Lone worker protection and fallback communication combined: How to remain capable of acting in crises

Lone worker protection – duty and responsibility

While major incidents attract public attention, another aspect often takes place in the background: the protection of employees who are traveling alone. 

In the energy sector, this is particularly applicable to fault clearance teams that inspect lines, check house connections, or work in high-risk areas. 

According to the German union IG Metall, almost a fifth of all employees work alone at times – a risk that the legislator has explicitly addressed:

The German accident prevention regulation “Principles of Prevention” (§ 25 BGV/GUV-V A1) obliges employers to ensure the safety of lone workers. This means that systems must be in place that can raise the alarm immediately in an emergency, transmit locations, and activate help chains. 

Teamwire supports exactly that. Our solution enables alarms, automatic location transmission, and the integration of escalation chains, allowing control centers or on-call services to respond immediately.

For employees, this means added security. For the organization, a reliable system that also creates legal certainty.

“Our IT department uses Teamwire’s broadcast function to quickly and specifically point out worst-case scenarios or current system failures. This means that all colleagues are informed immediately and misunderstandings are avoided.”

Claudia Arepev – IT Administrator, Wahl Group

You may also be interested in: Case Study Wahl Group: More than 400 employees communicate efficiently and GDPR-compliant – centrally via mobile device management

Fail-safe communication with Teamwire = alerting + real-time messaging

The decisive advantage of Teamwire lies in the combination of alerting mechanisms with a highly secure, reliable communication channel. 

Alarm messages reach all relevant people immediately, even if their devices are set to silent. Critical alarms and a panic button also allow automatic location transmission.

At the same time, the tool offers the possibility to share specific information with groups or via broadcast, to convey color-coded status messages for announcements and notes, and to highlight particular information or request feedback.

In the event of a malfunction, this protects employees on-site and ensures business continuity.

Push-to-talk facilitates quick coordination between teams. Live location and simple map functions create transparency about the situation in the network area. Video conferencing and augmented reality allow critical questions to be clarified directly. 

And because Teamwire is developed and hosted in Germany, all data remains sovereign, protected, and GDPR-compliant at all times. This is because our company and the servers of our partner IONOS are ISO 27001-certified and BSI C5-certified.

For these industries, fallback communication and lone worker protection are crucial

Practical experience shows that companies in critical industries, in particular, need communication systems that function reliably even under the most adverse conditions. A damaged substation, a large-scale power outage, extreme weather events such as flooding, and bomb disposal, among other factors, put people and networks under pressure. 

Employees need to be informed, protected, and coordinated – in real-time. Fallback communication and lone worker protection are therefore particularly relevant, for example, for

• Energy suppliers and municipal utilities: Fault clearance teams must also be reliably alerted and coordinated in the event of power outages and grid failures.
• Municipal services: Employees in building yards, wastewater companies, or social services are often out and about alone and must be reliably reachable.
• Public safety and authorities: Emergency services in the field require a communication solution that can operate even in the event of IT failures.
• Care and healthcare: Mobile care workers need security when they are out alone in private households.

“Teamwire enables us to communicate quickly, securely, and flexibly – both on a day-to-day basis and during extraordinary events such as bomb disposal or major events. We are particularly impressed by the intuitive operation, which can also be used by colleagues in pressurized situations.”

Ben Viethen, City of Kleve – Digitization

You may also be interested in: Case Study City of Kleve: Fast and secure communication in everyday life or during extraordinary events like bomb disposal or major events.

Conclusion: not a “nice to have”, but an essential part of everyday life

Resilience and fallback communication are more than just a “plan B”. They are a crucial building block for resilience, occupational safety, and business continuity, and go hand in hand: only if communication is also ensured in the event of a crisis, organizations will remain capable of acting, and employees will be protected.

Try Teamwire for free and discover how you can make your organization fail-safe.

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Our case studies, featuring real-world examples from critical infrastructure, public authorities, public safety, and the healthcare sector, provide additional insights.

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FAQ: Frequently asked questions about lone worker protection and fallback communication