Securing the safety of travelling, lone working and other potentially at-risk employees is already a top priority for those businesses and other organisations that are aware of their duty of care towards their staff, and the value of their workers. It’s gaining traction among less aware employers, writes Craig Swallow, CEO, Vismo, where the value of human capital – and preserving it – is becoming more of a factor in decision-making around security and safety of staff.
A business or organisation that is found to be at fault for a gross breach of duty of care faces consequences, more of which later. In brief, human capital encompasses the economic value of employees’ skills and experience, and other assets: training, education, mental and physical health and wellbeing, and loyalty to the employer organisation. The more an organisation invests in its employees – or values its human capital! – the greater the chance of it seeing gains in productivity and overall success, and ability to withstand economic headwinds. There is a strong correlation between well protected human capital and business growth.
Generally, the value of human capital is currently increasing by default if nothing else, because of the shortage of skilled and other workers. Conserving that value is a priority, especially against the backdrop of the shortage – acute shortage in some cases. Lone-travelling-remote workers include high value staff and contract workers as well as those whose jobs may be less well paid but are, nevertheless, crucial to the functioning of the employer organisation. The UK’s HSE says employers “must manage any health and safety risks before people can work alone. This applies to anyone contracted to work for you, including self-employed people.” The HSE adds, “There will always be greater risks for lone workers without direct supervision or anyone to help them if things go wrong.”
Early step
An early step to reduce risks is to carry out risk assessments, and training where required. Addressing risk reduction in these positive ways may require a change in company/organisational or departmental culture (where ‘culture’ typically means ‘the way we do things around here’) if the benefits are to be realised long term rather by a one-off, stand-alone ‘big bang’ effort. Employers can proactively complement risk assessments and training, and embed risk reduction longer term, through ‘always on’ technology-based approaches to worker security. The approaches can allow for human interventions including recognising the severity of risks encountered or about to be encountered by workers; and sending warnings and advice en masse to all staff, a group of staff or specific individuals, regardless of where they are in the world. Among solutions available is a ‘black box’ offering based on proven methodologies, patented personal location technology and the provider’s extensive knowledge bank. The methodologies have developed, and knowledge accrued, during ten years of working with major commercial (FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 companies) – and public sector and NGO – organisations – on workers’ well-being and protection.
Box opened
Let’s open the Vismo Black Box, a registered trademark name for a description of the solution’s features, and see what’s inside. At its core is patent-awarded technology that optimises GPS-based location accuracy and tracking via mobile devices. The patent, GB2470376, is for the design behind the algorithms and innovative operations of the tracking software. It addresses an issue that can become crucial in cases where a mobile device’s battery is low – or becomes low during an emergency that threatens the well-being of the user: battery drain. The design reduces battery drain via algorithms that use a combination of metrics from the phone including speed, GPS, network information and cell tower locations, to gain optimal location accuracy without incurring battery drain that’s usually typical of GPS tracking applications. Drainage is worse where signal strength is weak. In effect, the Vismo Black Box gives extra life to batteries when it’s most needed and acts as a safeguard against too much drainage too quickly.
Fundamental to the approach is how the design utilises the functionality of mobile devices, minimising the use of navigational sensors by placing them into hibernation between pre-determined intervals and using environmental information to quickly locate a device without lengthy GPS warm-up periods. Ultimately, this produces a chronological ‘trail’ following a user’s location point-by-point on a map.
The combination of high location accuracy and optimised battery performance is, as far as is known, unique and, rarely in a GPS, app-based solution, complementary. It’s very helpful to both the employee and employer organisation. For the employee, their phone is less likely to run short of battery life. At the employer end, the employee’s manager gains high accuracy location information in the event of an incident, which is vital when deciding on prioritisation of response. In addition (i) the IT department’s life is made easier: there is a signal! – and therefore communication with the employee, and easier management of the app on the individual’s phone or other mobile device (ii) the employer organisation is, overall, thanks to the combination, further reducing risks while improving employee/employer relations, thus contributing to staff wellbeing and retention. The Black Box technology is complemented by proven methodologies and an extensive knowledge bank, as mentioned earlier in this article. Between them they help the employer organisation to maintain or adopt a robust approach to staff safety, risk management and productivity.
Backbone
The methodologies and knowledge provide the backbone behind what the Black Box, working in synch with a Vismo secure portal or an employer organisation’s own IT facilities, offers. Between them, the methodologies, knowledge and patented technology provide incident management, mass notifications, geo-fencing, red alert via a panic button, location history and trails, ‘points of interest’, and access from phone, tablet, laptop or PC.
Conserving human capital has an important non-financial value element – the welfare and lives of all involved in a business/organisation including agency and temporary staff, contractors, volunteers, students and those on work experience.
Employers have been heavily fined under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007. The act allows for companies and organisations to be found guilty of corporate manslaughter as a result of serious management failures resulting in a gross breach of a duty of care. Risk assessments; training; if necessary a change in organisational culture; and proven ways of directly protecting lone and other workers, 24-7, will optimise a duty of care programme while protecting human capital.
Visit vismo.com and vismo.com/global-traveller/portal.
