Duty of Care: Business Travel Safety

Duty of Care: Business Travel Safety

As a supplier of lone worker applications we were thinking about our own commuting to and from AXLR8 and business travel in general which is growing now in the UK as people in commerce are mostly back in the office. The employer has to take due care of workers. The law also stipulates1 that the staff must carry some responsibility for their own safety.

Every Monday morning we have our regular sales and management meetings. Yesterday, we added in a tyre check.

Lessons learned

  • Know what your pressures are. This will be in the glove compartment, door frame of door edge or in the owners manual. Failing that, try online and at a professional main dealer
  • Set an alarm every week (Sunday morning?) with you tyre pressures on it and the car. So Mine says Hyundai 36F&B and Toyota 33F 32B (B is back wheels and F is front wheels)
  • If you have a foot pump use that in the convenience of your home but check it monthly against the garage with a professional pump for peace of mind.
  • If you use a garage or supermarket petrol station please do not hog the machine and hold up the queue whist you take your valve caps off. Unscrew the caps whilst you wait in the queue. Then you will be able to pump your tyres up in less time and use less change in the machine. Once filled, immediately move your car forward a few yards to let the next person into the machine area to pump their tyres whilst you replace your caps. The quicker the queue, the less likely someone who joined it with the best of intentions will give up.
  • It is better to get you hands dirty than to have a crash.

Don’t forget oil, windscreen awash liquid, radiator, etc., as well!

Stay safe. Prepare for all trips and build in time to pause and allow others out of turnings and not have to speed. Planning is everything. Distractions are dangerous. If you get in a car tired and cause a crash, nobody will congratulate you on your work ethic.

1 If you are an employer or employee Health and Safety law needs professional advice. However, if you want to read up and acquire general knowledge, google The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and the Health and Safety at Work regulations 1999.

AXLR8 Checkpoints

AXLR8 Checkpoints

As well as many other forms of Proof of Attendance (Check in/ Check out) systems: Geolocation, continuous tracking, Intergation to leading biometric and other hardware such as Almas and Paxton, AXLR8 Checkpoints are proving themselves year after year in different locations.

We have some exciting new videos about the popular AXLR8Checkpoints product on our Specialist staffing website.

Click here to head over and check out the article.

Clear new AXLR8 Portal interfaces

Clear new AXLR8 Portal interfaces

AXLR8 has been spending the last three years updating and improving the AXLR8 User Experience (UX). Many parts of the system are now being systematically added and seamlessly replacing exisiting client systems.

Staffing Agencies

Field staffing apps have been evolving for a while and are now customised to your company and also have all the functionality you would expect from AXLR8’s comprehensive staffing agency systems.

Applicants for different job postings
AXLR8 Application Tracking System: effective recruitment metrics

The staffing systems internal HQ Admin wokflows are being improved, functon by function, starting with the recruitment team using AXLR8 applicant tracking systems.

Dashboards

AXLR8 Dashboards are built internally at clients with knowledgeable accredited AXLR8 Super Users now. They can be built and placed any where in the system but the most popular place is the opening page with a management overview.

AXLR8 Dashboards
AXLR8 Dashboards give a real time overview of business health

Finance

AXLR8 are growing in the commercial finance and loan management systems markets as a direct result of improving user interfaces.

AXLR8 LoanMatrix
AXLR8 Loan Management Systems

Government

AXLR8 is updating the Information Request Management and Information Asset Register systems in use across central and local government and NHS.

AXLR8 IAR
Information Asset Register keeps data sources inventory maintained

Apps

AXLR8 have been delivering Apps on all major operating environments for seeral years for our clients to replace and complement our web apps and web portals.

App Screens
Simple to use fault reporting and service logging app

The above maintenance app is a simple “see snap send” reporting mechanism as well as containing all the information requied for service, installation and other equipment management tasks for an engineer.

The comprehensive AXLR8 Staffing App is simpl for the staff member to use for shift information, work planning availability calendar, pay, expenses, field reporting and surveys (on and off line) updating personal details, Chat mechanism, proof of attendance and so much more. It is used by tens of thousands of staff every day.

Staff App Screens
Staffing App with client customised content and functionality

Please email sales@axlr8.com or call us about your business systems requirement 01344 776500

AXLR8 Checkpoints Rev 4

AXLR8 Checkpoints Rev 4

We are delighted with the field testing of revision 4.0 of this device following client feedback – mostly from the security and retail field marketing industries. More information on the dedicated AXLR8 Event Staffing website.

All weather

AXLR8 Checkpoints are weather resisitant even in a very rainy country like the UK. We will also test them in cold countries soon to see if they can get through minus 30 cold snaps in Canada or Scandanavia. Not sure we will bother testing at 10m under the sea – even if it would make a good picture! The AXLR8 Checkpoint would survive in high pressure salt water for around a year, we believe. We would need to research sealants for longer than that. However, if you had mobile guards or countercover staff down there, then the scanning device would also need military specification sealing. We think about these things so you don’t have to.

Surface Attachment

AXLR8CheckPointV4
AXLR8CheckPointV4

It seems that small seemingly insignificant changes are more expensive than you would imagine but also more satisfying for us when done. If your client does not allow you to attach your proof of attendance check in and check out devices on to the walls with screws (the original designs) then we have 100% back surface for adhesive or double sided tape or velcro. Too many options to list. The AXLR8 Checkpoints may be customer installed. Obviously, do a “patch test” on a single device first if you use glue with chemicals that may contain acids or other corrosive chemicals. This caveat applies to the client’s wall or other surfaces too, of course. Some of these devices are under counters and several are in cupboards.

No power or network cabling

These devices are passive and so they do not need electricity or any network cabling. Staff checking in, out or about, just need a BYOD device (reasonably up-to-date iPhone or Android device) which virtually all of your staff carry with them, anyway.

Low deployment costs

Live powered networked intelligent scanning devices are expnsive to install and maintain. Where you need an intelligent networked device internet and electric suply plus battery back up and plenty of local memory, the costs are normally £1000 minimum to purchase, install, wire up and connect to the net. They are then vulnerable to weather, power and internet interruption, vandalism, etc. So insurance and maintenance are necessary. They do help if you have hundreds of staff with swipe cards as the cost per staff check in is low. We have relationships with Paxton and Almas Industries if you need this sort of swipe/ biometric device installed and we keep up-to-date on new products on the market all the time. However, AXLR8 Checkpoints are around £150-£300 installed and maintenance is basically occasional replacement due to landlords or clients restrictions on adesion methods on their walls or other surfaces. There are also cheaper share survices where AXLR8 have identified, for example, that three countercover agencies and one security firm all have staff working at the same location and all need the same check in, out and about recording functionality when their staff are working.

AXLR8 Geofencing for Staff Attendance

AXLR8 have a proven reliable track record in the BYOD geo-location of staff using smartphones. However, geofencing has always been reserved for our asset tracking modules.
Now our staffing agency clients and others in construction, debt collection, and many other verticals want to be able to stop people checking in for work at remote locations unless they are actually there.
Unfortunately, there has always been a tiny minority of remote workers who check in on time but are actually a mile or more away from the place where they are being paid to provide a service. In a couple of cases, people have checked in for a work day at a retail outlet demonstrating products and it has been proven by the AXLR8 system they were still at home. Reputations take a long time to build in staffing agencies. Those guys wreck an agency’s hard earned reputation and they have nowhere to hide if they attempt to defraud an AXLR8 client using AXLR8 Proof of Location systems.
Please contact us for more details.

AXLR8 off line data collection

AXLR8 has been providing the tools for clients’ mobile workers to collect data using an online tablet or smart phone for around ten years.  The first ones ran on devices like the the Blackberry.

For example:

  • building surveys
  • health and safety audits
  • field marketing store visit reports
  • supplier audits
  • staff vetting workshops
  • local authority social sureys
  • consultation surveys
  • staff surveys

AXLR8 Clients collect tens of thousands of data items around the world, every minute, using this technology.

Surveys with no internet

However, customers still find that there are some places they must go where it is impossible or inconvenient to acquire an internet connection.  Places with unreliable or no internet connection include:

  • an agricultural setting
  • a basement or underground carpark
  • festival fields
  • on board ship
  • a shop or building that blocks or shields 4G and 3G
  • no data allowance for the period using  BYOD
  • a remote foreign location with no (secure) internet.

So a couple of years ago, AXLR8 created an app that allowed offline reporting.

You download the surveys/ report questions to your device before setting off at a point where you can use a WIFI connection.  Then you open the questionnaire and fill in the responses as you move around:  inspect the building or inteview the public or check merchandise levels – or whatever your field task is.  Following that field survey, when you return to the internet connection,  you can submit the saved survey and all the data and pictures/files/video are uploaded to the cloud.

From there, the usual functions are possible by you or by your trusty back office support staff: creating documents, presenting the data on AXLR8 designed client portals, extracting the data and writing analyses, etc.

Explainer animation: Click here

For more information, please call AXLR8 on  +44 1344 776500.