App manages lone workers during storm

Ground Control’s teams across the country worked throughout the night to remove obstructions and help their clients fix faults so that services could return to normal by the morning. All of Ground Controls’ utility teams across the UK are equipped with the Stay Safe app which made managing jobs and staff safety quick and efficient.  

One Ground Control client who proactively used StaySafe during the storm was UK Power Networks. UKPN provide power to homes and commercial buildings across London, the South East and East of England. Ground Control is contracted by UKPN to carry out vital maintenance and tree clearance to keep UKPN’s electricity cables and lines connected at all times. 

To increase efficiency and reduce management time, managers at Ground Control provided UKPN with a basic view of the StaySafe Hub, so that they could collectively track and manage field based teams. With the help of StaySafe, the Ground Control workforce, including the UKPN team, rectified a record number of faults attended by Ground Control in a short period of time.

When beginning a session on the StaySafe app, real time employee locations become visible on a map in the StaySafe Hub. The Hub can be organised into teams so that employees working on different projects or for different clients, can be separated into a separate Hub view. 

During the event of a storm, teams working on behalf of UKPN are instructed to begin a session on the StaySafe app when they are on standby. This allows UKPN to log in to their ‘GC hub’ and view the location of on call Ground Control employees. By zoning in on the location of a fault, Ground Control and UKPN managers are able to view who is in the proximity and allocate resource quickly and efficiently. Ground Control teams working for other clients, such as Western Power Distribution, used the StaySafe solution in a similar way. 

StaySafe is above all a safety tool which allows supervisors to monitor the safety of their lone working and vulnerable staff. Ground Control use the StaySafe solution on a daily basis to ensure that they are alerted whenever an employee is in need of assistance.