If your business employs lone workers, or workers who are exposed to potentially dangerous environments or situations, you have likely considered implementing a lone worker safety program.
As the song goes, “there’s no place like home for the holidays.” And if you’re a business owner, one of your responsibilities this holiday season is to ensure that your employees are safe so that they can go home to their families.
For many businesses, lone worker safety has been is top of mind. Organizations who have employees that often work alone or in dangerous environments must mitigate the chance of an accident or other safety issue to protect their people—and their business. Many other organizations—including hospitals and healthcare providers—have traditionally focused more on patient care than employee care, but that’s all about to change.
Despite significant objectives and needs, not-for-profit organizations often operate on razor-thin budgets. As a result, facilities are usually minimal, supplies can be hard to come by, and corners sometimes must be cut. Complicating matters, some organizations—by the nature of their work—must expose staff to dangerous situations. But despite the sometimes-difficult nature of working for a not-for-profit, these individuals do what they do because they genuinely want to make the world a better place. Thankfully, there are cost-effective options for not-for-profit organizations to protect their workers.
When we think of lone worker protection, we often think of those who work alone in industrial settings—oil field, mines, etc.—or those who work night shifts alone. Drivers, however, represent a large block of lone workers as well. Their trade requires working alone, sometimes for long hours, and often in remote areas. Lone drivers—be they cross country truckers, taxi or ride sharing driver, local delivery drivers or any other kind of driver that typically travels without a colleague—face safety dangers from a variety of different sources.