Research reveals just one-in-five FM managers have ‘full confidence’ in their communication systems when it comes to keeping workers and visitors safe
From ensuring day-to-day operations run like clockwork to making certain that the safety staff and facility visitors are not compromised in the event of an emergency, the strategic priorities that face today’s facility professionals are many and varied.
Top of the list of responsibilities is an ever present need to put in place systems and processes to ensure workers stay safe at all times. And that means being able to depend on reliable two-way communications that make it possible to monitor employee wellbeing as they go about daily tasks – or respond fast to incidents and emergencies.
But, as the findings of a recent survey by innovative two-way radio manufacturer Hytera show, many UK businesses admit to struggling with inadequate systems that make it difficult to guarantee instant communication at all times.
Even more worryingly, one-in-four employees lacked any safety-critical communications at all, while 54% of employees were left working alone in hazardous conditions or remote locations without Lone Worker support.
Mobile phones prove unreliable and costly
Nearly 82% of survey participants confirmed that workers in their organisation were heavily reliant on mobile phones as their primary communication system in the field. Yet many acknowledged this dependency was not best suited to ensuring worker safety.
Poor or unreliable mobile coverage was identified as a primary issue. In the event of an outage, 28% of respondents either had no contingency plan or were reliant on workers somehow finding an alternative signal in order to resume communications. Little wonder that just 21% of all respondents had full confidence in their communications system when it came to assuring worker safety.
Alongside poor mobile coverage, concerns were also raised that mobile phones acted as a potential distraction for workers and also represented an unnecessary additional cost burden to the business.
Worker safety at risk of compromise
The survey findings also highlight how many UK organisations put workers at risk of being unable to instantly alert colleagues should an incident arise.
In the event of an emergency, less than one-third (31%) offered workers Lone Worker alert technology, either within a two-way radio or a separate device. And while under half (42%) of the organisations surveyed had provided workers with analogue or digital two-way radio handsets, in the majority of instances these were primarily being used in a traditional radio-to-radio manner for simple voice communications.
Of those organisations using two-way radios, less than half (43%) said workers were able to take advantage of a dedicated Emergency Button or Priority Communication Channel in the event of an incident, while just 25% were protected by automatic ‘Man Down’ features. Just 22% were using GPS tracking to monitor the movements of personnel to protect them whilst in the field.
These findings indicate that organisations either don’t have the appropriate advanced worker safety functionality within their two-way radios, or are failing to take advantage of the full capabilities on offer.
This was despite the fact that 60% of organisations said that radio users were operating hazardous machinery, 53% were working at height, and 40% were public-facing.
The case for next-generation digital mobile radio (DMR)
Survey participants had workforces that operate in a diverse variety of environments, including remote, noisy or inherently hazardous locations. For some workers, lone working was a standard feature of their day-to-day activities; for others, interaction with members of the public was a regular requirement.
Protecting employees at work was a priority for the organisations surveyed. Yet many appear to be struggling with the challenge of providing staff with reliable coverage across sites or to maintain the continuous information flows required to keep people both productive and safe.
Despite the plethora of communication tools in use, organisations admitted to being fearful they can’t guarantee employees would be able to communicate fast in the event of an incident or emergency. Indeed, only one-in-five businesses claimed to have ‘full confidence’ in their communication systems, and less than a third offer employees dedicated Lone Worker communication features – Man Down, Group Call and Emergency buttons – that would inform colleagues where they are, when they are alone or when they are in trouble.
Today’s advanced DMR radio systems can significantly improve an organisation’s communications capability and responsiveness, delivering real-time location awareness of all users, emergency prioritisation and pre-determined alerts and all important Lone Worker or Man Down functionality that deliver a user’s location with pinpoint GPS accuracy via their handsets. All of which would enable senior facilities professionals to gain greater oversight over health and safety responsibilities.
To view the full research and to find out how Hytera can help you develop a communications system to fulfill your requirements visit hytera.co.uk/potential-of-dmr
