Putting your best foot forward
The past 2 years has been an unprecedentedly challenging time for education, and there is no way of quantifying the various negative effects Covid-19 and its resultant lock-downs has had on schools and colleges across the country. Now, with sharp focus on the tentative easing of students back into the physical classroom, ‘behind the scenes’ there remains another important challenge to overcome: compliance management software.
Management of compliance in the broad sense of the word has always been a unique task for education establishments. Now, with ever-changing and evolving policy and new staff responsibilities relating to health & safety made essential by the pandemic, added to a well-documented increase in remote working for both educators and support staff – ensuring absolute compliance across the board is arguably more difficult than it has ever been before.
As such, the need for increased automation in this area has never been more pressing.
Where schools could, in previous years, rely on physical documents and penned acknowledgements from staff – the heightened scrutiny of procedure and the need for everyone to keep up with rapidly-changing guidelines has made this nonviable in the long-term.
Flexible, intuitive compliance solutions for the education sector have come to the fore over the course of the last decade, but of the hundreds of schools, colleges and MATs we’ve surveyed over the past 12 months, nearly 50% still rely on paper forms for tests and checks, and physical copies of crucial operational policies – a surprising statistic, given the digital age the world currently operates in.
Compliance Pod was built to challenge this head-on with its school facilities management software. Where physical files, forms and folders can be misplaced, and tracking acknowledgment of ever-changing policy (especially in the post-Covid world) is an arduous task, the system is built to log crucial compliance activity instantly and automatically, meaning mistakes are picked up on quickly, and records are never lost.
There’s never been a more pressing need to ensure that infrastructure is in order and up to scratch. The boilers that may have had a prolonged break, and the laptops which have remained unopened for months the best part of a year – are they operating as they should be, and – with mobile assets particularly – where are they? This is where Asset Manager is key. Record all pertinent information against any given asset – mechanical, technological or intangible – from warranties and contracts to air conditioning units and electronic whiteboards, and automatically track issues and faults by connecting with Reactive Tasks.
There has never been a more opportune and necessary time to put your best foot forward where compliance is concerned – the only question that really matters is: will you?