Monitoring is key

When someone is experiencing insomnia, their sleep is monitored for several days to paint a picture of when, why, and how often they experience restlessness, so that they can take steps to improve their sleep quality. When an athlete wants to improve their performance, training metrics such as heart rate, v02 max, and recovery time are tracked across weeks of workouts to identify areas of excellence or improvement. When a doctor wants to better understand a patient’s recurring symptoms, they regularly test key health indicators to map that patient’s health and wellness and formulate a treatment plan.

Generally, across any number of scenarios, it’s accepted that a consistent or regular flow of data is necessary to understand someone’s health, performance, or risk factors. If an athlete’s performance was measured once every six months, that would seem insufficient, and their training would be far less effective. If a doctor tried to understand a patient’s chronic or persistent symptoms by conducting one blood test every year, that patient’s health would suffer.

And yet, when it comes to monitoring and managing the health and performance of workers in the UK – workers who routinely operate in potentially dangerous and hazardous conditions – the standard approach regarding frequency of data collection falls well short of these other widely accepted practices.

Periodic risk assessments are essential, but they’re just a snapshot

In the UK, employers are obligated to carry out periodic risk assessments to help control risk in the workplace. These assessments are designed to identify potential hazards and help employers take action to eliminate or control the risk posed by such hazards. And while risk assessments are a critical component of a comprehensive approach to occupational risk management, they simply cannot offer employers the amount and type of data required to truly understand their risk environment, and thoroughly protect their workers.

Risk assessments capture a snapshot in time. Because they last hours – not days, weeks, or indefinitely – they generate a set of data that’s unique to a moment in time, not representative of your workplace reality.

Workplaces are dynamic, fast-paced, and often complex, with constantly changing variables that include operator skill level, equipment condition, operator training, and environmental factors.

Moreover, in many sectors, employment is seasonal, and shift work is common. In sum: today’s workplaces are unpredictable, which means that the amount or type of risk to which any one worker might be exposed is near-impossible to predict with any kind of accuracy or reliability.

In order to well and truly protect the health and safety of your workers, you need access to information that helps you understand what’s actually happening on the ground. Over time, it’s access to this information that makes it possible for organisations to gain a more complete understanding of what their risk environment really looks like. As accurate information is collected, analysed, and shared, employers can begin to identify patterns and trends, and uncover opportunities to improve worker safety and enhance operational efficiency.

Workplace wearable technology makes better risk monitoring easy and intuitive

Workplace wearable technology helps organisations to better understand and manage their risk environment through regular risk monitoring. Ecosystems of interconnected devices – including smartwatches, bluetooth tags, beacons, gateways, dust and noise monitors, and powerful analytics – make data collection and analysis hassle-free and intuitive. Teams can reap the benefits of this technology without ever being slowed down, and without any need for IT intervention.

Regular risk monitoring enables access to accurate data that’s always up-to-date, and always reliable. This makes it possible for organisations to make data-driven decisions about refining their controls, replacing or rotating tools or equipment, or addressing worker behaviour.

Moreover, it shortens the time between the implementation of these decisions and feedback. Said otherwise: there’s virtually no delay between when you take an action, and when you know whether that action has had its intended impact. No wasted time means no wasted action, no wasted resources, and less ongoing risk to your workforce.

Ideagen Reactec: solutions that help you take control of your workplace risk environment

Ideagen Reactec are pioneers in IoT-powered workplace wearable technology. For decades, our expert team has engineered risk management solutions that deliver fast and tangible value for organisations across construction, manufacturing, rail, and many other sectors.

R-Link is a third-generation smartwatch that monitors individual workers’ exposure to risk from vibration, dangerous proximity, and other common workplace hazards. It’s specifically designed to be easy to use, fast to adopt, and effortless to scale. Powered by an industry-leading Analytics platform, R-Link automatically captures data before transforming it into digestible actionable insights that Safety Managers and duty holders can use to really move the needle when it comes to worker health and safety.

The idea that an athlete’s health or performance – or that a patient’s chronic symptoms – could be improved with infrequent, periodic assessments is simply unworkable. So why is this the accepted route when it comes to the health and performance of workers throughout the UK, particularly given the potentially serious impact that their day-to-day work could have on their health and wellbeing?

Ensuring that workers are safe, healthy, and working as efficiently as possible requires a regular flow of accurate data and actionable insights. By taking a more proactive approach to risk monitoring and management – by going beyond periodic risk assessments – organisations can gain control of their risk environment and make better, data-driven decisions that actually move the needle when it comes to workplace health and safety.

For more information, visit www.reactec.com