Beyond Boundaries: Enhancing Safety for Lone Workers with Resilient Networking

How employers can leverage emerging technologies to prioritize lone worker safety and operation efficiency

• By James Kubik
• Jul 05, 2024

Keeping workers safe is a top priority, but it's especially challenging when it comes to lone workers, those operating in isolation and away from the safety net of a team. Whether in the depths of a forest, in a remote field or atop a cell tower, lone workers face distinct challenges every day. The absence of colleagues can impact operational efficiencies with a lack of personnel to answer questions in real time, meaning quick accessibility to help in an emergency is limited. Any delay in response for either situation could be critical.

For the industries that commonly employ lone workers—such as energy, transportation and logistics, and forestry—ensuring their safety isn't just about compliance. It's about human lives. To safeguard these workers, employers must embrace technology that enables continuous oversight, allowing them to quickly respond to emergencies and keep track of their teams in real time. By adopting such measures, companies can create a safer working environment and improve operational efficiency, knowing that their lone workers are out of harm's way.

Beyond Radio Range: Ensuring Safety with Reliable Communications

Lone workers often find themselves far removed from terrestrial networks. The isolation of these locations poses significant risks, especially in emergencies where immediate communication is critical for safety. While lone workers typically rely on traditional two-way radios, this technology is often inadequate due to range limitations and terrain interference. When lone workers depend on unreliable communication tools, it jeopardizes their operations and potentially their lives. It’s up to organizations to break old habits to prevent lone workers from operating in such conditions. Teams should adopt communication tools that offer network redundancy and a reliable line to safety.

Enhancing Safety with Real-Time Tracking Solutions

In addition to providing a reliable line to safety, a satellite-enabled tracking solution offers further advantages for lone-worker safety. Organizations can enhance personnel accountability and ensure individuals remain within the boundaries of their operations by transmitting real-time location data to an operations center. This proactive approach allows for swift response to incidents. For example, alerts can be triggered if a lone worker remains stationary for an extended period, signaling a potential emergency. This real-time insight empowers organizations to prioritize safety, effectively manage risks and ensure the well-being of their lone workers, even in the most remote and challenging environments.

Recent natural disasters—such as wildfires and winter storms—demonstrate the fragility of traditional networks, leaving lone workers without communication as they navigate dangerous environments. These events emphasize the importance of network redundancy and the need for communication tools that can function independently of terrestrial infrastructure. While technologies like 5G and the Internet of Things (IoT) offer high-speed data transfer, they often depend on fixed infrastructure and are limited to urban settings, making them inadequate for remote or rural environments.

To address these challenges, organizations are beginning to recognize the importance of adopting emerging technologies for their everyday operations. However, to keep lone workers safe, solutions must be lightweight, portable and capable of supporting multiple communication modalities to avoid a single point of failure. Network redundancy becomes crucial in providing backup communication pathways if primary systems fail.

Primary, Alternate, Contingency and Emergency (PACE) Plan

For any organization that employs lone workers, developing a comprehensive communication plan is imperative. A Primary, Alternate, Contingency and Emergency (PACE) plan is a best practice for organizations to ensure they’re prepared for any scenario. PACE planning helps organizations establish options for redundant communications capabilities if primary capabilities are disrupted or degraded. If one communication channel fails, another is available, increasing the overall reliability of communication systems.

The key to a successful PACE plan is choosing resilient, adaptable communication tools that work in remote environments. These tools should function independently of traditional networks but also work alongside other communication tools. Comprehensive communication plans play a large role in helping lone workers perceive, understand and effectively respond to situational dangers, ensuring their safety and the success of their operations.

Maximizing Safety with Sensor Technology

When sending employees into high-risk environments, their safety should be the primary focus. Employers must have a plan to identify and mitigate potential dangers before they escalate. For instance, if there's smoke or hazardous chemicals in the air, employers should have technology that can quickly detect and alert the worker. Automated sensors can provide continuous monitoring, offering real-time insights into the worker's health and safety, but these sensors require a reliable network to effectively transmit alerts. 

In addition to automated sensors, many operators also leverage body-worn, human performance sensors that can relay biometric data back to an operations center to monitor employee health in real-time. These body-worn sensors can detect important health concerns such as heat exhaustion early so that organizations can respond before it becomes a major emergency. This comprehensive knowledge allows employers to take swift action, whether it's calling for medical help or guiding workers to safety during critical operations.

Training: Know Before You Go

Joint training exercises can help ensure organizations are using new tools appropriately and are getting the most out of their resources. Collaborating with technology partners to simulate on-the-job situations is crucial for identifying weaknesses in communication systems and developing strategies to improve resilience. Testing out new tools before live operations also enables teams to train employees on how to leverage the resources. 

The ability to share critical information effortlessly between workers and operation centers is essential for maintaining a safe working environment. By taking the time to understand and effectively use the tools at hand, employers can create a safer workplace for their employees. This level of preparation not only enhances safety but can also be the difference between life and death.

The Future of Remote Connectivity 

Having zero connectivity should never be an accepted risk. With the continued advancement of digital connectivity and the proliferation of smart devices, the world is entering an era where seamless communication and real-time data sharing should be the norm, even in the most remote and challenging environments. Organizations must identify opportunities to carry over the connected experiences of everyday life into remote operating environments. The integration of resilient communication technology has never been more important for lone-worker operations.