About us

Why did we create Simple Safety Coach?

While Susen Trail, CIH, (one of our co-founders) was working as an OSHA health standard and Wisconsin occupational Code Public Sector Enforcement Officer, she recognized there were consistent and significant deficiencies in how safety was conducted.

Almost all workplaces required the same coaching to come into compliance with the same health standards and codes.

Based upon experience, interviews, and observations, it became apparent that this was primarily due to a lack of time, training, and management support.

The big three time leaches

Over 50% of a Safety Manager's time is spent on paperwork! The consequences of a lack of time were easy to see: Missing or out of date programs, training records, forms, and documents.

Susen often found safety processes in disarray, missed data connections short circuiting the flow of information between programs and people.

Safety Managers isolated themselves by assigning all the tasks in the safety programs to the Safety Manager because 'it is harder to delegate.' We call this the 'Safety Silo.'

Overlooked resources

While inspecting facilities and talking with employees Susen found many workplaces where employees wanted to help make their workplace safer but didn't know how.

A common thread for these companies was that, organizationally, Safety was viewed as nothing but a cost function. Neither the employees nor the safety personnel had the tools to collect the data in order to demonstrate that safety also saves companies a lot of money.

Conclusion & solution

Using this information Susen decided to build a digital platform and tools based on the following ideas:

• It's much easier to organize paperwork, schedules, and actions when all the information is organized in one place.

• If you identify most or all of the ways a piece of data can be used the software can be built around those connections.

• Increased communication and transparency will simplify connections between employees who want to volunteer and the Safety Manager and allow upper management to see the overall reduction in cost by a safe workplace.

All of which reduce paperwork, increase organization, and save time.

Why we call it Simple Safety Coach?

Many of the Safety Managers Susen worked with had little to no experience in Safety when they were assigned the job. In that case, she would explain, train, demonstrate, review programs and training, and provide corrections and advice.

Her two goals were to never have to write a fine due to failure to comply and to leave a self-sufficient Safety Manager in the workplace. Hundreds of Safety Managers and not one fine!

The information, hints, tips, and best practices are woven throughout our software to Coach a Safety Manager through the early days in their career.

Work with a trusted partner

Along the journey of envisioning what a solution to these persistent problems could be, Susen was introduced to Mike Harper. The prospect of being able to measurably impact a company's bottom line, while at the same time helping employees go back home healthy and safe, was very compelling.

Mike and Susen started creating Simple Safety Coach with one rule: Simple Safety Coach must reduce a Safety Manager's workload.

The synergy between Susen's health and safety background and Mike's extensive background in technology delivery and business leadership created a Safety Management Software written by Safety Professionals for Safety Professionals, at every level of experience.

With shared principles of service, support and product excellence, Simple Safety Coach has evolved into a partner you can rely on for trusted guidance and exceptional value, delivered with a personal touch.