Check call systems –is “checking in” enough to keep your staff safe?

“Check-Call” or “Check-in” systems are some of the simplest ways of monitoring staff safety. 

A check-call usually involves a team leader calling their staff periodically (say every hour) to check that they’re safe. Alternatively, it can go the other way; with staff checking in with their supervisors at allotted times.

How can “check calls” help keep staff safe?

Regular communication between workers and their managers is important. This is quite simple when workers and managers work in the same office. When staff work remotely, however, communication and supervision can be more difficult –particularly if they work alone.

So why is checking in on remote staff important? While all roles have risks (such as working at height, on uneven ground, or in clients’ homes), working remotely, can make those risks worse.

This is because working remotely or working alone can reduce oversight and make communication more difficult.

For those that work in these higher-risk roles, periodic check calls can provide a simple and cheap method for checking in with staff while they’re out and about. 

Unfortunately, check calls and check-in systems do come with downsides, which we’ll look into in the next section.

The problems with check calls

Time management

There are a number of problems with check call systems. The first problem is how much time it uses. 

Take a manager who decides they will check in with their remote workers once an hour. If a manager supervises a team of 12, and each call takes five minutes, these calls will take up every minute of the manager’s day. What’s more, it is taking up the workers’ time as well. That means that two work days’ of productivity will be lost!

This same problem is true if the roles are flipped. If the workers are required to call and check in with their supervisors, the company is still losing the same amount of productivity. 

What’s worse, however, is that the manager may find it harder to keep track of who’s checked in, and who needs to be reached out to. This can become a logistical nightmare. 

Unsociable hours

Adding to the logistical difficulties listed above, are the challenges of managing unsociable hours. We’ve already discussed how much time regular safety checks can take up, but this can be made even more difficult when your team works varied and/or unsociable hours. 

For teams that work “night shifts” (agriculture, care, emergency services, utilities, among others), having people in place to supervise remote and lone workers around the clock can be a daunting (and expensive) task.

Lack of information

Another problem with check calls or check-in systems is that they don’t provide a lot of information. If the call goes through, of course, the worker can talk through what they’re doing and how they’re getting on but, if they don’t, the manager only knows that the worker didn’t answer their phone.

In fact, there could be a myriad of reasons that a call check is not answered. Maybe the user was busy or didn’t hear the call, maybe they’re out of signal, or maybe they’re injured or under threat. This ambiguity can be stressful to say the least. 

Moreover, if a check call doesn’t go through, it can be hard to piece together the reason. Our imagined manager doesn’t necessarily know where their staff member is, what they were working on, or what their situation is. 

If the manager knew the staff member was in a meeting, they might wait until the worker was finished. If the manager could see the worker’s location, they might see the worker is driving and unable to take calls. If the manager could see the worker’s phone data, they might see that the worker is in an area of “no signal”. All this information can help a manager make an informed decision about their staff’s safety.

Interruptions

As we all know, staff tend to be at their best when they can crack on with their jobs. This doesn’t mean that checking in isn’t important or beneficial, but it does mean that interruptions should be taken seriously.

Whether it’s a business meeting, a big sale opportunity, a really meaningful visit to a client, or just a particularly important or fiddly task that requires full focus… Sometimes, workers just don’t want to be interrupted.

With that in mind, check-in systems –no matter how infrequent or well-meaning– can cause real damage to a team’s productivity.

Good supervision and communication are vital to a happy, healthy and safe workforce (not to mention one that meets legal standards), but it has to be built on a system that works for staff and management alike!

How to make check calls and check-in systems safer and more effective

We’ve taken some time to talk about the problems of check call and check-in systems, but how can we make them better? How can we solve the interruptive and time-consuming nature of check calls, while actually improving safety?

Paper Trail

One of the first ways to improve your call check system may be to build a paper trail. Knowing where your staff are and what they’re working on can help you make more informed decisions about their safety.

There are a number of ways this could work. You may want to use a shared calendar, or other timekeeping software, where remote staff can let their managers or colleagues know where they are and what they’re doing. 

If a staff member is visiting a client, for instance, ask them to note on a calendar when and where they’re travelling, how long they’ll be at the location, and who will be there. 

Of course, this is far from a complete solution. If a manager is wondering why someone never got to their destination, they may know the time they set off, and where they were going, but not where they ended up, or what went wrong.

By the end of this article, we’ll show you how we can resolve all these problems in one place.

Text and email check-ins

Texts and emails are two common low-fi methods for checking in throughout the day. Unfortunately, when used on their own, they are not great methods of protecting safety. This is because they have all the same ‘lack of information’ problems of check calls, while also being very easy to miss. 

However, when paired with check-in calls, texts can provide managers with more context. They can show when a meeting is about to start or finish, or when someone has arrived at their destination (to use our two examples from earlier).

Problems that are hard to solve with call check or check-in systems

When combined with a calendar, texts can make it clear when a staff member is free to chat. This doesn’t, however, relieve any pressure on the manager who has to handle all these calendar updates, texts and calls.

It is also worth noting that there is still a lot of vital safety information that is not provided with the solutions above –managers still don’t really know where their staff are, what they’re doing or what their safety status looks like.

And finally, text and calendar updates still require staff to set them up, and managers to supervise them. That requires managers to be available whenever their team are working, in order to check through messages and make check-up calls.

A better alternative to call check systems

Safepoint has looked at all the pros and cons of call check systems and has built a simple, effective, all-in-one system for supervising your team while they’re out and about.

With Safepoint, your workers simply create a task on their phone –such as, “Visiting Mr Peters – 2 hours”. As soon as that task is created, their live location, task status, battery and signal levels, and more are shared with your chosen managers.

Managers can then see where their staff are, what they’re working on, and when they’ll be done. They’ll also be notified if anything goes wrong –including if staff fail to check in as safe before their task ends.

Emergency alerts can also be triggered manually through the phone or one of Safepoint’s wearable devices, or automatically if Safepoint detects they’ve taken a fall. This means you don’t have to wait until check-in time to find out if something goes wrong.

Dedicated remote worker monitoring

You may be asking whether, with Safepoint, you will still have to monitor your staff in-house (with all the time and cost implications that brings).

The answer is a resounding “no”. With Safepoint’s GuardianPlus monitoring system, your staff are monitored 24/7.

If, for any reason, an alert is sent out (such as a worker forgetting to check in) Safepoint’s fully accredited GuardianPlus team will call and check up on your staff for you. 

What’s more, if they can’t get through, Safepoint’s staff will inform the worker’s supervisors. In the most drastic cases, the GuardanPlus team are even signed off to notify and work with the emergency services.

And finally, with GuardianPlus you still get access to all of Safepoint’s functionality. So you can see your team in one place, check up on how everyone is doing, and then get on with your day knowing that your staff are being watched over around the clock.

The sum-up

Checking in on your remote staff is great as part of a larger strategy of protection. However, it is just far too cumbersome for high-risk roles. What’s more, for many lone working roles check calls may be legally and practically insufficient as a safeguard against serious injury.

If you are going to rely on a phone-based call check or check-in system, it’s important to add in extra safeguards, such as a calendar system and regular texts or emails. Even then, these methods don’t provide nearly enough information for managers to make informed decisions. Moreover, handling these systems in-house can burden managers with vast amounts of admin.

Using Safetpoint, instead, provides a quick and easy-to-use system for staff to share their tasks with their managers, while also providing emergency alert functionality and 24/7 dedicated monitoring.

In this way, Safepoint makes monitoring and organising your team easier, and can really free up your managers’ time. And if you do like to check in your staff, Safepoint can even help you plan out your calls, by showing what your team are working on and when they’ll be done. 

Most importantly, if your team are injured or threatened, Safepoint’s manual and automatic alarms can speed up the response.

If you want to speak about moving away from manual call check systems, and on to Safepoint’s award-winning staff safety platform, you can book a live demo, or you can try it for free.