Return on Investment - Text-In
We often talk to clients about the Health and Safety risks of lone working. These are usually very well understood and the risks are clear. In these times of tight budgets and the need for an (understandable) justification for new expenditure, we have attempted to provide a factual argument as to why using a lone working system over an internal ‘buddy’ system can actually save a company money.
For an indication of the risks of not having any sort of lone working policy, or protection in place, please ask and we’ll happily provide some case studies.
Scenario Company 1
We are going to base our first scenario on a small company that manually monitors lone workers. This company (SC1) has a total of 10 lone workers. The current lone working strategy is based upon a call-in system. A member of staff is tasked with looking after the lone workers. They take calls, log locations, take task information and chase up when lone workers do not check in on time. Quite often, this is whilst carrying out other, distracting duties.
Scenario Company 1 Costs
We will assume there are no serious incidents or wasted time due to missed check outs through-out the year. If it takes SC1’s employee an average of 1 minute to check in and log the formation of each lone worker. (We have to include for quick chats, dropped calls, and waiting whilst the operator is on another call.) Each check-in or check out takes a further 1 minute to log. Assuming check-in every two hours between 9 and 5, based on 10 lone workers it will take the office based staff member 60 minutes a day. Or 5 hours per week.
If we assume 4 weeks holiday (without any kind of staff cover) that’s 48 weeks a year X 5 hours = 240 hours. If we assume SC1s employee is played £8 an hour. 240 X £8 = £1,920
Summary Company 1
LONEALERT price for 10 users is £831.99 per year.
The immediate saving is £1,088.40.
Scenario Company 2
This second company (SC2) are larger and have to look after 50 lone workers a day. SC2 also use a member of staff on a switchboard to monitor their staff members. This staff member has all the same responsibilities as SC1’s employee, with more possibility of human error due to higher work load.
Scenario Company 2 Costs
As this line is busier, the staff member is more prompt with checking lone workers in. We assume an average of 30 seconds per check in.
The check in period is again 2 hours, so 9am, 10am, noon, 2pm, 4pm and check out at 5pm is 6 conversations a day, or 3 minutes on the phone (for both office worker and lone worker). This equates to 3 minutes x 50 staff per day = 2.5 hours a day. Or 12.5 hours a week.
If we again assume 4 weeks holiday (without any kind of protection) that’s 48 weeks a year X 12.5 hours = 600 hours per year. Assuming SC2 also pays this employee £8 an hour the annual cost is £4,800 per year.
Summary Company 2
LONEALERT price for 50 users is £4,095.
The immediate saving is £705.
Other Considerations
In addition, the LONEALERT system is in operation 24/7 – not just office hours. It does not go to the toilet, the coffee machine or phone in sick. It can deal with more than one lone worker at once and does not lose track of time.
If it only takes a lone worker 10 seconds to check-in to LONEALERT rather than 30 seconds in the scenario’s, this saving in productivity in the field is also large.
LONEALERT also creates a full log of all events for use in an audit or as evidence and this log is created automatically and accessible from the website – rather than only being available in the office.
One final benefit is that this cost saving means the office based employee has 240 hours extra a year, or put another way, 34 working days to be spent productively, rather than monitoring lone workers.
