Lone Workers
Lone working and the potential hazards both for individuals and companies
By John McMeeking, UK Managing Director at Psion
At the beginning of 2011, we saw the first prosecution of a corporation found guilty of corporate manslaughter*. This is a historic breakthrough for a landmark new law; the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007. Now companies and organisations can be accused of serious management failures resulting in a gross breach of a duty of care.
more dangerous situations in the workplace. This is especially true in the case of lone workers. In the UK, tens of thousands of lone workers are abused, attacked or victims of an accident every year (over 160 attacks take place on lone workers in the UK every day **) and those particularly at risk are employees carrying out jobs where social contact with the general public is commonplace. This summer’s UK riots, where mass members of the public began to attack shop fronts, have put the spotlight on the risks for employees in general.
Lone workers are often away from their base at remote locations and occupations such as construction workers, maintenance, repair and cleaning workers, estate agents and security staff fall into this category. Then there are sales, delivery and the large numbers of social workers, home helps and community nurses who visit residential addresses on their own.
People that face regular verbal abuse or who feel isolated because of lone working without means to assist them have
18 Simultaneously, workers are increasingly being exposed to
the potential to suffer stress and sickness as a result of stress, which can result in costs to a business eroding profits including g sickness pay, private litigation, temporary or replacement staffing, lower productivity due to lower morale, damage the company’s reputation and employees loyalty to the company.
organisation is meeting its duty of care. Companies are increasingly seeing the efficiency and well-being benefits of protecting staff as well as the benefit of safeguarding the future longevity of their business.
As corporate risk increases so will the desire to ensure an
Realising that there was an on-going need to improve the quality of response and effectiveness of lone worker services in the UK, the Association of Chief Police Officers for England & Wales (ACPO) and other industry practitioners worked with the British Standards Institute (BSI) to introduce BS8484, the first British Standard for lone worker device services.
The standard was designed to improve the provision of services to organisations employing lone workers. The standard also affects how the police are likely to respond to emergencies raised through lone worker alarms. The most important element of how the standard is improving the conditions of lone workers is the change of procedure with regards to how the police respond to lone worker alarms.
Historically, most Alarm Receiving Centres (ARCs) escalate a
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