LONE WORKER PROTECTION
OVER AND OUT
When commercial sites are located out-of-town, mobile phone signal can be harder to find than a needle in a haystack. Instead, Simon Longhurst, Alliances Manager at Spectralink, recommends keeping track of lone workers with a bespoke communication system.
Working in isolation can be demanding for a variety of reasons. Depending on the situation, lone workers can face increased physical threat and a higher exposure to potentially dangerous situations. With sites spread over thousands of square meters, warehouse and factory workers often find themselves out of sight and reach of colleagues for extended periods of time. Similarly, in sprawling complexes such as hospitals, staff may be isolated due to working irregular hours.
As a result, establishing a healthy and safe working environment for lone workers can be different from organising the health and safety of other employees. Central to any safety strategy for lone workers is a reliable communications network. However, while we rely heavily on consumer mobile devices in our daily lives, for many reasons this is not suitable technology for robust internal communications.
Warehouses and factories, for example, are usually located outside of major population centres, on the outskirts of towns and cities. Cellular coverage in these areas may not be optimal, and as such, it is not suitable for critical communications between staff in remote corners of a facility. On top of this, push-to talk functionality is often required in this type of work, along with multiple channels whereby several members of a team can interact with each other.
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What’s needed is a dedicated network for the individual site in question, along with devices specifically designed for the task at hand. Equipping employees with a purpose- built in-building mobile device means that they are instantly contactable no matter where they are. But every work environment is different, and each presents its own unique challenges. What works for a dispersed team of shift workers in a warehouse would not necessarily be an ideal solution for nurses on an isolated ward at night.
When deciding on an appropriate mobile safety strategy, there are a number of factors that must be taken into account. Firstly, it’s important to consider how you set up your mobile communication system to deliver the specific functionality that will help keep employees safe. This might be push-to-talk capabilities to support group calling, alternative text-based messaging options, or specialist apps and alarms that detect when the user is running, has fallen, or is in a dangerous situation.
Another key factor is the range over which the solution needs to operate. Do you need to connect isolated employees within one warehouse, or across an entire facility? Will staff need to communicate over multiple levels, including basements and other potential blackspots? It’s important to consider the greatest distance that employees will roam on a day-to-day basis to make sure you don’t put the
most isolated workers at risk through lack of connectivity.
Guaranteed voice quality is another issue that must be addressed. This is a particular issue for organisations with very large sites, including storerooms, elevators, basements and stairwells. For lone workers, it’s essential that within these areas, ‘dead zones’ or decreased voice communication quality aren’t encountered.
In these circumstances, a DECT or voice over Wi-Fi network offers a mobility solution that a traditional consumer mobile network simply cannot. In the majority of cases, these networks are privately owned and managed, giving you complete control over placement of base stations or access points – and therefore consistency of coverage throughout your entire facility.
Risk is often an integral part of being a lone worker, but with proper planning this risk can be managed. A well-considered mobile communication system using purpose-built devices makes it easy to detect and mitigate situations where workers are in need of assistance, or suspicious activity has been reported. With constant communication, decision-making is expedited and safety becomes second nature.
www.spectralink.com
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