Does Your Company Have A Protection Plan for Lone Workers?

Does your company have a protection plan in place for its employees? A growing number of companies, businesses, and employees are considering worker safety issues, in particular those involving lone workers - those who work alone in the field such as law enforcement agents, delivery drivers, real estate agents, oil and gas workers, construction workers, and service technicians. Often, these workers are away from their co-workers and the comparative safety of a brick and mortar building. Those who perform high-risk activities such as working at heights, in confined spaces, with electricity, with pressurized materials, with hazardous equipment such as firearms or power tools, with hazardous materials, or with the public in scenarios with the potential for violence, are at additional risk when working alone because of the lack of immediate support from co-workers.

As with any work environment, there are many things you can and should do as a company to ensure the safety of your lone workers. Companies should perform hazard assessment programs that are updated based on the work being performed, and should establish a regular check-in procedure or employee monitoring solution to ensure that regular contact is kept with employees and that all people are accounted for while working. Employee monitoring devices are a type of lone worker safety device that can detect falls, lack of motion, and other crisis events and can also be configured to require regular check-ins to maintain safety. In the event that a crisis event is detected, a request for help is triggered, or a check-in period has lapsed, these devices transmit an alert to a monitoring person providing information about the employee's name, type of alert and exact location, allowing them to provide timely emergency response based on the needs of the company. This allows lone worker incidents to receive the quickest response time available, and thus improves worker health and safety dramatically.

Employers are legally responsible for protecting their employees, particularly those who are at heightened risk due to isolation. By using available technology to track worker location and movement, detect incidents, and initiate emergency response, companies can ensure that their protection plan has a check-in system and response procedures prepared in the event that the worst comes to pass. Ask us about lone worker monitoring systems to protect your workers today.