Peace of Mind for Employers and Employees: Why Investing in SafetyLine Lone Worker is Worth It
Table of Contents
Understanding the risks faced by lone workers
Industries with lone workers
The importance of peace of mind for employers
The employer’s responsibilities
The impact of workplace incidents
The importance of duty of care
Are employees always being monitored?
The importance of duty of care
The benefits of peace of mind
The importance of peace of mind for employees
A lone worker safety solution: SafetyLine
How SafetyLine enhances lone worker safety
Key benefits of investing in the SafetyLine Lone Worker app
Success stories and testimonials
Are employees constantly being monitored?
How to get started with the SafetyLine Lone Worker app
Find that peace of mind
The number one resource at your organization is easily your people. No matter your service or product, none of it would be possible without your employees. That is why significant stress for managers and employers is their team members' safety and well-being at work.
Every employee will face several occupational hazards in their work. However, the severity of risk and injury is significantly increased when the employee works alone, without help readily available if they experience an injury or emergency.
What if we tell you that these lone workers can be protected, providing peace of mind to management that these people can get proper medical help in an emergency? The SafetyLine Lone Worker app solves that problem, providing reliable, automated lone worker monitoring 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in any geographic location or structure.
Understanding the risks faced by lone workers
A lone worker is an employee who performs their job in circumstances in which a coworker is not accessible to provide help if the lone worker is injured or uncomfortable. The unique safety challenges that lone workers face can include:
Dangerous slips and falls
Drowning
Violence/intimidation from the public
Heavy machinery and equipment
Confined work spaces and structures
Extreme weather and temperatures
Aggressive wildlife
Medical emergencies
Vehicle accidents
Industries with lone workers
These occupational challenges can be found in most industries where people may need to work alone. While every sector may have lone workers, specific industries employ more lone workers, including healthcare, agriculture, electrical/water utilities, energy, and hotel and hospitality, to name a few. These are potential risks and hazards they may encounter:
Healthcare
Violent patients/clients
Biological hazards
Vehicular accidents (traveling to patients’ homes)
Agriculture
Equipment or machinery injuries
Falls from tall heights
Extreme weather and temperatures
Water and utilities
Slips and falls from tall and low levels
Electrocution and drowning
Confined spaces and structures
Hotel and Hospitality
Violent/inappropriate hotel guests and customers
Hazardous chemicals
Heavy lifting and moving
The importance of peace of mind for employers
When facing an array of safety challenges with lone workers, it can be difficult for the employer to manage all of the risks strategically and effectively. SafetyLine can simultaneously address multiple isolated worker safety hazards, providing priceless peace of mind for the employer, management, and the lone workers who feel they are being looked after.
The employer’s responsibilities
In the United States, the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) states:
“Employers have the responsibility to provide a safe workplace. Employers MUST provide their employees with a workplace that does not have serious hazards and follow all OSHA safety and health standards. Employers must find and correct safety and health problems.”
They say that employers must take proactive measures to prevent accidents, including “trying to eliminate or reduce hazards,” switching to safer chemicals, and considering ventilation systems.
In Canada, under the Canada Labour Code, the federal government says that “employers must ensure that employees have the necessary information, training, and supervision to perform their jobs safely. Managers, supervisors, health and safety committees, and representatives must also understand their roles and responsibilities under the Code.” Additionally, it states that employer safety responsibilities for Canadian workers include a hazard prevention program and guidance on safety hazard reporting, inspections, and investigations.
In addition to legal obligations and requirements, employers have a moral and ethical obligation to protect their employees and lone workers who help make up the team and company family. Even if heavy fines are not an issue, employers are responsible for protecting those who keep the business and operations running without incident.
The impact of workplace incidents
When a workplace incident occurs, there can be several lasting consequences for the company, such as significant reputational damage, high employee turnover, debilitating fines, and possible jail time.
If an employer is found responsible for a workplace accident, they can face the following safety fines from OSHA:
General violations: Up to $7,000 per violation
Serious violations: Up to $25,000 per violation
Willful or repeat violations: Up to $70,000 per violation
Failure to abate: Up to $15,000 per day
Failure to report serious injury or illness, or death of an employee:
A minimum penalty of $5,000
The importance of duty of care
The employer must demonstrate duty of care, which mandates the company to perform all reasonable measures to protect employees from all potential safety hazards while at work. Under Canada’s Labour Code, they state that duty of care requires “employers have a general obligation or duty to ensure that the health and safety of every person employed by the employer is protected while they are working.”
The benefits of peace of mind
When your people's well-being is monitored through a lone worker app, both the employer and employee have peace of mind knowing that help can be sent quickly in a work emergency.
Many benefits can accompany peace of mind and a lone worker app, including increased productivity, increased skilled employee retention, improved workplace culture, and quality of work. There's been a lot of recent research on the benefits of "peace of mind," establishing that it does contribute to "life satisfaction and positive and negative affect beyond the well-known basic needs and the psychological needs," creating meaningfulness in activities like your work and job.
The importance of peace of mind for employees
Due to the meaningfulness that employees can find with peace of mind, it should be a priority for every industry and organization. According to the Chartered Professionals in Human Resources Manitoba (CPHR Manitoba), peace of mind within the team and company can “reduce the risks of stress, anxiety, negative energy in the workplace, absenteeism, and long-term leaves.”
When people look for a job, particularly a career, they choose peace of mind over money when deciding if they will commit to a long-term position. The Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) found that colleagues who feel their work environment is psychologically safe are more willing to engage in interpersonal risk-taking behaviors that contribute to more incredible organizational innovation, resulting in greater job satisfaction with the employees.
But beyond job satisfaction, people are seeking more work-life balance in jobs. According to Forbes Health-Ipsos Monthly Health Tracker data, 90% of respondents “said work-life balance is an important aspect of their job.”
A lone worker safety solution: SafetyLine
To help lone workers and employees achieve this desired work-life balance, employers must provide them with the necessary tools and resources, such as a lone worker app that can reliably monitor the safety of these people at any hour of the day.
SafetyLine Lone Worker, a cloud-based, lone worker app that monitors workers' safety as well as quickly responds to work emergencies through automated safety check-ins and a suite of other features; accurate location tracking, seamless communication, discreet, in-app panic alarm, and fall and impact detection which uses the motion features in your existing devices.
Not only will this workplace safety solution proactively monitor workers' safety to ensure nothing happens, but if an accident does happen, it will significantly minimize the employer's response time, ensuring the person gets the best help as quickly as possible.
How SafetyLine enhances lone worker safety
The safety of people working alone increases considerably when using the employee safety app. Based on pre-agreed-upon times and intervals, lone workers can quickly check in through SafetyLine to confirm their safety and update their location and other pertinent information that can be used in an emergency response. These intervals between required check-ins can be adjusted according to the occupational hazard risk level of the work environment and circumstances. (For people in especially hazardous situations, SafetyLine recommends shorter intervals between check-ins for added safety.)
Additionally, help can be requested through other features like the panic button and life-saving motion features that will get help even if the worker is injured and unconscious.
Since pioneering lone worker safety when it formed in 1999, SafetyLine has continued to develop and optimize these features, adapting its lone worker solution to the evolving work landscape and safety standards and requirements.
The SafetyLine employee safety app is also SOC 2 Type II certified, completing the System and Organization Controls (SOC) 2 Type II examination in recognition of its commitment to information security. During the certification process, SafetyLine demonstrated the highest adherence to data security, availability, and confidentiality standards developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA).
Key benefits of investing in the SafetyLine Lone Worker app
Real-time check-ins and alerts for lone workers
GPS tracking and location monitoring features
Emergency response capabilities and two-way communication
Documentation and reporting for compliance purposes
Integration with satellite devices, including Garmin and Globalstar
Success stories and testimonials
For more than 20 years, SafetyLine has helped protect thousands of people in almost every industry, many of whom have shared why they find it so beneficial to use the employee safety app for occupational health and safety.
“Employees recognize [SafetyLine] is for their safety, and it is something they wanted to make sure they make it home safe every day and somebody’s looking out for them,” says Shawn Haye, manager of the City of St. John’s water treatment plants.
Before SafetyLine, Hayes water workers were using call center check-ins, which wasn’t meeting his standards. With the automated app-based system, workers can quickly check in while receiving automatic reminders and using other features such as location tracking.
In a much different industry that also employs lone workers, EHS Supervisor Robert Engel at Windsor Salt said it was objectively simple to start using SafetyLine to protect his team of lone workers.
“If you require a program to monitor lone workers, this is the app to choose,” he says. “It has an easy interface for workers of all levels of experience, it’s non-biased, and is very affordable.”
Are employees constantly being monitored?
Because lone worker apps are automated and use location tracking, some misconceptions exist about the OHS tool and how people are monitored.
When employees use SafetyLine, their location will only be monitored during work hours and after checking in with the app. Once they have checked out and finished the day, they are no longer being monitored. Suppose they are ever to be monitored by SafetyLine. In that case, it is standard onboarding protocol to communicate when and under what circumstances they will be monitored – consent from the lone worker is compulsory.
How to get started with the SafetyLine Lone Worker app
With no commitment, you can try SafeyLine with your team for free for 30 days to make sure it is a good fit for your team and a suitable solution for your lone worker's occupational health and safety needs.
Because SafetyLine is used on everyday devices like smartphones and tablets, it can quickly be implemented, providing safety and protection almost immediately.
Flexible pricing packages for any team or company size provide a high return on investment (ROI) in the most critical and valuable company resource– people. SafetyLine employees are also always available to answer technology or worker safety questions.
Find that peace of mind
The benefits of a lone worker app like SafetyLine are immediate and long-lasting. Let’s look back at what they are again:
Improved employee safety and well-being
OSHA legislation and regulations compliance
Secure OHS data that’s accessible anywhere
Improved work quality and efficiency
Customized reports that provide valuable OHS insights
Improved workplace culture
Higher staff retention
Increased peace of mind for the employees and employer
As discussed earlier, peace of mind benefits everyone within the organization. It isn’t easy to quantify and should be a goal and priority for every organization. Employers benefit because they know their people and operations are safe, and employees because they know they have a safe place to work and will go home at the end of the day – SafetyLine will help make sure that happens.