EcoOnline announces the North American availability of ePermits, its comprehensive worker permits solution. At the heart of Control of Work best practices, ePermits digitizes and standardizes the process to plan, authorize and safely manage personnel undertaking high-risk tasks, whether employees, contractors or new joiners. Trusted by leading multinational businesses across the UK and Ireland for more than 20 years, ePermits is now available to organizations worldwide.

Manually managing paper-based permits and spreadsheets is slow, inconsistent and risky. The global construction sector represents nearly 7% of the world’s total economic output, valued at over $13 trillion annually, with many firms relying on external contractors for projects. In the US alone, nearly 12 million people are working as independent contractors. Companies hiring contractors face a complex regulatory landscape, with oversight from agencies such as OSHA and requirements across federal and state levels. A well-managed permit-to-work system is critical to both worker safety and operational excellence, driving better-trained teams, higher productivity and reduced costs from regulatory penalties and insurance claims.

ePermits replaces outdated permit processes with a real-time, mobile-ready solution, available in over 20 languages, that ensures only trained, inducted and approved workers carry out high-risk tasks. From certifying a new worker to maintaining visibility of all contractors, the software embeds regulatory controls at every step to help sustain compliance, aligning with frameworks such as ISO 45001:2018 and ILO Convention 155.

EcoOnline is a featured vendor in Verdantix’s 2025 Smart Innovators: Control of Work (CoW) Software report, gaining high marks for permit-to-work functionality, which includes:

• Readiness for high-risk environments: Purpose-built to manage complex, interdependent permit types (e.g. hot work, confined space, isolation), critical in sectors where safety-critical errors can have severe outcomes.
• End-to-end Control of Work: Integrates safety rules, RAMS (Risk Assessment Method Statements), competence checks, and SIMOPS (simultaneous operations) detection, ensuring risks are identified and controlled before work begins.
• Active enforcement rather than record-keeping: Actively enforces compliance by blocking permit progress until all conditions (training, PPE, insurance, safety measures) are satisfied.
• Configurability without complexity: Balances best-practice workflows with configurable rules, forms and safety precautions, so organizations can adapt the solution without losing standardization.
• Always audit-ready: Mobile, paperless workflows with timestamped audit trails and alerts simplify inspections and demonstrate compliance with confidence.

Customers adopting ePermits experience measurable operational improvements for both managers and contractors. One global facilities management services customer reports that reports that where managers previously spent two to three hours a day manually managing permits, it now takes less than ten minutes of their day. And for contractors, permit applications have reduced from 30 minutes to a matter of minutes. Teams also benefit from greater transparency and control over who is on site, thanks to enhanced contractor information and visibility in the solution.

“Digitizing the permit-to-work process turns safety from a reactive, time-consuming checkpoint into a proactive advantage,” said Matt Matsui, COO at EcoOnline. “As ePermits expands to North America and across the world, it builds on our mission to protect people and the planet—ensuring that every worker, whether an employee or contractor, is approved and ready for the job they’ll undertake.”

For more information, visit https://www.ecoonline.com/en-us/ehs-software/control-of-work/epermits/.