How Technology Can Help

The first step may be to acknowledge that there is an issue with staff harassment and safety concerns; the second may be to consider a solution to improve employee safety.

Safety devices and apps provide 24/7 protection, supporting the prevention of incidents, and critically, actively managing situations as they arise.

Low-cost tech can also help with improving incident reporting. Implementing a simple process and capturing reliable evidence are two elements where technology can make incident reporting quicker and easier.

Audio recordings are gathered from every SOS alarm raised by a Peoplesafe personal safety device or app. In addition, body worn cameras are being successfully used by several organisations to capture video evidence. Both audio and video files of this nature provide impartial and empirical evidence to the police and simultaneously speed up the process of filing a report.

Increasing Personal Safety

Body worn cameras have proven to reduce staff assaults by 47%, partly due to the deliberately obvious design which deters potential aggressors from acting on impulse and causing harm; and partly because the high-quality recording can be admissible as evidence in a prosecution.

Our study suggests that focussing on employee safety is an untapped recruitment and retention tool that has the potential to make a substantial improvement to the way staff feel about coming into work, subsequently enhancing wellbeing and productivity.

By shifting the dial on the importance of personal safety, employers in the night-time economy may also fare better in the competitive recruitment market. There is clearly a tangible benefit to employee peace of mind as well as physical safety and to the perception of how they are valued by an employer.

Body worn cameras reduce staff assaults by 47%

Duty Of Care Beyond Working Hours

Peoplesafe research found that 51% of employees agree that employers have a duty of care towards them outside of working hours

Employees working within the night-time economy are often required to commute when it is quieter and darker, putting them at an increased level of risk. Our research found that 60% of people are concerned about commuting on public transport during unsociable hours.

Therefore, it is not just employee safety in the workplace that should be a focus for employers. Throughout our research, it became clear that many employees felt concerned and vulnerable before and after work, often as part of their commute. Employees that travel to and from work should be supported at these times to give them peace of mind and help if something happens.

Greater protection must be given to employees outside of working hours to protect them from situations that make them feel concerned for their safety.

This would help to address concerns of workers’ travelling to and from work, particularly during non-social hours.

Extending the duty of care of employers is the clearest way of doing this. Although it isn't a legal requirement, the majority of employees expect their employers to consider their safety outside of working hours.

This will be an important step to support employees, particularly women and those commuting at unsociable times, to feel more safe and secure.

Technology can play an important and often unnoticed role here for employees, that is available if and when required. Additionally, technology can help employers to deliver their employees the feeling that the duty of care has been extended by offering them round the clock protection in a simple and affordable way. It means employers and policies don’t need to always be available due to the protection afforded by 24/7 personal safety solutions.