Genesis Housing Association (www.genesisha.org.uk) is one of the largest and most diverse housing associations in the UK, managing more than 40,000 properties. Working throughout Greater London, the Home Counties and East Anglia, Genesis Housing provides homes and services to support its customers and local communities. The association offers a range of services to suit individual’s needs and requirements including a range of tenures from affordable rent and shared ownership schemes to outright sales, a substantial new build programme, homes and support for vulnerable people and initiatives to improve communities at grass root levels.
The Challenge
Genesis Housing Association covers a wide geographical area and employs over 1,650 people, with around 500 of these employees classed as lone workers. Many of these lone workers are based in the field, working with a range of customers. As a provider of housing management services, there are many situations where Genesis’ staff are required to work out of the office, and lone working is unavoidable. This can be on a daily basis for some, such as maintenance staff, surveyors and support staff.
Genesis’ staff provide housing support services to customers that are vulnerable including drug and alcohol dependency. As with many other associations working in the community, staff may often face challenging circumstances in the course of their work. This might include confrontational members of the public or encountering dangerous situations such as aggressive dogs. Many of Genesis’ lone workers are based in one fixed location, such as schemes and hostels for customers, and have good relationships with these customers. It is important therefore that any lone worker system covers a wide range of situations, is not intrusive and allows staff to continue with their normal working methods.
Genesis is committed to protecting the health, safety and wellbeing of its employees including lone workers under the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 (HSW Act) and the Management of Health and Safety at Work (MHSW) Regulations 1999 and recognises that among other requirements, a lone or mobile worker must be able to summon help by means of a portable, reliable and useable panic alarm device.
Genesis Housing recently underwent a process of a major organisational restructure with the amalgamation of subsidiary organisations. The rationale was to have in place a single association that meets the objectives of delivering more responsive services locally with higher quality and more consistent and reliable standards of service provision for customers. The association has reviewed its policies and procedures to ensure consistency in the delivery of service. In tandem with this process the association agreed to move to one lone working system to ensure consistency in the management of lone working across all of its departments.
Two systems were in use – one provided by lone worker specialists Guardian 24, and the other was an in-house solution. The health and safety team led by Senior Health and Safety Advisors Thomas Kennedy and Lamis Al-Kaisi were charged with reviewing the lone working risks and controls in place, as this was commonly commented on during employee appraisals and at team meetings. Thomas Kennedy says:
“We discovered that different areas of the association were using different paper based and technological systems, so were keen to implement one uniform process, meaning all employees had the same level of protection and the situation was simpler to manage.”
The Solution
After reviewing the current situation, Guardian24 – a telephone based specialist lone working solution involving a software application that can be uploaded onto a mobile device – was considered the system best suited to fulfil the association’s needs as it meets best practice and is fully compliant with the relevant legislative standards and guidance. This technology turns a standard mobile phone into a lone worker personal safety device. Guardian24 enables mobile workers to log visits to customers and confirm their safe return, and provides the means of raising an emergency alert where the staff member feels threatened or may otherwise require emergency assistance.
Guardian 24 works on many mobile devices, but last year, the association partnered with BlackBerry manufacturer RIM (Research in Motion) to produce the first ever British Standard-compliant lone worker personal safety device for BlackBerry (British Standard for Lone Working - BS8484). Compared to various other systems that were being used to help support lone workers, from simple ‘in and out’ boards to an in-house call centre which lone workers were required to call into, Thomas Kennedy and Lamis Al Kaisi found that the Guardian24 system was more effective.
Thomas Kennedy says:
“Guardian24 was being used more efficiently, both in terms of lone workers using the system properly and also in efficiently responding to any emergency situations. As a result the Guardian24 system is now being rolled out to all 500 of Genesis Housings’ lone workers.”
He continues:
“For Guardian24, protecting lone workers is their core business, and they are focused on helping us to ensure the safety of our staff. Guardian24 has supplied us with a system supported by specialised accredited response centres, and technology better suited to protecting our lone workers than the in-house solution we had in place for some areas of the business.”
Staff can now leave details of their movements and whereabouts via their mobile device. The Guardian24 application has been designed for ease of use, so users can quickly and simply enter their details. If a user fails to notify the system when they finish a set task, Guardian24 will attempt to contact them. If they do not answer and their safety cannot be verified, Guardian24 will then alert a nominated respondent at Genesis Housing.