Workplace transport safety is a critical aspect to have in mind when running a business that involves shipping, delivering, or other means of corporate mobility.
While some desk-based businesses do not require an elaborate employee transportation service, some industries are all about mobility and are just as vital as the former.
Nonetheless, whatever your business type, you have legal responsibilities, including ensuring an impeccable transportation service for your workers.
Employee safety is one of your most important obligations, so be sure you take all the necessary steps to provide your employees with secure means of transportation, whether we talk about driving a car, motorcycle, or bicycle.
On the other side of the coin, think about the female workers who travel after dark. It would help if you boosted their safety measures, and technology is a reliable solution in this sense.
You will gain more insight into employee transportation safety in the following lines, so keep reading to discover helpful practices that help enhance security in corporate transport.
Enhance health and safety measures
Some essential factors to consider when it comes to employee safety while driving:
- check the temperature before boarding
- provide the drivers with adequate PPE – personal protective equipment
- disinfect the vehicle regularly
These are crucial, particularly in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. Adhering to proper health and safety measures can take your business far and inspire more security among employees.
Route planning
First and foremost, you must have a clear and well-thought route. You cannot just send your employees on the streets and expect them to execute their job properly. Besides, it is not professional, which is not your intention, correct?
So, ensure your employees travel through secure and anomaly-free routes that are easy to follow and track. And do not forget to inform both drivers and other labourers about the routes for them to be easier to monitor.
If any obstruction on the route to be crossed cannot be avoided, consider marking it for the driver to acknowledge it and take further action to bypass it. You might also want to provide marked pedestrian pathways to prevent a potential road incident.
Maintain control of transportation
Consider having someone to manage your transportation system. This individual has to be part of the organisation and have the necessary abilities to exercise control of the system. Ensure you hire someone with experience who can handle responsibilities because there are many.
From deciding routes and designing cabs to providing safety and ensuring proper communication, the one responsible for maintaining control of employee transportation should possess all these qualities. Plus, they have to keep track of each vehicle and take steps in the event of an unpleasant event.
Track and respond to emergencies
The unexpected happens, and you never know when. Even if you have the best transportation system in place and provide your employees with proper security measures, there are still chances of an incident. That is why you have to plan it all in advance and take care of your workers when they are on a mission.
Our advice would be to have a modern emergency tracking and response system that can help monitor and respond in due time to the workers asking for help when in trouble. There is no better way to avoid accidents or even worse tragedies than responding to emergencies at once.
There is software designed to ensure a worker’s emergency is reported immediately, so if you do not know where to begin, this is a great start. If you do not have such software yet, take your time to document every potentially viable option and then decide on one that best suits your company’s needs.
Regardless of how much you want to believe your organisation would never be involved in such situations, the truth is that accidents are unpredictable. The only thing you can do is to provide your employees with maximum secure conditions while driving for work purposes. Apart from the fact that it is your legal obligation, you want to avoid the costs a prospective legal proceeding implies. When employees are hurt in a road accident because of improper safety measures provided by employers, they have the right to claim compensation for their losses.
For example, motorcycle accident claims in the UK are achievable, so if you assume this applies only to cars, think twice. No matter the means of transportation, do your best to provide employees with secure conditions during their travel because you both benefit from this.
Workplace transport security for lone employees
Lone employees are the most exposed to the risk of accidents on the road, whether they are drivers or pedestrians. People working in agriculture, construction, or as delivery drivers fall into this category, so let us give them the deserved attention. Suppose your labourers go onto sites run or manned by people, but where they act as individuals, employee transportation security is a huge consideration.
This is also true for employees who operate professional machinery like cranes or make concrete pouring or deliveries. These individuals face significant risks entering unfamiliar and unexplored environments that might lack safety procedures.
Safety measures are needed here more than anywhere else. You can make a tangible difference if you implement state-of-the-art communication systems and portable radios in these risky environments.
Thus, employees can communicate with signallers easier and speedier and significantly minimise the danger risk. In the event someone is hurt while falling or tripping, such communication devices can transmit the emergency faster and raise the alarm for help.
Extra vital lines of defence for lone employees are those systems that function when there is no phone signal. These gadgets are designed to provide GPS tracking, helping signallers detect an emergency where the worker at risk cannot report the problem.
This way, someone is always on the lookout for your employees and ensures safety even in the hardest situations.
All these above-mentioned practices can be enhanced with adequate training in which you teach your employees about corporate transportation and ways to keep themselves safe and sound on the road.
