Staff safety and wellbeing have been impacted by drastic changes in recent years. The current geo-political landscape and higher intolerance levels from people has increased security concerns, while hybrid working has made it more difficult to ensure people’s safety.
That’s why we’ve seen different industries eager to work with us to improve their safety tech stacks, and why we’ve released a lot of new, innovative technology in the last three years.
Are we all ready for a post-pandemic era that has a markedly more volatile climate, with rising levels of abuse existing alongside a less tolerant society? Many aren’t, and they tend to react rather than plan to prevent.
Certain occupations are more vulnerable to workplace violence and abuse, with many employees feeling this is an inevitable part of their job. One industry where abuse is spiking is retail, where violence and abuse against shop workers continue to rise, increasing by 50% year-on-year to 2023.
Research we’ve conducted at Peoplesafe found that 21% of employees have personal safety concerns at least once a week.
Extrapolated out to the UK workforce, that’s 6.8 million people in total with the average worker thinking about their safety three times a month.
Feeling unsafe is not confined to the workplace. Employees are increasingly experiencing incidents outside of work hours, facing stalking and harassment after shifts and during commutes.
Personal safety technology is no longer a luxury. It has become a necessity to provide protection and offer peace of mind in an increasingly unpredictable world.
Technology has long been used to increase personal safety and provide peace of mind to users and their loved ones. Simple communication methods involving landlines, SMS and WhatsApp are common practices for confirming safety.
Building on these methods, mobile apps have made personal safety solutions even more accessible. The popularity of free personal safety apps in the UK has surged in recent years, especially among women and young people seeking accessible safety tools.
This trend can be attributed to factors such as heightened awareness of personal safety concerns, the ubiquity of smartphones, and the desire for convenient protection tools.
While free safety apps offer basic features and a foundational level of peace of mind, they often fall short when it comes to robust safety features needed in an emergency. Paid services, like Peoplesafe, provide more advanced functionalities and enhanced security measures.
As safety technology continues to evolve, it’s crucial for organisations to evaluate their safety needs and choose solutions that provide the appropriate level of protection for their workforce.
Keeping pace with the changes has meant that, as an industry, we’ve had to be quick to respond. Recent advancements in personal safety technology have transformed how organisations protect their workforce. Today, measures go beyond reactive safety processes; they require proactive strategies that focus on prevention, real-time response, and seamless integration with everyday operations.
A major driver of this shift is the growing need to protect employees beyond traditional working hours. In the past, an employer’s responsibility ended at the workplace doors, but the blurring of boundaries between work and personal life over recent years has reshaped employees’ expectations around duty of care.
Today, 51% of workers believe their employer has a duty of care to them outside of working hours, particularly during their commute—a time when many feel most vulnerable. Solutions like Travelsafe are addressing this need head-on, raising the standard for commuter safety.
We developed Travelsafe to address a critical gap in employee safety, recognising that travel is a source of fear and anxiety for many. By integrating real-time journey monitoring, welfare checks and instant access to professional support, we’ve created a tool that prioritises personal safety and provides peace of mind for employees, wherever they are.
As organisations increasingly adopt new technology, integration into existing systems is becoming essential. The rise of APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) is enabling personal safety technology to seamlessly integrate into workplace systems, making it a natural part of everyday business operations. At best, it means an organisation doesn’t need to roll out different apps or even systems and can manage everything from their current workforce management systems. This is our goal for the future of our partnerships with enterprise organisations.
Similarly, embedding safety tools into everyday wearables (e.g. smartwatches) means employees can access essential safety features that enhance their sense of security without the need for additional tools. This is why we’ve been working with Apple to create the first full-featured personal safety app to work on the Apple Watch.
There is never one blanket solution to a problem, and at Peoplesafe, we understand that to meet the ever-changing needs of our customers, we must continually evolve our technology to meet those needs.
Further advancements in personal safety technology will reshape how organisations protect their workforce and enhance employee wellbeing. These innovations will provide more efficient, integrated safety solutions, enabling businesses to address the complexities of modern work environments and meet the evolving needs of their employees.
We predict that personal safety technology will increasingly integrate with machine learning and AI to enhance proactive measures by identifying risk and hazard data patterns. Technology will also increasingly focus on worker wellbeing, not just safety, with developments to improve mental health.
It’s now time for organisations to review what technology they have in place and start planning for the unexpected. By making this step-change we move to a culture and society that is prepared and ready and not reflect on what is needed after an event has happened and people are hurt.
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