How To Prevent Workplace Injuries with Personal Safety Alarms
Table of Contents
How To Prevent Workplace Injuries with Personal Safety Alarms
What is a personal safety alarm?
Why you should invest in a personal alarm system
Quickly request help from anywhere with a panic button
You may be injured, and it's easier to push a button than call for help
Perfect for people who work alone
Beyond personal safety alarms
In 1853, a Massachusetts businessman and inventor patented the first-ever safety alarm with his electromagnetic burglar alarm. Now, nearly 170 years later, safety alarms have come an incredibly long way and can protect our homes and businesses and our personal health and safety.
In modern life, several different alarms can be monitored, from toxic gases and radiation to ensuring we don’t walk into a dangerous area. However, the most significant impact has been improving personal and occupational health and safety (OHS).
What is a personal safety alarm?
When it comes to improving the overall OHS within your workplace, personal safety alarms can be a very effective and valuable safety measure with several significant benefits to your organization as you will read further.
A personal safety alarm is a device, app, or system that will emit a loud sound, signaling a threat to the person who activated it. The objective of a personal safety alarm is to either emit an audible alarm so that the person threatening the worker will be scared away or be distracted or disoriented by the noise.
Personal safety alarms can be activated by either pushing a button on the device or phone or pulling a tag or clip. The Suzy Lamplugh Trust says the personal safety alarm “needs to be as loud and as shrill as possible” and the “most effective sound is continuous and over 130 decibels (approx 138db is ideal).”
Why you should invest in a personal alarm system
The reasons why employees may need a personal alarm system will differ from circumstance to circumstance; however, regardless of your industry, you need personal alarms because you may see or interact with people or wildlife that can be a threat while on the job.
Personal safety alarms are proactive measures to empower the employee to scare away any dangerous encounters while working. This safety measure in place before incidents occur also gives the vulnerable worker and employer peace of mind that they have this at their disposal. To complement a personal alarm system, employers should also have an automated check-in system where workers check in to confirm their safety.
Quickly request help from anywhere with a panic button
Additionally, vulnerable employees may also need a panic button, depending on the severity of the violence risk and safety hazards while performing their jobs. When pressed or activated in an emergency, a panic button will request immediate help. Depending on the danger, the employee can use a panic button when the personal safety alarm is impractical, scaring off the threat.
Panic buttons are becoming a mandatory work measure, with states and cities putting their requirements into their safety legislation and regulations.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) found that out of over 5,000 fatal workplace injuries in 2019, almost 800 were from assault.
And according to the BLS, nearly 20,000 private industry workers experienced injury from nonfatal workplace violence in 2019, requiring time off work.
The BLS says that of these victims:
68% were female
65% were aged 25 to 54
70% worked in the healthcare and social assistance industry
21% required 31 or more days from work to recover, and 20% involved 3 to 5 days away from work.
You may be injured, and it's easier to push a button than call for help
In the case of an injury, a panic alarm and panic button are much easier to press than manually calling for help or sending a message. When injured and facing an attacker, you need help to come as fast as possible and to the correct location, which SafetyLine’s panic button will provide to the emergency contact.
Additionally, if the worker is unconscious due to a dangerous impact or fall, SafetyLine will request help when they are unable to. This ensures that urgent help can be requested regardless of whether the employee can do so or not.
Perfect for people who work alone
A personal safety alarm is ideal for employees working alone and in situations where help is not readily available if they need it. For example, lone workers in the public utility sectors face the public regularly, particularly in traffic, and the tensions can be high. Another typical case is the growing number of healthcare workers entering patients’ homes where they’re vulnerable to assault.
People who work alone face increased occupational health and safety risks because of their solitary circumstances. As a result, employers must provide health and safety measures such as personal safety alarms, panic buttons, and even automated check-in systems.
On top of public utilities and community healthcare, other industries that employ lone workers also include energy, agriculture workers, nonprofit workers and volunteers, and remote workers in wildlife, conservation, and environmental services.
Beyond personal safety alarms
As mentioned, a personal safety alarm can be much more effective with complementary health and safety devices like panic buttons and automated safety check-ins.
How do automated safety check-ins work?
Automated, cloud-based monitoring is emerging as a new best practice in safety and work-alone solutions. These systems can be integrated with various devices to provide instant protection for workers in the field. These systems leverage the latest advances in technology to:
Automatically prompt workers to check in and record voice messages
Avoid the use of costly call centers and cumbersome manual processes
Keep a record of all check-ins, even across a large fleet of employees
Proactively send alerts to supervisors when check-ins are missed
Send alerts to a list of emergency contacts when a worker needs help
Provide supervisors with real-time GPS locations and work history during emergencies
Example of how SafetyLine works
For as short as 5 minutes or for many hours, SafetyLine’s check-in intervals can be easily customized according to the length of shift/amount of work or level and risk of danger.
When a check-in timer expires, SafetyLine will attempt to contact the worker with a check-in reminder notice. If, after a certain period, the worker still does not check in, their status will be elevated t an “Unconfirmed Emergency,” and SafetyLine will begin automatically alerting the pre-assigned emergency contacts.
The customizable SafetyLine check-in system can be adapted to any position or type of work, industry, and changing work circumstances and environment. For example, if a healthcare employee goes into a client’s home, the check-in interval would be shorter so the employer can confirm their safety.
A workplace violence prevention program that will manage safety steps and protocols developed to prevent these incidents from taking place encompasses all of these safety measures. In addition to safety alarms and panic buttons, a workplace violence prevention program includes safety policies, protocols, and training. Smaller workplace violence prevention programs are also a good option and should include, at minimum, regular safety assessments, prevention procedures, and incident follow-up.
No matter what safety device you protect your team with, make sure it is the best fit for their unique safety needs, providing a tool that everyone will see the benefit of using.