-control requirement as a reason to pause the purchase, regardless of the total score.

Why EcoOnline is the right choice for the construction industry

There’s a direct correlation between the numbers of hazards spotted and the reduction in our accidents.

– DECLAN MCLOGAN,
Director of SHEQ

See the impact

14,000

hazards spotted in 12 months

The right construction safety software should do more than digitize paperwork. It should help your people recognize risks, take action, and maintain consistent standards as projects, sites and teams change.

EcoOnline’s EHS software brings JHAs, inspections, incident reporting and corrective actions into one connected platform. Mobile reporting helps frontline teams flag hazards on site, while real-time dashboards give safety leaders visibility across projects and locations. Together, these capabilities help you identify issues earlier, coordinate responses and standardize safety processes across your operations.

If your priority is to connect site-level reporting with organization-wide oversight, EcoOnline deserves a place on your shortlist. Book a demo to see how our EHS software fits your construction safety requirements.

Cut incident reporting time and focus on prevention

The average safety team spends eighteen minutes logging a single incident, often starting with a paper form leading to data loss and slow follow-up. ECO online fundamentally redesigns incident workflow. An employee can use their phone to log an injury, near miss, in under sixty seconds using location services, voice-to-text notes, and photo upload. The system instantly categorizes the incident and automatically assigns the investigation task to the correct supervisor based on department location. No manual emails required. We also provide a dashboard that tracks overdue preventative actions, guaranteeing nothing falls through the cracks. Workflow analyses are integrated directly into the incident record, ensuring supervisors capture root causes, not just symptoms. This forty percent time saving lets you focus on prevention, not paperwork. Ready to reclaim your time? Book a personalized workflow analysis for your safety management team now.

Take a closer look

Talk to Sales about our EHS software today.

Let’s chat

Frequently asked questions

What is the best health and safety software for construction?

The best fit supports your construction risks, field teams, and project locations. Prioritize JHAs, subcontractor coordination, inspections, reporting, and verified corrective actions. Test your shortlist with a jobsite scenario that includes a change in conditions and more than one employer.

EcoOnline’s EHS software brings risk assessments, inspections, incident reporting and corrective actions into one connected platform. Need a little more convincing? Check out our demo video library and ROI calculator. You can also explore our Safety Drift digital hub.

What features should construction safety software include?

Look for risk assessments, document version control, contractor records, mobile reporting, inspections, action tracking, and clear permissions. Add permit and isolation workflows where your activities need them. Check how the features work together when a supervisor changes the work plan.

Can software make a construction company compliant?

Software can help organize evidence, prompt inspections, and track actions. Your employer and responsible personnel still need to meet the applicable standards and implement controls. For example, OSHA requires competent-person inspections, which need someone capable of assessing the worksite.

Does OSHA apply to Canadian construction sites?

US OSHA rules don’t form Canada’s occupational health and safety framework. Canadian projects usually follow the relevant provincial or territorial legislation, while federal law covers federally regulated workplaces. CCOHS’s jurisdiction guide explains the distinction.

Can one system support US and Canadian projects?

Yes, if its configuration supports the rules, responsibilities, and reporting processes for each location. Test US federal or State Plan requirements separately from the relevant Canadian jurisdiction. Keep common company definitions where they help, and preserve local requirements where they differ.

Do we need offline access on construction sites?

Test it where crews encounter unreliable connectivity. Ask which records people can view or capture offline, when updates synchronize, and how the system resolves conflicts. Establish a direct communication process for urgent risks and work authorizations that depend on current information.

What is a JHA and how should software support it?

A job hazard analysis examines the steps, hazards, and controls for a task. Software should connect the current analysis to the work area and crew, preserve revisions, and support briefings when conditions change. Supervisors need to check understanding and field conditions before work proceeds.

How much does construction health and safety software cost?

Ask for a quote that includes the modules, users, projects, and support you need as prices will vary across different software providers. Compare implementation, migration, integrations, training, and contractor access as well as the subscription. Use the same scope for every supplier so you can compare the full commitment.

What should we test before buying?

Test a complete workflow with a supervisor and a subcontractor. Start with a task risk assessment, introduce a change, report a failed control, and verify the action. Include weak connectivity and a shift handover so you can assess how the system supports real site decisions.

About the author

Laura Fitzgerald

Content Marketing Manager

Laura Fitzgerald is a Content Marketing Manager with EcoOnline. She has been writing about health and safety topics since 2017, with a focus on the areas of improving employee safety engagement and EHS legislation.