LONE WORKER PROTECTION THE RIGHT BALANCE
Steve Hough, Managing Director at SoloProtect explores the ethical balance between protecting employees and respecting their rights, highlighting the risks of inadequate workforce monitoring and the moral dangers of excessive oversight.
Workforce monitoring presents an ethical dilemma: ensuring employee safety while respecting privacy. This is especially relevant for high-risk roles, where monitoring can prevent serious harm. However, excessive surveillance risks eroding trust and morale.
THE ETHICAL OBLIGATION TO MONITOR
Employers have both a legal and moral duty to protect their workforce, particularly those in high-risk roles such as construction, logistics, and healthcare. Recent data underscores the severity of these risks.
The SoloProtect Impact Report 2024 highlights a 132% increase in physical attacks and a 104% rise in weapon- related incidents over the past three years. The HSE 2023/24 report recorded 642,000 workplace violence incidents and 138 worker fatalities, with construction and agriculture among the most affected industries.
A lack of monitoring can lead to tragic consequences. For example:
• A contractor was fined £40,000 after a lone worker fell through a roof and was left unaided for six hours.
• Another firm was fined £1.28m after an employee was crushed by a moving vehicle due to inadequate training.
• A National Grid worker suffered life-changing injuries from an electric shock because the company failed to ensure the power was switched off before work began.
These cases highlight how inadequate monitoring and poor safety protocols can have devastating consequences. While real-time monitoring can save lives, the monitoring methods used must be ethical and justified.
WHERE TO DRAW THE LINE? While monitoring enhances safety, it must be conducted within legal and ethical boundaries to avoid infringing on privacy rights. Several regulations outline the limits of acceptable monitoring practices including the UK Data Protection Act 2018 & Human Rights Act 1998, which regulate employee monitoring and GDPR, which requires monitoring to be justified, proportionate, and necessary.
Unethical practices, such as tracking employees without consent, can damage trust and even lead to legal action. Employers who misuse surveillance data risk claims for constructive or unfair dismissal.
Transparency is key; employees must understand what is being monitored, why, and how data will be used. According to UK law, employees have the right to be informed if they will be monitored, and any collected data must be handled responsibly. Without open communication, even well-intended safety measures can feel intrusive.
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WWW.TOMORROWSHS.COM BEST PRACTICES FOR ETHICAL MONITORING
To balance safety and privacy, organisations should: Justify monitoring: Only when important for safety or compliance. Be transparent: Communicate policies and involve employees. Include employees: Allow input and address concerns. Protect data: Secure and use information responsibly.
For example, SoloProtect’s wearable safety devices and apps can detect incapacitation while remaining discreet. Features like location tracking and Check-in voice messages can be accessed by Monitoring Centre operators in emergencies to ensure support reaches the worker in danger.
Not all employees require the same level of monitoring. A risk-based approach ensures that monitoring aligns with job roles: • High-risk lone workers, such as security personnel and field engineers, may need a wearable device that can detect incapacitation.
• Lower-risk lone workers may prefer a discreet app- based solution
By using a tailored approach, safety is prioritised and understood without unnecessary intrusion, ensuring that data collection remains ethical and proportionate.
CONCLUSION Workforce monitoring isn’t about choosing between safety and privacy but finding the right balance. Employers must protect workers while safeguarding their rights.
By prioritising transparency, proportionality and ethical responsibility, businesses can enhance safety without undermining trust. As technology evolves, organisations must stay ahead of regulatory requirements and continuously assess whether their monitoring practices remain both ethical and effective.
www.soloprotect.com/uk
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