Georgina Wilson, Sales Director at Chubb explores the challenges of lone working in the education sector and explains how its new app has transformed lone worker safety at the University of Leicester
In Higher education, university staff often remain within a premises or campus long after the students have gone home. Many classrooms – especially mobile ones – can feel isolated from the main building meaning that it is not always possible to know the whereabouts of staff at all times. Under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations, employers are obligated to manage the risks to lone workers.
Many universities make use of CCTV systems to spot incidents. However, the use of this technology is only effective if the screens are being regularly monitored. At quieter times of the day, when fewer staff are in the building, this may not be the case, which is why complementing CCTV with other security methods is crucial. The risks lone workers can face include aggression from students, parents or members of the public in areas of the university that are out of sight. Staff can also come across aggression during home visits, which can often pose a greater threat as they occur in unfamiliar surroundings. Although any lone worker can fall sick or injure themselves, campuses are often large, empty places, which means it could take a long time for anyone to notice an absent member of staff.
Then there is the need for staff to work in often hard to reach areas, which could be somewhere with poor access or low footfall, such as storage areas. Chubb recently launched a new lone worker app, SafeZone®, designed specifically to help employers manage the safety of lone workers. Workers can swiftly raise an alert for general assistance (help), medical assistance (first aid), or an emergency using one of three buttons. When an alert is raised, the user’s location is shared with operators at Chubb’s 24/7/365 remote monitoring centre in real-time. The operators can then connect directly to emergency services to provide the most appropriate assistance. The University of Leicester was one of the first higher education institutions to trial SafeZone. The university tasked Chubb with improving lone worker safety, particularly in remote areas of the campus, to ease the reliance on security officers for patrolling these locations. SafeZone was installed on staffs’ devices with full connectivity to Chubb’s Alarm Receiving Centre.
Additionally, when lone workers required assistance from a colleague, rather than leaving the job at hand to find one, they could simply message for support, leveraging manpower efficiencies, whilst working more safely. Laurence Perkins, Head of Security at the University of Leicester, comments: “Campus security officers today are typically spending more time engaging with students and staff and addressing their concerns. They’re spending less time patrolling empty buildings or closeted away in control rooms. This is good news for everyone, not least for the security officers themselves, because their jobs have become more rewarding and more valued.” SafeZone lets control room teams at the university see the precise location of the person seeking assistance, and it flags up potentially vital information around particular vulnerabilities – for example, highlighting whether the staff member in distress has a disability, or has a personal risk factor. This gives security officers the information they need to respond appropriately, whatever the situation.
