Dashpivot Article – What is a Journey Management Plan?
What is a Journey Management Plan?
In this article, we'll answer the question what is a journey management plan, as well as provide you with resources to build your own compliant plan.
The less-travelled route often brings us to significant destinations and amazing discoveries. This vision may seem inspiring, but from a safety perspective, the route less trodden is really full of unknowns, and uncertainty breeds danger. But fret not, because we have come up with an intelligent solution to take measures on these hazards of the less travelled road. We have invented the journey management plan to guarantee that drivers will arrive at their destinations safely. Plans and procedures are put into place by this plan to keep these individuals safe while they are travelling.
Journey management has the potential to fulfil the security requirements of workers who are not just driving to work but also those who are travelling by air, water, or public transportation.
What is a Journey Management Plan?
A journey management plan is what it sounds like - it's a structured document or 'plan' which outlines the important details of a 'journey'. This document forces conscious thinking and the conscious assessment of a journeys risk, and forces the individual and teams involved to plan accordingly. Here are the different purposes of a journey management plan:
To Identify Potential Hazards and Risks
This is one of the most crucial features of the journey management plan. The people involved in planning for the journey would project ahead for the possible hazards that the operator and driver could encounter on the road. These will be very important for sectors that are high in risk. Establishments might reduce the likelihood of drivers or passengers being harmed by potential dangers by planning ahead and implementing the appropriate safety measures. It must be seen to it that each part of the journey is accounted for during the identification of hazards so that from departure to arrival, the operator or passenger remains safe throughout their journey. When this is properly implemented on the journey management plan, arriving at the destination of the road less travelled would be breezier than you thought it would be.
For Emergency Response Preparedness
The journey management plan also accounts for every possible emergency that might occur on the road. There are times when other factors make it impossible to eliminate the hazard. For example, on a snowy day, we have no power to stop snow from falling and the temperature from going below zero. In these conditions, drivers and passengers have a high chance of encountering black ice. God forbid any accidents to happen, but if they ever do, at least the passengers and drivers are prepared for it.
Another administrative control you could do to help operators and passengers with the hazards and the right measures on the road is to conduct a safety moments meeting. These formal meetings address safety practices that are essential to an establishment's day-to-day operation. Educating and informing personnel about the correct safety steps and measures can further solidify the safety and health of the establishment.
Trip Efficiency
It is possible that having fewer troubles when travelling might significantly add to the efficiency of travel, particularly when it comes to making commitments to schedules. In most cases, the majority of the issues that might result in delays when driving are often caused by road dangers and poor traffic conditions.
Planned journey management may assist the driver in meeting zero or fewer risks on the road, and it can also help them pick better traffic routes that will help them arrive at their destination more quickly, saving them both time and the consumable resources that are required for the journey. Having said that, it is also possible to save funds since the resources that are contained within the budget are used effectively, and the use of unnecessary consumption is avoided.
Legal Compliance
There is no actual statement of the journey management strategy in any of the legal compliance documents. However, it is important to note that the procedures and goals of this plan are in accordance with the duty of care that employers are obligated to provide. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration states that employers have a responsibility to provide a safe workplace. This conforms to the requirement to provide a workplace free from serious recognised hazards and comply with standards, rules, and regulations issued under the OSH Act. With this, we can say that the journey management plan can be used as a supporting document to provide proof that an establishment is providing a safe workspace for employees.
Documentation
Following the former subsection, the journey management plan also acts as a record of what was being discussed in the plan. These records can help establish official procedures on certain events that the driver or passenger might encounter on the road.
For example, in a planning session for a journey management plan, workers found out that the vehicle will need to pass through a rough road besides an unguarded cliff. Having found out about this, the workers will then need to create a proper procedure on how to drive in such a dangerous situation. With this record compiled, the procedures can be officialized and used every time a similar occurrence arises. The standardised procedures will help establish the needed safety measures to eliminate and mitigate hazards.
The journey management plan can only be successful if the right content is provided. When establishing one, it must be seen to it that the correct measures are targeted to keep drivers and passengers safe throughout their journey from departure to arrival. To further give an idea of what this should look like, see below for a proven journey management plan template. You can freely use this form to conduct an effective management plan and provide a safer and healthier atmosphere in your workplace, especially to those who need to drive and travel daily.
Free Journey Management Plan Template
Journey Management Plan
Use this free Journey Management Plan format for free
Implementation of a Journey Management Plan
In this section of the article, we will be discussing a few tips on how to effectively implement your journey management plan. These tips will not only let you get started right away but also maintain the implementation of this ingenious safety measure that we have invented to keep our vehicle operators and passengers safe from harm. Here are a few things you should try before doing and during the journey management plan:
Employee Training
To have your workers understand the purpose of the journey management plan and master the steps on how it is made, a formal training should be conducted. Understanding the purpose of the journey management plan can help workers fully realise how it can keep them safe and how it can save their lives. It will also drive them to take responsibility in completing the form without the thought of just doing it for compliance. To further enforce the training, after the official training, you could have a refresher discussion with the team every now and then to fully convey the importance of a journey management plan.
The perfect avenue to conduct the refresher training is through toolbox talks. Toolbox talks are informal, short meetings that cover the daily activities in an organisation and talk about the safety measures needed for such activities. This can also be an open forum where employees can discuss safety issues and concerns they have noticed when doing the activities. With this, the procedures that will be established in a journey management plan will be more solidified in terms of safety and health. With the right knowledge and on the right platform, the journey management plan can prove to be more effective, keeping those who are travelling free from any possible danger.
Making it a Policy
Making it a compliance to conduct a journey management plan can be one way to enforce this safety measure into the corporate safety policy. Having known about its effectiveness in eliminating hazards on the road and how it can be used as proof to comply with certain OSHA regulations is reasonable enough for why this document needs to be integrated into the safety policy in your company. Furthermore, we have also discussed how the journey management plan records can be used as a basis for making standardised procedures on safety measures needed on the road. This will further establish safe methods when travelling to different places and complete trips efficiently without compromising consumable resources for the trip.
Making use of Technology
Making use of modern solutions can help us provide more effective measures to counter hazards in the workplace. We must learn to adapt to new technology to streamline processes and solve problems faster. With this said, establishments must keep moving forward on how they should go about improving their processes. With new technology constantly on the rise, there are a number of different ways this can be integrated into the processes. All it takes is to be a little creative in applying such new technologies. For example, in making a journey management plan, instead of doing the traditional pen-and-paper method, which consumes a lot of time and resources in the process of conducting the plan, you can utilise a digital platform in making your forms. This will help conduct your process faster, better, and with a more systematised record of all your journey management plans.
The Digital Approach is the Right Approach
We have discussed how companies should shed outdated practices and have themselves keep track with new technology to help them streamline their processes. However, this leaves us with the question, “Where are we going to find such technology to help us with our journey management plan?” Fortunately for you, there is now the perfect platform that can provide you a solution for this.
With a proper journey management solution, you can easily create digital forms, make editable workflows, attach photos of relevant maps and routes directly to risk assessment forms for visual reference, documentation, and analysis, and attach relevant documents, such as travel itineraries, vehicle inspections, medical records, and safety guidelines, to journey management forms for easy access and reference.
All of these and more when using the Dashpivot journey management app. To check more about it, click here: Dashpivot journey management app
Conclusion
The road less travelled can figuratively position you in a better place and change your life. But, in a literal sense, a road less travelled can potentially put you in danger and might end your life; that is why a journey management plan must be used to counter these dangers and keep your journey, from departure to arrival, safe and healthy. With the journey management plan, not only is it going to place you in a better space, but also it's going to help the company financially and reputably. In order to have an effective journey management plan, it is necessary to teach and train staff members about its significance and goal, carry out the plan's procedures efficiently, and attempt to integrate modern techniques into the procedures.
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