For all businesses, having a profitable bottom line is the measure of success. Running a tight ship means managing operating costs – whether goods, premises or staff – to ensure there is a healthy profit margin.
However, one of the lessons learned from successful businesses is that cutting costs should not mean cutting corners.
This is particularly true when reviewing staff budgets. Increasingly, staff wellbeing has become an area where investment should be carefully planned and not automatically be reduced to save on outgoings when sales and revenue are down. This is even more important for lone workers. Often a hidden workforce, it is an area that is increasingly attracting more attention as a cost-effective way to deliver services outside of the business premises.
Lone workers at risk
However, lone working is also coming under scrutiny with new Health & Safety legislation. In recent years, the wellbeing of mobile and lone workers has been highlighted as an area of increased risk. According to the Crime Survey for England and Wales, commissioned by the Office for National Statistics, as many as 150 mobile and lone workers are either physically or verbally attacked every day. Meanwhile, the Royal College of Nursing noted that more than 6% of mobile and lone workers in the NHS had been physically attacked while at work.
With the numbers of mobile and lone workers increasing, whether in remote or hazardous sites or working late or out of hours, employers have a duty of care to ensure their safety. We have seen Time & Attendance (T&A) Systems come full circle, from a way to manage a large workforce on one or multiple sites, to become the ideal solution also to manage lone worker safety.
Tracking mobile & lone workers
Long established as a way to keep track of who is in and who is out in fixed locations, today T&A systems offer a flexible way to track mobile and lone workers. Using the latest technology, from biometric access control (providing secure, personal identification) that can be ‘zoned’ to monitor late or out of hours, to log-in facilities that enable remote workers to clock in and out when working on a different or client site.
Cloud solutions make this possible – employers can manage ‘anytime, everywhere’ working, while being able to monitor the safety and wellbeing of mobile and lone workers. If a worker fails to clock in, a manager can be alerted, and co-workers can be quickly despatched to ‘fill in’. In the event of an accident or issue, managers know exactly the location of staff, either to send additional help or contact the appropriate emergency services, if required.
Inclusivity
The added benefit of a T&A system is that everyone is treated equitably and transparently. Regardless of whether your staff are working on a client’s site, in your production plant, at head office or working remotely from home, all work hours are captured and tracked efficiently in one single system. This transparency and accuracy of working hours, including tracking sickness and holidays, with no hidden late offenders or false overtime claims, has been proven to improve morale.
Happy staff means more productive staff, which in turns delivers a healthy bottom line. With the right systems in place, you can ensure staff safety, wellbeing and deliver a healthy return on investment. Profit shouldn’t, or need, to be at the expense of safety.