“Data center safety is still a bit of the Wild West. It’s not that standards don’t exist—it’s that there isn’t one consistent baseline across the industry. We’re trying to change that by bringing the industry together around what good actually looks like”. That’s Chantel Hinson, Global Vice President – HSQE at Yondr. She and Yondr have been involved in addressing this with the Data Center Safety Council (DCSC) and other tech partners, by establishing a baseline of best practices for the industry. 

Maintaining consistent safety standards across diverse, fast-moving projects is challenging, especially in a new field that blends technology and construction.  

We take a look at how Yondr’s new, data-led approach brings consistent standards to the business.  

Understanding High Risk Activities  

Data centers are prime examples of High-Risk Activity work environments – where a failure could cause a serious injury, fatality or catastrophic service loss. Energy is constant and margins for error are small.  

The DCSC white paper on Managing High-Risk Activities in Live Data Centers stresses, “What makes an activity high-risk isn’t how often it’s done or how many controls are in place; it’s the presence of high levels of energy that, if the task were to fail, could cause life-altering harm or worse, death.” 

Confined space, electrical work, ground disturbance, hot work, lifting operations and working at height are all areas that are assessed.   

Using a common language for risk 

Establishing a shared language for HRAs removes ambiguity and enables teams to focus leadership attention on credible threats rather than operational noise. 

It’s not about enforcing uniform terminology but about sharing the same framework for delivering and communicating risk. Different terms can have different meanings – especially across geographical locations or contractual relationships, so it’s vital that the appropriate risk is  recognized and the relevant action taken.    

In live data centers, safety is not about simply ticking boxes; it’s about actively anticipating what could go wrong.  

Data-led decision making    

Yondr’s HSE team has moved from manual, fragmented reporting to centralized, live dashboards, consolidating construction, office and operational data to provide a “single source of truth” of HSE performance.      

This allows for consistent data comparison, enabling teams to move beyond purely reactive monitoring to identifying trends and deploying targeted training where it is most needed. 

Denise Vogelaar, Regional HSE Manager says, “The dashboard is available to anyone with a Yondr email. Organization-wide access ensures full transparency and helps teams spot trends, identify knowledge versus implementation gaps and prioritize training.” 

The team has found the dashboards promote a culture of openness, trust and honesty.  

Keeping a finger on the pulse  

The team uses template-driven “safety culture” spot checks that enable Yondr to monitor activity across different regions and contractors. Denise explains, “Reports give information which indicate trends and corrective action but they lag behind real time, so we do spot checks as we like to be ahead before something happens.”      

Standardized HRA spot forms assess controls for activities like high-energy work, work at height, lifting operations and mutli-contractor interfaces.   

Over 2025 Yondr carried out over 800 spot checks and 90% of people checked could list and implement the critical controls. This gives a true picture of operations whereas traditional compliance-driven systems often depend solely on paperwork.        

Strengthening resilience 

In this context, resilience means building systems and teams that can adapt to disruption and recover quickly without serious harm. It’s not about preventing every failure – it’s about reducing the impact when things go wrong.  

Standardization creates a foundation where any deviations become open and are treated as discussable data rather than hidden errors. This resilience enables faster recovery from disruptions, ensuring teams can perform safely even under shifting, fast-paced conditions. 

Yondr encourages a positive approach. It’s keen to create a culture where people don’t hide errors but discuss what they can learn from them.  

Denise emphasises,”We’d rather have people reporting when things go wrong than keeping silent.” 

And as the DCSC whitepaper highlights, “When workers see leaders respond constructively to what they share, it builds confidence to identify early warning signals before they escalate.”  

Managing HRAs becomes less about control and more about readiness. With Yondr’s dashboards and its template framework, the team can be confident that a shared language is being used, enabling open discussion.    

Looking to the future 

Consistency and high visibility are critical to managing safety in complex data center construction. Yondr is leading the way in this area through the work it does internally but also by helping to set standards for the industry, as we’ve seen, through its work with the Data Centre Safety Council.  

Ongoing collaboration will help all parties involved address the challenges and opportunities ahead.