Take care of your existing and newly created lone workers
Monitoring lone workers to ensure their health and safety is good practice at any time but now more than ever, when lone workers may be even further from help than usual and people who previously worked with others are working alone, it’s advisable to review practices and ensure that everyone in your team who’s working alone and might be vulnerable is being monitored.
What are your responsibilities as an employer?
The Health & Safety Executive publication Protecting Lone Workers – How to manage the risks of working alone issued earlier this year clearly sets out the responsibilities organisations have for the health, safety and welfare of those working alone on their behalf. It is a guide to help employers understand what they should do to comply with their legal duties towards all lone workers.
Are you looking after the people that look after your property?
In a recent statement the Security Industry Authority (SIA) confirmed that security professionals are included the current definition of critical worker. They form part of the UK’s workforce still required to guard, maintain and secure buildings and offices. Whether as a security patrol in a deserted building, caretaker at a school or IT engineer responsible for keeping those working from home connected, many people are now increasingly working alone.
There is a responsibility for organisations to adapt the way they approach health and safety to ensure they provide adequate training, supervision, monitoring and support for their permanent and temporary lone workers.
We can help you to look after your lone workers
CSE Chatterbox can provide a simple, cost effective way to monitor lone workers using R-LinX , a clever little alarm handler capable that offers an entry-level solution for connecting two-way radios with smartphones and emails. The set-up for R-LinX is simple, and a single unit can monitor up to 10 lone workers’ radios. R-Linx can be used with existing radios or CSE Chatterbox can supply additional radios if required (to buy, lease or for short-term hire).
How R-LinX works
Let’s suppose that you have a two-way radio system with 10 radios. One of the radio users who has Lone Worker as a feature on their radio hasn’t responded to Lone Worker’s preset request to confirm that they are OK, or a radio user has fallen down and the Man Down feature on their radio has been activated, or a radio user is in distress and has pressed their panic button – any of these actions could send an alert to any or all the other radio users on the system.
Adding in R-LinX enables the radio to communicate the alert to people outside the radio network. An alert raised by any of the radio features described above is received by R-LinX and transmitted via text to previously designated smartphones and/or email addresses, plus other radio users.
Another excellent feature of the R-LinX is a 3 stage escalation. In the scenario where the lone worker has fallen down, their radio could be programmed to raise the first alert with a team mate working nearby. When the team mate receives the alert, and confirms that they will investigate, this is a stand down message for R-LinX. However, if the team mate does not respond within a pre-set time R-LinX will escalate to the next level, for example everyone in that radio group and/or other people via mobile phones or email. Again, if this doesn’t illicit a response R-LinX will escalate to a final level, for example senior management, via radio, mobile or email. This simple system is designed to ensure a prompt response for any lone worker in distress and an incident is never missed.
If a more sophisticated solution is required, CSE Chatterbox designs and supplies bespoke CALM systems providing alerts and on-screen monitoring of radio users in both internal areas using Bluetooth and externally using GPS.
Finally, CSE Chatterbox CALM systems can also be designed to integrate with body worn cameras, which can deter aggressive behaviour and can provide video evidence if required following an incident. Body worn cameras are also available to buy, lease or for short-term hire.
To discuss how CSE Chatterbox can work with you to help you take care of lone workers please get in touch. We are making for site visits for essential support, including providing for lone worker safety, and are available to discuss your short and long-term communication requirements.