02 October 2009
There are inherent risks to being a lone worker in the utilities sector, but employers can do much to minimise them, says Richard Fenton-Jones
Front-line workers in the utilities sector carry out day-to-day duties such as installations, data collection, fault evaluation and repairs in a variety of locations, often in remote or industrial areas and behind closed doors. The nature of their work means they often operate unsupervised, with a daily risk of accident, injury or physical abuse.
Employees in the utilities sector have a unique risk profile, not only because of the hazards of working on remote sites but also because the nature of the work often involves maintenance staff working alone on sites that have a significant footprint. Also, these lone and vulnerable workers are often called upon to work irregular hours and visit sites with little or no communication support available to them.
In these environments, colleagues would not be immediately aware if one of their co-workers was injured or incapacitated. Residential visits can also create situations where a worker can find themselves in a compromised position, with no easy way of raising an alert discreetly.
With the introduction of the Corporate Manslaughter and Homicide Act (CMA) 2007, company directors can now be held responsible for serious failings in their processes and procedures, with the potential for personal prosecution if a death in the workplace results.
While this is clearly a worst case scenario, businesses have a duty of care to protect their employees. The Health and Safety at Work Act 1999 requires employers to conduct a “suitable and sufficient” assessment of the risks employees are likely to face while at work. Any employer who has either failed to recognise a foreseeable risk, or take reasonable steps to address a significant risk, could be considered negligent, and also liable for prosecution under the CMA.
The risks covered should, where appropriate, include the need to protect employees from exposure to a level of violence reasonably foreseeable in the workplace. The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) estimates that it costs £17,000-19,000 to investigate a physical assault. It can cost a lot less to prevent the assault in the first place.
With the rising number of attacks and injuries suffered by lone workers resulting in higher and more frequent compensation demands, insurance companies increasingly insist that lone workers are adequately equipped by their employers for any eventuality.
Clearly there are some simple steps employers can put in place to ensure processes support a safe working environment, as well as accounting for foreseeable emergencies such as illness, accidents and workplace violence. There is a vast range of technology available on the market, offering varying levels of protection, functionality and suitability for each situation such as discreet personal alarms to raise an alert inconspicuously, alarm devices that sound automatically if a person is knocked unconscious and GPS technologies that allow employees to be tracked.
There is no one solution to the difficulties facing lone workers, but any solution must be flexible enough to prove useful in a range of situations. The solution is then not one single product, but a whole range of different services using a variety of technologies, through which operators can allow companies to monitor workers where required in the field and arrange an emergency response with an escalation process to meet the individual organisation’s needs.
With the introduction of the CMA, along with the Health and Safety Offences Act 2008, there is a clear need for accountability in the workplace.
With a practical and legal need for companies to ensure that their workers are protected, utilities are now no longer facing the question of whether they need to implement lone worker solutions, but when.
Richard Fenton-Jones is the managing director of Monitoring and Response G4S Secure Solutions UK.
