MORE LONE WORKERS NEED GREATER PERSONAL PROTECTION AT WORK

Technology is enabling more companies to achieve greater productivity using fewer people. That sounds great, but it also masks the fact that more of us than ever are working alone. And that can be a major problem for employers

Many will remember the estate agent Suzy Lamplugh who disappeared when she was supposed to be showing a client around a house in Fulham, London.

Suzy disappeared in 1986 and has never been found.

With the advent of smart phones, it’s easy to think that everyone can always be found, but phones can be stolen, lost or go out of signal. And with last year’s General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), companies have to be wary about whether they are legally allowed to track employees using their personal mobile phones, even though it could keep those employees safer.

One answer could be Alertcom, a device which offers lone workers round-theclock monitoring, 365 days a year. The device can summon urgent assistance from incident managers at the press of a button. The managers have direct access to police control rooms and the emergency services. It even has a ‘man down’ functionality. If a lone worker carrying an Alertcom falls over, the incident managers will know about and deal with the situation immediately.

This new product is now being marketed and sold by Cheltenham-based technology company Bamboo. According to some reports, there are more than six million lone workers in the

UK, that’s around 20 per cent of the country’s workforce. The NHS employs up to 100,000 healthcare professionals who work on their own every day, but lone workers are evident in practically every industry sector, from council workers to plumbers and electricians, parcel couriers to taxi drivers and IT workers.

Let’s not scaremonger too much, often it is safe to work alone, but the law requires employers to consider any health and safety risks before employees are allowed to do so, including having systems in place to keep in touch with them. Alertcom is a lightweight personal safety device that can be worn discreetly on a lanyard or attached to a belt.

Using a combination of GPS (Global Positioning System) and Global Navigation Satellite Systems receivers, the company says that its device has much greater location accuracy and stability.

Chief Executive at Bamboo, Lorrin White, has added the product to her company’s product inventory. She says that a company which doesn’t look after its lone workers properly could, if something happens, not only face a hefty fine which could be up to £20 million, but also lose its reputation.