Mobile Phone Safety

Occupational health and safety extends to the use of mobile phones. The cell phone is a big part of life for all of us now and it has become a key business tool. Employers should take an active role ensuring that workers who are required to use mobile phones as part of their day to day job use them safely 

Here are five policy tips to put into action for your employees who work remotely and use the mobile phone most regularly:

1. Hands-free Only – Provide an employee who works from their car regularly a hands free device such as a bluetooth solution. Hands free will not be a guarantee of safety but will significantly reduce distractions while driving.
2. Its the employees responsibility – Ensure you make any employee who works remotely responsible for their own traffic fines and violations. Don’t step in and save the day for the employee because you feel guilty. If they followed your instructions we would not be talking about a fine at all so this is the lesson to be learned.
3. Safety Training for all drivers – Don’t skimp here. If your employee is on the road every day this is a great investment for many reasons. Most driver courses cover the dramatic and often tragic results of drivers inattention due to the distracton of mobile phones. It gets the employees attention and many times the course provides tips and skills to avoid becoming a  statistic.
4. Install an Answering service – Sounds simple but if you give remote workers the technical ability to have calls answered for them or forwarded to a message service you are dramatically reducing the chances of them being involved in an accident due to mobile phone distractions while driving.
5. Standard warnings in company cars – Put notices in all company vehicles reminding employee drivers explaining the company policy on mobile phone useage while driving. Make sure you add tactic advice if they find themselves in a position where they do take a call in teh car. This might be to pull the car over first and then continue with the call, or to pass the phone to a passenger in the car if one is present.