safety policy

How workplace culture shapes your working alone safety policy

Safety policy culture

How workplace culture shapes your working alone safety policy If you have employees who work solo or in isolation, it’s essential to have a working alone safety policy in place. This critical document sets out what is required from the employer, the managers, and the lone workers themselves, and outlines the risks associated with the …

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Top 10 Questions about Ok Alone

Here are the top 10 questions asked about Ok Alone. If your answer is not here, please check the FAQs or email us at info@okalone.net 

here are two kinds of people who use Ok Alone. Workers, who are the lone workers that require monitoring in case of an emergency. Workers use the app, a phone call or sms message to communicate with the Ok Alone system. Monitors are the people who receive alerts when a worker has missed a check-in or requests help. Monitors use a secure website to see information about workers, update worker information and control the system. Workers do not have access to the secure website. Monitors do not use the app.

The check-in process is simple. As the Monitor, let’s say you set the check-in frequency at 2 hours. When your Worker hits ‘Start Shift’ on the app or by calling or texting Ok Alone, the countdown timer begins counting down from 2 hours. If the Worker checks in before the timer expires, the clock starts counting down from 2 hours again. If they don’t, they are sent ‘Check-in Reminders’ which you specify. If the Worker doesn’t respond to the ‘Check-in Reminders, the Monitor is then alerted via email by default (text/call alert can be added too).

Live monitoring is an optional service. Rather than responding to missed check-ins and help requests yourself, you can let our 24/7 call centre do it for you. Live monitoring has a real person follow-up each time a check-in is missed.

The primary difference is the Ok Alone team follows up on missed check-ins so that you don’t have to. A classic example would be if you operate a night shift and none of your daytime managers are available to respond at 2am. The Ok Alone call centre does that for you.

For each sms or phonecall that is received or sent by Ok Alone, we get charged a fee by the telecom company. Ok Alone sells you credits to cover this cost. One credit covers one sms or one phone call.

Ok Alone uses automated phone calls and sms messages to efficiently communicate with the main system. Typical examples of when this happens include a worker using a text message to check-in, Ok Alone making an automated phone call to a worker who’s late for a check-in to remind them to do so or a monitor being sent an sms alerting them to a help request. As part of your basic Ok Alone subscription, you get 25 credits. If you need more than that, there is a small fee. Please note, Ok Alone will not stop sending or receiving messages if you go over your paid for credits. This could put your workers at potential risk, for example if a monitor was not sent an alert message due to a lack of credits. Your safety is our first priority. We will worry about the invoicing afterwards.

Each worker can be sent multiple sms or automated phone calls to remind them to check-in. How many and for how long is determined by you. You set this individually in each worker’s profile. The reminder is optional and in your control.

No. A worker’s location is only captured when the Worker is working (i.e. after they start their shift). When their shift ends, so does the tracking, even if they stay logged into the app like most people do. Equally, if tracking is not a business requirement, the Worker can turn it off by going to the setting section in the app.

Yes, each Worker’s profile has a setting for sending “Start Shift” reminders either by email or sms.

The "One Person" mode is designed for independent contractors who visit various locations. For example, a speech therapist who travels to her clients homes. In these cases, there is no "office" or "line manager" to monitor them. So Ok Alone allows for family and friends to be contacted in case of an emergency.