How to keep lone workers safe with IoT connectivity

Industries with high physical risk such as construction, manufacturing, and agriculture all involve lone work, often with dangerous equipment in remote locations. And workers in healthcare, charity, and real estate often have to visit sites by themselves. In fact, over 9% of NHS workers perform their duties alone on a daily basis. Meanwhile, out-of-hours workers, security personnel, and those in retail often find themselves alone when providing valuable services that require public interaction or physical risk.

And then there are hidden lone workers. If you work from home or stay late after everyone has left, you’re considered a lone worker—and organisations have the same duty of care for homeworkers as they do other staff.

Working alone leaves people vulnerable to a range of risks, especially without the right communication devices and lone worker connectivity.

Working alone heightens the risk of crime, with 150 lone workers either physically or verbally attacked every day in England and Wales.

Working in isolation for long periods of time, with no means of support or advice, means lone workers are at higher risk of stress and mental health issues.

With no immediate help if something goes wrong, lone workers are at greater risk of harm from sudden illnesses such as heart attacks, epileptic seizures, and fainting, as well as workplace accidents. The HSE reported 111 workplace deaths and 693,000 workers who sustained a non-fatal injury in the UK in 2019/20.

Surveys have revealed that 1 in 5 businesses have no form of safety communications—yet 95% of those businesses employ staff who operate in hazardous conditions.

Citing a lack of confidence in safety communication tech, many organisations think mobile devices lack the coverage to reliably do the job, while others worry that the devices will distract staff from their duties.

Add in soaring employee insurance costs, a growing number of remote home workers, and the need to improve efficiencies while cutting costs on labour, and businesses are under increasing pressure to find the right safety communication solutions to protect their workers.

Not only can IoT devices keep lone workers safe and help organisations meet their duty of care, the lone worker connectivity and software that make up lone worker solutions bring a whole host of other benefits for organisations.

And it’s a big market for solution providers and telecom resellers to tap into. Berg Insight predicts the lone worker devices that operate on GPS and cellular tech in the EU will grow from 645,000 in 2019, to 1.1 million by the end of 2023, with the combined EU and North American lone worker solution markets almost doubling in value to €284 million.

Panic alarms mean workers can call for help discreetly, while wearable devices can monitor health metrics, detect falls and impacts, and send alerts with location details straight to HQs. Information recorded in these instances has the added benefit of being used for insurance or legal purposes.

Location tracking provides reassurance that workers are on the move and in the right place, and vital information on historic routes can be given to emergency services if something goes wrong.

A step further, organisations can use geo-fencing to set up no-go zones that send notifications should a worker stray into a hazardous area.

Software that tracks tasks gives organisations complete visibility of workflows—while all that data can be used to make recommendations that improve processes, cut time, and increase efficiency.

Lone workers also benefit from being able to complete processes and collaborate with others on the move, rather than back at the office.

Creating and deploying lone worker IoT solutions doesn’t stop at finding the right devices and software—a drop in connectivity can effectively render a solution useless.

And with no single mobile network having flawless coverage, a normal SIM simply won’t make the cut.

Unsteered Multi-network SIMs work with all networks and will always connect to the strongest signal, making them the best option for lone worker connectivity.

Safe from outages, they provide the always-on reliable two-way communication lone workers need to stay safe—as well as the value-added services organisations require. Multi-network SIMs are fully managed, with usage alerts and portals that put organisations in complete control of connectivity. Furthermore, whether you have 100 SIMs or 1000, 100mb or 10GB, data pooling, static IPs, and automatically adjusting tariffs can all be added to create bespoke lone worker connectivity solutions tailored to business needs.

So whether it’s signalling for support in emergency situations, making sure they’re always accounted for in the field, accessing files and collaborating with colleagues, dialling out to ask for a second opinion, or receiving calls that give them critical information, lone workers with IoT can work worry-free wherever they go.

Furthermore, equipping Multi-network services with mobile content filtering will keep workers on track, secure devices, and protect sensitive data.

Organisations can choose what websites workers can access, and when, all at a network level. So no hours lost to social media feeds or malware picked up from unsafe sites.

If you’ve got a crew of lone workers, are you doing everything you can to keep them safe in the field? Don’t wait until there’s an issue—getting them equipped with IoT connectivity is quick and easy, so give us a call now to get started.