A managed service that converts your legacy documents into modern online training and on-the-job guidance your team can use where and when it matters.
Safe Systems of Work (SSOW)
Transform your task-based instructions into safe systems of work (SSOWs) that actually help people work safely
The Challenge with Safe Systems of Work (SSOW)
Most organisations have mountains of task-based procedures, work instructions, and standard operating procedures (SOPs). But, many organisations struggle to achieve truly safe SSOWs because these documents are often:
- Hard to access when and where they’re needed
- Difficult to follow because of confusing layouts and language
- Disconnected from how work is actually done
- Static and difficult to keep up to date
- Focused on compliance, but not always on competence
Safe systems of work (SSOW) are meant to help your people perform tasks safely. But if they’re buried on share point, rarely updated, or written like legal contracts, they aren’t doing their job. And ticking the box on ‘read and understood’ training isn’t enough.
You need systems that are dynamic, accessible, and focused on how people actually work—not just how we imagine they work.
Understanding the Different Types of SSOW Documents
Many organisations mistakenly equate a safe system of work with a single document, such as a standard operating procedure (SOP) or a method statement. While these documents are important, they represent only part of an effective SSOW.
A robust system should include a broader range of documentation, which can be organised into the following categories:
- Miscellaneous Documents: Policies, operational roles, and responsibilities
- Procedures: Clear steps for tasks, often supported by visuals or additional information
- Task Guidance: Standards, processes, and lessons learned
- Decision Requirements & Heuristics: Flexible strategies for decision-making in unplanned or complex situations.
This layered approach ensures that SSOWs support safe work across both routine and non-routine situations. The graphic illustrates how these types of documents relate to the complexity of the tasks they support.
However, documentation alone can only go so far. In complex and adaptive work environments, workers are frequently faced with novel situations that cannot be fully anticipated or documented.
That’s why part of our managed service includes developing decision requirements and heuristics – guidelines for how to adapt and solve problems safely in real time. We help clients:
- Identify high-risk, high-consequence tasks
- Use cognitive task analysis (CTA) to capture the expertise of experienced workers
- Build decision support tools and training from this insight
- Train your internal teams to conduct CTA interviews and integrate that knowledge into your SSOWs
By incorporating these layers of support, we help you move beyond compliance toward operational excellence.
A Continuous Improvement Cycle for Safer Work
At the heart of our approach is a four-stage continuous improvement process that turns task-based documentation into a living, evolving system of safe work. These stages form a cycle that ensures your systems stay relevant, practical, and effective.
As shown in the diagram, the process moves through four continuous stages. This cyclical structure reinforces a culture of learning, adaptation, and proactive safety management – ensuring your systems evolve with your workplace and stay aligned with how work is really done.
How Our Managed SSOW Service Helps
Human Focus offers a complete guided solution to help you transform your existing documentation into a living, learning-ready safe system of work. We combine expert consultancy, training, and access to our online tools to make the process fast, easy, and effective.
Whether you want to manage the process yourself or have it fully delivered for you, we provide the tools, structure and support to:
- Extract real knowledge from the sharp end of work
- Turn that knowledge into clear, practical guidance
- Deploy it digitally to the right people
- Track understanding and update systems as conditions change
Our four-stage process supports this ongoing cycle:
We help you gather and improve your existing task-based procedures:
- Collect ‘work as done’ knowledge using walk-throughs, expert interviews, and video
- Apply human factors techniques to identify risks and critical task steps
- Assess and improve the quality of written and visual documentation
- Use our AI-powered tools to rapidly convert content into online learning and performance support materials
- Train your team in using the Human Focus Content Builder and applying simple human factors methods
- Support the capture of decision requirements and heuristics through CTA for higher-risk tasks
Online System Support at the Document Stage
The Human Focus Content Builder
At the core of our managed service is the Human Focus online system – a powerful online platflorm that transforms your paper-based documentation into engaging digital resources. The system features:
- AI-based Content Enhancement: Automatically improve readability and clarity of content with AI trained in human factors principles.
- Interactive Training Generation: Instantly convert documents into structured online learning with built-in knowledge checks.
- Automated Test Question Creation: Generate task-relevant assessments from your source materials using artificial intelligence.
- Drag-and-Drop Editing Tools: Empower anyone in your organisation to update content and create new materials without technical skills.
Make your safe systems of work available where and when they’re needed:
- Define training requirements for each task and role, starting with high-risk areas
- Deliver content online and at the point of work via QR codes
- Support both employees and contractors with consistent, scalable access
- Set up training records and compliance tracking, either managed by us or integrated into your systems
- Train leaders and operators to engage teams and reinforce the adoption of the new system
Online System Support at the Deploy Stage
Human Focus Mobile App
The Human Focus system includes a fully integrated mobile app, compatible with Apple and Android devices. This app enables both employees and contractors to access SSOW training and task-specific documentation right within the work environment at the moment of doing.
Digital Checklists
Users can view training videos, read guidance, and complete tasks using digital e-checklists, which can be rapidly created via the Human Focus Content Builder. These checklists help guide workers through high-risk or complex procedures, and ensure consistency of execution.
This combination of mobile access, e-learning, and embedded checklists transforms SSOWs into living, breathing systems that actually support safe performance in real-time.
Embed the SSOW into daily operations:
- Train workers and managers to use and update the system
- Enable real-time access to documents and training records
- Monitor engagement and feedback to ensure systems are actually used and understood
- Equip managers to identify and close competency gaps using Training Passports
- Use pre-start checks and after-action reviews to assess and improve performance
Online System Support at the Perform Stage
Access at the Moment of Need
The Human Focus system enables just-in-time access through a QR code system. Each training module, checklist, or SSOW can be linked to a unique QR code. Codes can be placed directly on machines, documents, or workstations, making essential task-specific guidance instantly available exactly where work happens.
Training Passports and Real-Time Competency Checks
The Human Focus system also includes a digital Training Passport solution. Each worker is assigned a unique QR code, which can be printed on name badges or accessed via personal smartphones. When scanned, supervisors can instantly view the worker’s SSOW training record, check their competency status for specific tasks, and assign any missing training on the spot. The training can be completed immediately, with real-time updates to records.
Keep pace with operational change:
- Track revisions and capture on-the-ground feedback
- Use insights to improve task design and safety outcomes
- Facilitate safe-to-fail experiments and learning reviews
- Feed findings directly back into updated documentation, restarting the cycle
Online System Support at the Improve Stage
Task Reporting and Improvement Portal
The Human Focus system features an online task reporting portal, enabling workers to submit feedback through voice messages, photos, or videos. Comments and concerns raised during task execution can be captured and managed through a structured process.
Supervisors can create follow-up actions, assign them to responsible individuals, set priority levels, and track completion. The portal provides full visibility into how your SSOWs are evolving and improving over time. It provides a practical mechanism to ensure that lessons learned from work as done are fed back into the system to improve work as imagined.
Overcoming the Transition Hurdle: Implementation Support That Makes It Easy
One of the biggest concerns for organisations isn’t having a better system – it’s how to get from where they are now to where they need to be.
The transition from paper-based documents to an online safe system of work can seem overwhelming. It often involves thousands of disjointed or outdated standard operating procedures and task instructions, with the vast majority lacking consistency or a clear structure.
That’s where Human Focus makes the difference. We offer a comprehensive implementation service designed to make the transition rapid and pain-free. Our in-house learning content development team includes:
- Instructional designers and scriptwriters to clarify and simplify your messaging
- Graphic designers and e-learning programmers to bring your materials to life in engaging formats
- Human factors specialists and trainers to guide your teams in documenting tasks and applying behavioural insights
Our team can efficiently convert large volumes of existing documents into well-structured digital content. We then load this into your SSOW system and configure it for rapid deployment.
We provide live, instructor-led training to ensure your teams can:
- Use the Human Focus Content Builder
- Apply documentation and design standards
- Manage ongoing updates with minimal friction
Once this initial hurdle is cleared, your organisation can take over and confidently manage the system, curating and updating content with ease.
What Makes This SSOW Service Different
We don’t just digitise documents – we help you build a usable, adaptable system that:
- Reflects how tasks are really done, not just imagined
- Supports competence development as well as compliance
- Equips your team to improve safety, not just follow rules
- Operates in real time at the point of work
- Encourages ongoing learning and shared ownership of safety
- Reduces manual effort with built-in automation, AI tools, and training record management
- Builds layered documentation that includes decision-making strategies and adaptive guidance for complex work
- Follows a clear cycle of continuous improvement to keep your SSOWs practical and current
- Comes with expert implementation support for a smooth, successful transition
How Our Clients Have Improved Safety Using Our Safe System of Work (SSOW) Service
Standard Operating Procedures Transformed
How an International Appliance Manufacturer Turned Paper SOPs Into an Interactive Production Competency System
An international domestic appliance manufacturer was struggling with a familiar set of challenges: thousands of SOPs stored as paper documents, scattered across departments and difficult to keep up to date. Workers were expected to read and follow them, but most employees found them inaccessible, overly complex, and hard to apply to real-world tasks.
The result? Unclear expectations, inconsistent practices, and difficulties tracking who had received the required training. Managers couldn’t easily confirm whether workers were competent for the tasks they were assigned, especially as roles or procedures changed.
To tackle this, the company partnered with Human Focus to transform its paper-based task instructions into a digital, competency-based system. The Human Focus team began by converting over 2,000 SOPs into bite-sized e-learning modules using our online Content Builder. Each module was structured to align with specific tasks, incorporating visuals, clear language, and interactive knowledge checks.
Our team handled the initial conversion as part of a done-for-you service – but we didn’t stop there. We also trained the client’s internal team to continue updating and creating content themselves using the system’s intuitive drag-and-drop interface. Now, as production processes evolve, updates are made in-house within minutes and pushed instantly to the relevant workers.
Training content is now accessible online, on any device, and also via QR codes placed at workstations. Workers scan these codes to access specific task guidance right at the point of work. In parallel, managers and supervisors use the Human Focus Training Passport system to verify training completion by scanning QR codes on employees’ badges.
This system enables real-time competency checks: if an employee hasn’t completed the required SSOW training for a task, the manager is notified instantly and can assign training then and there. Once the worker completes the training, their record is updated in real-time – eliminating delays, uncertainty, and paperwork.
The impact has been significant:
- Over 3,000 employees across multiple global sites now access training content online and on demand
- Supervisors use QR codes to verify readiness and assign training in seconds
- Line managers assign content based on evolving roles and task changes
- All training activity is tracked and auditable through the system
Most importantly, the manufacturer now has a system that grows with them. As tasks evolve, the SSOWs evolve too. Competency is no longer assumed – it’s tracked, verified, and continuously improved.
This isn’t just about SOPs becoming digital. It’s about building a living system of safety, where workers are supported with practical guidance and managers have the visibility they need to lead confidently.
Trusted by over 20,000 organisations in the UK
