Wearables and Risk Management for the Workplace
Wearable tech is getting smaller and smarter, making Internet of Things (IoT) more cost effective and accessible, both for consumers and the enterprise. There’s been an explosive growth of health and safety wearables with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Just as the smartphone introduced us to the world of apps and how they can impact and help our lives, wearables have the potential to do the same thing. Because of the broad capabilities of sensors to measure and monitor, they have the potential to help prevent injuries and other exposures to risk in the workplace.
Wearables for Workplace Safety
One promising area in the development of wearables is their emerging use to alert workers of exposure to the Coronavirus. At manufacturing facilities and construction job sites, wearable technology has the potential to improve safety. In a situation where workers job function required them to be within 6ft of another worker, the use of wearables with proximity sensors can help mitigate this risk. These wearables are designed to monitor how close a worker is to the another worker and provide an alert to both users. These alerts are logged and employers can look back at interaction data between user to quickly make accurate decision in who is most at risk to a potential spread.
Learning from the Data
While providing another layer of protection against possible risk in the workplace, these devices can do more than alert the users. Wearables can collect information, and have the potential to provide useful feedback from risk heavy areas within the workplace or other workers.
When a worker test positive or has coronavirus symptoms the wearable’s interaction data proves to be very important to the employer. This presents the opportunity to develop and present safety lessons learned from this technology to help avoid accidents, in addition to the safety features of the wearable, like proximity sensors.
Potential Privacy and Health Risks
As employers explore the potential safety benefits of wearables in the workplace, they are also weighing possible risks. For example, wearables can help employers understand where employees are located through GPS technology, but what are the privacy concerns? What about devices that record data about the health of an employee?
Employee morale is another possible concern, if workers are apprehensive about potential negative consequences related to data collected about their activities. Other risks, including potential health risks of wearable technology or the prospect of data being hacked, may not be immediately known in the short term. Examples include employees becoming over-dependent on the wearable, or wearing a device incorrectly.
To address risks related to wearable technology, employers can take steps to carefully integrate wearables into the workplace. For the devices to be most effective, a training program can help workers understand the proper use of wearables and help maximize their potential safety benefits. Network security measures can be employed to help safeguard sensitive data.
At Proxfinity, data privacy and protection is most important to us. Reach out to us today a learn how our wearable smart badge, ResCUE can keep your workers safe.