Happy World Day for Health and Safety at Work!
It’s a notable international day that we rarely pay much attention to. Funny how we make a big deal about days like Valentine鈥檚 (where we鈥檙e technically the martyrdom of two guys named Valentine who were executed by the Romans) and Halloween (which began with us honouring the ), while we bypass awareness-raising days around topics that impact our everyday lives.
In the construction industry, health and safety at work can make the immediate difference between a satisfying day on the job and a serious, life-threatening injury. We all want to avoid the latter. After all, that’s why we have a day for health and safety at work. So here are three tech innovations with the potential to make a meaningful difference in terms of occupational safety for all of us in the construction industry.
1. The DEWALT MD501, a Rugged Android Smartphone
In addition to being a lifesaver in terms of saving money on phones getting broken on-site, offers:
- Dust protection
- The ability to be safely submerged in water (and dropped from a two-meter height)
- Five-inch Bright View Gorilla Toughened Glass
The phone also has a pre-installed lone worker protection app, which uses a GPS function to provide the worker鈥檚 exact location to a colleague or manager when activated. Additionally, a side-mounted function button can be programmed to make push-to-talk calls, allowing one-to-one or one-to-many communication during emergencies. Workers can also set an accelerometer, which triggers an alarm when the user suffers a fall. Overall, people working in harsh or precarious conditions may want to opt for the MD501 the next time they鈥檙e looking for a new mobile phone.
2. Starling Minds
Let鈥檚 be honest. Occupational health and safety isn鈥檛 just about staying in-tact physically. People across all industries need to be mindful of their mental health, and it鈥檚 high time we started discussing this in the construction industry. Being in a difficult headspace on-site can have physical consequences for construction work, whether you鈥檙e operating heavy machinery or just needing to communicate efficiently with team members to get a job done right.
is an online preventative mental health program that helps workers in construction and elsewhere manage stress-related issues like depression and anxiety. It allows workers to do some basic assessments and tracking around their mental health, train using evidence-based cognitive behavioral tools, and learn more about how the mind works. While it shouldn鈥檛 be a substitution for getting help from a professional in times of crisis, it can be a helpful tool to add to the mix.
3. Faber鈥檚 Online Profile of Health Considerations
Several months after we here at launched our platform, we did some research into what businesses in the construction sector were doing to have health documentation ready and available in times of emergencies. Spoiler alert: not much.
In British Columbia, Canada, where Faber was founded, it鈥檚 illegal to refuse to hire a worker (or to give them less work than their peers) based on their health conditions, as long as accommodations can be made that don鈥檛 put an overwhelming burden on the employer. This means that in some cases, site managers need to know about a worker鈥檚 health conditions to accommodate them properly. At the same time, we鈥檙e all entitled to a degree of privacy around our personal health.
Some companies tried to address both of these issues by requiring workers to wear a sticker on their hard hat, which would indicate their health condition to a manager in emergency situations. Here鈥檚 the problem: it鈥檚 not just managers that can see a sticker on your hard hat. Your entire team can see it, too. At Faber, we thought there had to be a more private and effective solution. That鈥檚 why our platform allows contractors to pull up workers鈥 relevant health and safety information with the tap of a finger in times of emergency, without requiring workers to 鈥渙ut鈥 their conditions to other team members.
Do you have a health and safety tech innovation that you鈥檙e excited about? . Connect with us on Twitter or on Instagram .
