Staff Guardian

Company expenses, and company cars have always been part of business.   But in this more challenging financial climate where every expense has to be scrutinised, this is an area that has the ability to yield considerable savings.

Staff Guardian has been looking at all aspects of business to identify areas of potential saving and have come up with a tracking device that can keep tabs on business mileage.  We are not suggesting that you use this as away of checking up on your staff, but we have all done it, forgotten to set the milometer at the beginning of the journey.   So what? I hear you say, what is a couple of miles here or there?  Well you might be surprised to learn that if you employ 50 staff, claiming 40p per mile, an over calculation of 2 miles per day actually represents £10,400 over a year!

Some sectors of business are already using this type of monitoring for accuracy and saving.  The Royal Mail use a system that one of their managers told me has saved thousands and given very useful insight into more efficient working, more cost effective routing and the ability to identify problem areas on delivery rounds.

Even if your business is on a smaller scale than the Royal Mail, Staff Guardian can offer you the most efficient use of your company resources and can also allow you to reassure clients that with your Staff Guardian technology their billing will be accurate and time measurement and billing indisputable.

These are critical financial times and any cost saving measure that we can employ will give us the best chance to prosper.  Staff Guardian have business in mind and solutions at heart and can tailor technology to precisely meet your requirements.  Whatever the size of your company, let us help you develop the best and most efficient working template.

It’s a familiar sight, the ‘For Sale’ board outside a property and a couple of cars in the drive as the Estate Agent shows an interested buyer around.  Nothing very unusual there you might say, and certainly no particular risk, surely?  Well think back to  July 1986 when 25 year old estate agent, Suzy Lamplugh set out from her office in Fulham, London, to show a client around a house.   What happened after that is not known but Suzy disappeared and has never been found.

It is perhaps the last place that you would expect an employee to be at risk but there are several considerations that make this a real concern.

• Violent and random crime appears more of a threat
• Specifics of the homes visited are often unknown to either the agent or the potential buyer
• The possibility of walking into a potentially dangerous situation

I recently moved home and made all the arrangements to view my new home over the phone.   The young lady who came to show me around a very remote country property would have been completely helpless if I had been intent on harming her.  An attack during such a seemingly mundane and harmless activity is so unexpected that makes the situation even more of a potential risk.  An Estate agent is not expecting trouble so they will be off guard, concentrating on the details of the property they are about to show,   Add to that the fact that any animal that lives at the visited property may take great exception to this invasion of its territory and you have an accident waiting to happen.

Many estate agents report feeling threatened by clients or have actually been attacked by the family dog, especially if a viewing takes place while the property owner is at work.   Anyone who plans an attack or abduction, such as the one on Suzy Lamplugh has the perfect place in which to operate.

No-one gives the  estate agent showing a house a second look, and even although a nosy neighbour might be interest to see what their prospective new next door neighbour looks like, it would not take much to arrange to see a house at a quite time or disguised in some way.    The risk to estate agency staff or to any staff who have to leave the office to meet with members of the public alone,  is a real one and a risk that employers need to face.

We have recently launched Staff Guardian that is designed to help public and third sector organisations to protect their staff and minimise the risk of attacks and violence being inflicted on them by clients.

Staff Guardian is a web based service, which allows managers and supervisors to monitor the status and location of every employee – when they arrive for home visits, and when they leave safely, without incident.

It truly is a safety net for those vulnerable employees who often work alone in potentially dangerous environments.

If you want to hear more about how our new web service can help your organisation to develop a safer environment for your employees, please get in touch on 0844 811 2380, email contact@staffguardian.com or visit www.StaffGuardian.com.

If, before reading the title of this blog, you were asked to list five dangerous professions, what would you have said?

Fire-fighter?
Armed forces?
Roofer?
Lumberjack?
Police officer?

I would be highly surprised if you placed ‘social worker’ in this list. When, in fact, social work is one of the most hazardous occupations in the world – as any social worker will tell you.

Over the years, hundreds of social workers have been attacked, beaten, stabbed, and even killed by their clients whilst making home visits and going about their daily business.

In particular, there have been many cases where social workers have been attacked and killed by psychiatric patients. Philip Ellison was one such victim. Mr Ellison was repeatedly stabbed, twice in the heart, and killed when he visited the home of 52-year-old Robert Searle, who suffered from a severe depressive illness.

Other cases include Jenny Morrison, killed from over 100 stab wounds inflicted by a mental health patient who believed he was the ‘son of god’, and Gareth Dafydd, stabbed twice in the chest by voluntary mental health home patient Derek Wagg.

All of the above cases occurred when the social workers were working alone.

Other social workers have even been attacked by abusive parents and children during home visits.

Sadly, however, social work receives little to no sympathy from the press. Cases like these above have experienced little coverage, whilst the press have been quick to capitalise on issues such as the Baby P case – giving social workers somewhat of a bad name when in fact the majority of social workers are undeniably brave, courageous people who put themselves in the face of danger in pursuit of helping other people.

Now, at this point you may be wondering why an IT-related blog is covering the hazards of social work – but hear me out.

Incidents like these have been occurring for years, with nobody sufficiently addressing the issue and putting procedures in place to prevent these incidents occurring again.

Until now.

We have recently developed launched Staff Guardian which is designed to help public and third sector organisations to protect their staff and minimise the risk of attacks and violence being inflicted on them by clients.

Staff Guardian is a web based service, which allows managers and supervisors to monitor the status and location of every employee – when they arrive for home visits, and when they leave safely, without incident.

It truly is a safety net for those vulnerable employees who often work alone in dangerous environments.

If you want to hear more about how our new web service can help your organisation to develop a safer environment for your employees, please get in touch on 0844 811 2380, email contact@staffguardian.com or visit www.StaffGuardian.com.