In an upcoming webinar, Peoplesafe are exploring the complexities security professionals face to ensure employee safety in a hybrid work model.

Can you explain more about Peoplesafe and the company’s core values?  

Peoplesafe is the largest provider of employee safety technology in the world. Our 24/7 service protects a company’s most valuable assets: its people – wherever they are and whenever they need it.  

Getting emergency help faster than 999 is our mission.

We deliver on this by answering SOS alarms in three seconds through our fully accredited control centre which has a direct line to police forces across the UK.

At our core, we believe that everyone deserves to feel safe and be safe, regardless of where they work or what they do.   

You have an upcoming webinar looking at the challenges faced by security professionals in a hybrid work environment. What made you choose this topic?  

Covid-19 irrevocably changed working patterns for people across the world. The traditional Monday – Friday, nine to five in an office environment has been replaced with flexible hours and hybrid working.  

As the modern workforce increasingly adopts hybrid models, where employees split their time between remote work and office presence, traditional security measures have become inadequate.

Conversations with our customers have highlighted the evolving difficulties in ensuring employee safety in hybrid work settings.  

We chose this topic to help organisations address the combined risks of the hybrid work environment and ensure they can continue to meet their legal and moral duty of care obligations, even when employees are dispersed across various locations.  

What makes Peoplesafe best placed to discuss this topic and why is it relevant at the moment?  

Peoplesafe has been at the forefront of personal safety for over 20 years.

Throughout this time, we have gathered extensive experience of the risks workers face daily and helped employers to respond effectively to mitigate hazards and improve safety.  

Having conducted the largest piece of research into worker personal safety, we discovered that 21% of employees have personal safety concerns at least once a week.  

Extrapolated out to the UK workforce, that’s a total of 6.8 million people.

These safety worries are impacting the economy with nearly one in four employees stating that they left a job due to a safety concern or negative experience in the past five years.  

As we’ve seen in the last 12 months – just focusing on the UK – society is in a volatile state with civil unrest throughout the country, rising levels of staff abuse and shocking statistics around violence towards women and girls.  

Personal safety is always a relevant topic, but an organisation’s duty of care towards its employees is becoming more complicated in a hybrid environment.

The lines between work and personal life are increasingly blurred, raising the question of where this responsibility for safety ends.  

Can you tell me who you have chosen to lead the webinar and why?  

We have chosen Colin Cargill, Sales Manager at Peoplesafe, to lead this webinar.

Cargill is an expert with over 25 years of experience in deploying solution services across both the enterprise and public sectors.  

His background in telecommunications and his current role at Peoplesafe, where he is part of the team pioneering technology solutions for personal safety, make him an authority on the subject.  

Cargill’s extensive experience in various sectors has given him a deep understanding of the challenges organisations face in protecting their employees.  

He has worked with numerous organisations to solve their safety challenges through technology, giving him practical insights for organisations looking to address their own safety challenges with technology.   

What will attendees learn from the webinar?  

Attendees will gain a deeper understanding of the new security challenges posed by hybrid work environments, along with practical strategies to address these risks.   

We’ll discuss personal safety for employees in an environment of increasing volatility and uncertainty, highlighting common fears and concerns that employers can help to address.  

We’ll explore the complexities of ensuring employee safety in a hybrid work model while maintaining and respecting boundaries.

Technology can often be viewed as a tool for monitoring output and productivity, so it’s important to understand how to communicate the benefits of new systems put in place and to explain why they are being implemented.  

Reporting is only as good as the data that’s available.

How would you, as a business, know who is affected when there is a security incident?  

If there’s no way to collect this information, particularly for staff working out of sight, you’re reliant on the incident being reported.  

Understand how to instigate a culture of awareness when contact is limited and interaction is via video conferencing.

Discover new strategies and tools for safeguarding your employees, whether they’re in the office, remote, or on the go.  

We’ll explore the moral responsibility organisations have in protecting their staff from abuse, aggression and violence – even outside of traditional working hours.

The session will also address the broader responsibilities of organisations in protecting their employees, including moral obligations that extend beyond traditional working hours and environments.  

How do you see the future of hybrid work evolving?  

Flexibility as the norm: As organisations continue to embrace hybrid models, flexibility will become a standard expectation.

Employees will have more control over where and how they work, which will necessitate a shift in how organisations manage security and safety.

77% of employees say flexible working is more important to them when considering a new role than a pay rise.  

Focus on Wellbeing: The line between work and personal life will continue to blur, leading to a greater focus on employee wellbeing and work-life balance.

Organisations will need to adopt a holistic approach to safety that includes not just physical protection but also mental and emotional wellbeing.  

Evolving Legal Responsibilities: As hybrid work becomes more widespread, we expect legal frameworks to be created to address the challenges it presents.

Organisations will need to stay ahead of these changes to ensure they are fulfilling their duty of care to employees.

The companies that succeed will be those that are proactive in adapting to these new realities and committed to fostering a culture of safety across their workforce.  

This article was originally published in the October Edition of Security Journal UK. To read your FREE digital edition, click here.