01 May 2018

The app offers a range of functions including a panic button. If an employee fails to check in, alerts are automatically triggered.

Aspire Housing is using a smartphone app to monitor the safety of its lone workers when visiting potentially dangerous neighbourhoods. 

The Staffordshire-based housing association has 8,500 properties across Newcastle-under-Lyme, Stoke-on-Trent, Stafford and Cheshire.

The firm has replaced dedicated safety devices with the StaySafe app as it wanted a more up-to-date solution that employees could access via their smartphones, which they already carry every day. 

StaySafe also features a cloud-based monitoring service that tracks a lone workers’ locations on a real-time map, and alerts their manager if they do not check-in within a specified time.

The app works on iOS and Android, and offers a range of functions including a panic button, working session expiry and low battery warnings, GPS tracking, inactivity and duress alerts.

If an employee activates the app’s panic button or fails to check in, alerts are automatically triggered on screen and via text and email, enabling Aspire to take immediate action.

StaySafe CEO Don Cameron says: “Employees in the housing and property sectors can be extremely vulnerable as they are required to visit building sites and empty properties, carry out maintenance work and meet with buyers and tenants, often by themselves. Lone workers can be seen as an easy target – in fact research has shown that in the UK an assault occurs every 35 working minutes.”