What a voluntary organisation can teach us
Outside of my job at Waugh infrastructure, I am involved with a charity organisation with a small team of trustees and volunteers – The New Zealand Raptor Trust Rescuing and rehabilitating Raptors in the Central South Island.
When I became involved, it was obvious they needed help to be brought into the 21st Century, regarding record keeping and communication.
Through my experiences at Waugh Infrastructure, I have been able to share what I have learnt with the Trust.
One example is where a volunteer would feed each bird, monitor their health and clean their enclosure daily.
All this information was recorded on a paper form, and up until now, the trustees had to physically visit the site if they wanted to see any information.
Now we have introduced an online Form which can be filled out on your phone and when submitted is automatically entered into a spreadsheet that is accessible to all personnel.
The Form can be completed while in each enclosure – so instantaneously. To do this there is a series of QR codes on the wall of each enclosure that links directly to the relevant form or underlying spreadsheet as well as the ability to text or phone the relevant person, the QR codes are:
- Health, feeding and cleaning Form
- Feeding spreadsheet (so can check trends, issues from previous days etc.)
- Automatic text to relevant person responsible for the health of the bird, if the bird requires medical attention
- Maintenance Request Form
- Maintenance spreadsheet – check if an item has already been recorded.
- Phone contact for urgent maintenance
So, all of the data is now available at ‘the touch of a button’ on your phone or your computer at home.
All of the Trust personnel have taken to these forms and records ‘like a duck to water’ – now they want similar forms (and QR codes) for;
- Receiving an injured bird
First Responder completes form at time of pickup.
This will help immensely, when a new bird arrives at the Vet for its initial assessment the details are already available (including an automatic ID) which makes it easy to keep track of each birds records like x-rays and prescribing drugs etc
- Recording Health & Safety Incidents/Accidents
No need to look for paper forms to fill out, Trust personnel / H&S Officer can view the details. It will be set up with a QR Code to text/phone the H&S Officer immediately
We are only just starting, just think about the endless possibilities …… This is something definitely worth pursuing in our business world.
All of this has been able to be done using Google Forms, Google Sheets, and a QR Code maker. Microsoft also have similar products that could be used.
Waugh Infrastructure Management has already used this process with one of our clients for completing Pump station inspections and is working exceptionally well, with excellent response and use from the Inspection Team.
Please share your thoughts