Table of Contents
This is a collaborative post.
Business owners know that the way workers nowadays carry out their duties is changing, with a growing number of them choosing to work away from the office or work site.
What they might not know is how to keep their members of staff safe in their new working arrangements.
It is therefore vital that business owners get up to speed with the latest developments in lone worker safety and understand the different types of devices that might just save a worker’s life when disaster strikes.
Key Issues
There is currently no legal requirement in the UK obliging business owners to equip their members of staff who work alone with a specific piece of lone-worker safety gear, but the law does say that employers have a duty of care to their employees.
Business owners who value team morale and worker safety should go the extra mile and give workers the means to reach out for help by equipping them with a safety device or alarm system.
There is a range of alarm devices on the market for all budgets, so it is always possible to kit workers out with a safety device without breaking the bank.
Work Environments
Typically, lone worker safety alarms are used in heavy industry and in professions where individuals are exposed to an elevated level of danger when carrying out their duties on their own.
Increasingly, however, desk-bound and office roles are carried out alone.
Luckily, there are lone-worker safety solutions for all working environments and types of workers.
Types of Device
The most important bit of kit for many lone workers is the lone worker alarm.
If the worker operates in a dangerous occupation such as on a building site or factory plant, the alarm can be used as a stand-alone device encased in a ruggedised case so that it keeps working regardless of the work environment.
Most often this type of alarm is worn by the worker on a jacket or hooked on a belt loop.
If there is a strong and reliable wireless internet signal available, the best bet is often a mobile app installed on a smartphone or smartwatch that allows lone workers to reach out for help.
There are also non-internet-based solutions available. These use other communications networks, such as radio waves and IP DECT, to transmit messages from lone workers.
In the event the lone worker finds himself incapacitated or unable to hit the SOS button, these devices also come equipped with man-down detection.
This will trigger an alarm and communicate with team members and the emergency services if the device suspects the worker is injured or out of action.
GPS localisation guides team members and emergency services to the injured worker.
Conclusion
Working alone is not without its risks.
The best way a business owner can keep lone workers safe is to equip them with the tools that they can use when an accident hits.
With the correct training, these devices might just be the difference between life and death for lone workers.