Young African Male Technician Examining Fusebox With Multimeter Probe
Being an electrician can often mean working in small, dark and potentially dangerous locations. More often than not, they are also alone while on site. Who is looking out for these workers and how do you ensure an electrician’s safety?
Being an electrician means workers are exposed to more dangers than just live wires. The nature of the job has workers frequently alone and exposed to:
Unfortunately the outcome of these dangers can be the loss of life.
The Census of Occupational Injuries is compiled every year by The Bureau of Labor Statistics. The table below shows the number of electrician’s deaths per year from 2003 until 2017. All of the fatalities occurred to those working in the industry, but were not all as a result of electrocution.
Thankfully not all exposure to electricity is fatal, but does still impact greatly on employees and therefore employers. Losing days of work due to electricity based injury can be very frustrating for employers. A lot of injuries often result from people not making common sense decisions or not following the risk assessments or work policies that have been put in place.
People who frequently lone work, like electricians, need a reliable way they can communicate with their employers. They need to have a way to check in at pre-arranged times, call for help if they need it or have an alert triggered if they can’t request help themselves.
Ok Alone, the lone worker safety monitoring app allows workers to check in at set intervals (from every 10 minutes to 10 hours), it has help alerts that can be sent to request immediate assistance and GPS that is used to locate a worker if they do not respond to messages or reminders after a missed check in.
One feature of the Ok Alone system is the ‘Man Down’ function. This notifies a worker’s monitor/supervisor if there has been no movement within a set amount of time (5 minutes – 1 hour, set by the worker). If no movement is detected the phone will sound an alarm alerting the worker. If this alert is not responded to, it will be escalated to the allocated monitor and they will contact the worker. The helpful reminder/alarm sent to the worker first means there will be less false alarms sent to the monitor or the call centre.
A ‘Help Button’ sends an alert to a supervisor, manager or representative of the employer, informing them that a worker needs immediate assistance. On a smartphone the help button has options to trigger it; manually tapping the screen or using voice commands. Workers also have the option of sending a written or voice message directly to the person monitoring their situation. Ok Alone has real time GPS capabilities that can locate an electrician if they activate the ‘help’ alert.
Ok Alone includes the ‘High Risk’ function where workers can change the frequency of their check-in depending on their circumstances. The check-in can be set to every 10 minutes if required. Using this feature also alerts the worker’s company that they are entering an area where they feel more vulnerable or that has a higher potential for danger. This function allows the worker to update their company to their new situation without having to phone in. Once the shorter time elapses an alarm goes off to alert the worker. Once the worker has safely checked in the countdown timer automatically reverts to the originally set intervals.
The most important thing Ok Alone can offer is peace of mind to lone workers. Having employee monitoring they know that if something happens (a help alert is sent or a check in is missed) someone from their company or at the Live Monitoring facility will be alerted and help will be on its way.
1 – Miscellaneous CFOI data tables, All worker profile, 2003-2018 https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshcfoi1.htm#2020
As an expert in lone worker content management, I possess an extensive knowledge base and experience in the area of lone working and safety monitoring. My expertise in this field encompasses a wide range of areas, including risk assessment, training, communication, and technology. I have a deep understanding of the unique risks associated with lone workers and have researched and written many projects and articles to educate people in how to mitigate these risks.
Throughout my time with Ok Alone, I have kept up to date with technological developments, legislative changes and regulations that have been introduced to help organizations ensure the safety of their lone workers.
This post was last modified on February 28, 2023 12:47 pm
We are always looking for better ways to explain how Ok Alone works. We have…
Whether it's for missed check-ins or help alerts, everyone who works alone or in isolation…
Single point of of contact is important in quarrying and aggregates businesses. It’s there for…
Sometimes people think because they have gps tracking on their vehicles, they are monitoring the…
A Guardian/Insight survey asked what are the key challenges facing individual care worker, and the…
Every morning, we get up and go about our day assuming we'll come home safely…