Are you trying to select a lone worker alarm system or remote worker safety devices? Are you confused about what monitoring you need and if your alarms will work in remote areas?
Finding the best fit-for-purpose lone worker solution and provider can be a minefield. Once you start investigating the market, you’ll find there’s a great deal of choice. And once you start looking at things in more detail, you will realise it can get very complex.
When it comes to selecting the RIGHT lone worker solution for your industry there are a few things you need to consider to make sure your remote worker safety system performs when it is needed.
There are so many moving parts to consider:
- the hardware functionality
- the software functionality
- the processes for use
- the incident response coordination
- the training of end-users
- the maintenance of the data and the regular testing….
It is not surprising that many organisations find it challenging to understand the right requirements for their lone and remote worker safety solution. At Guardian Angel, we’ve worked with these solutions for over 12 years and still, we investigate new products and have to ask many detailed questions to understand the suitability of the solution.
Additionally, we are protecting thousands of people across Australia and New Zealand every day with our solutions, and we have coordinated responses to many incidents from missing persons and remote vehicle breakdowns, to serious threats and violence so we know how exactly to deliver true safety.
It’s a lot to expect someone without a background in networks and GPS technology to try to figure it out and you have a big job to do already. There are some fundamental understandings required and some probing questions you need to ask, to ensure you don’t go down the wrong path (or indeed get led down the wrong path). We hope that this buyer’s guide will help you in the evaluation process.
Considerations when buying a lone worker safety device.
1. Do you have lone worker staff that work in areas outside of cell phone coverage?
The lone worker alarms and man-down devices you select are only as good as the network they use and the monitoring system you have in place. Make sure you choose a device that will work WHEN and WHERE you need it.
2. Are they out of cell cover but working inside buildings?
Most satellite solutions need a view of the sky to work, but there are solutions that will work inside.
3. Are they in cell cover and working inside buildings?
GPS can’t see through roofs so we need to establish a tracking rate, so you can see where they left view, or use a solution which is connected to a bridge outside the building, ie; the vehicle or in a window of the building) and if you need to use indoor locating beacons
The biggest mistake we see businesses make when selecting man down alarms and SOS devices. Is selecting a lone worker alarm or device that relies on a network that does not get coverage. Exposing them to huge risks under the health and safety laws in New Zealand or Australia.
For instance, using an app on a smartphone is 0% effective if your staff are out of cell cover. Add the complexity of using a check-in schedule, which is reliant on them being in cell cover to check in… meaning if they can’t, you will be running around trying to get hold of them to see why they didn’t check-in, but of course, they’re out of cell cover so they can’t be reached and there’s no way you can risk this not being the case, and in fact, they might be injured or worse, so you have to start emergency response coordination. This can all be avoided with a solution that works everywhere.
Need help finding the best fit for purpose solutions?
We work with established, proven Lone Worker specialised hardware manufacturers such as Blackline Safety (G7X, G7C, Loner), Garmin (inReach) and Everywhere communications. This means we can provide the right device for the job.
At Guardian Angel Safety, we know from experience that the 1% of the time that things go wrong, they often go terribly wrong and our solution needs to be 100%. No compromises. That’s our promise to our lone workers. They need to trust us and our solutions or we don’t have a business (and we wouldn’t sleep at night!)
We understand the market is a minefield, so we take the time to get to know the risks your people face and make unbiased recommendations tailored to your business, as like many of our clients, you may require a combination of solutions to suit the risk profiles of different staff. Our solutions are backed up by our own best in class training and support services. If you’d like to talk to someone about the right solution for your organisation, please contact us:
NZ +64 9 480 0860
AUS: +617 39111332
