Flying solo – why are we still doing it?

By Julian Harris, Director Managed Services

It’s a big old place, is Queensland.

Not far off 2 million square kilometres – or roughly 23 Scotlands, 740 Luxembourgs or 5,854 Maltas. Malta has about 1,400 people per square kilometre, whereas Queensland has about three, so that’s a decent sized coooee! between people.

So yeah, pretty big. But we knew that, right, so what?

You are right, so what.

It’s big and dangerous and so we take precautions. Big 4WDs with spare wheels. Often two spare wheels. Long range tanks, recovery gear, good insurance and loads of Queenslander experience.

We are Queenslanders and we don’t worry about it, that’s just what we do, right?

Maybe we should worry about it a bit more. As councils, we send our officers out at all times of the day and night, every night, rain or shine, to respond to problems. They go and make things safe for others, they plan and deploy fixes and repairs and make things better for our communities.

And they very often fly solo, with no offsider, no one sitting shotgun, just them – all alone.

Of course, we take safety very seriously and reinforce good safe practices. Increasingly, we also have vehicle or personal tracking devices. If something were to happen when these guys were out there on their own, help will come a-running at the push of a button.

Won’t it?

Well, we invested heavily in the vehicles, in the safety training, modern mobile phones and tracking devices so, yeah, help will come.

Won’t it? 

Here’s the thing. The best trackers in the world are useless unless someone is there, ready and waiting, to hear the cry for help; ready to set to work and despatch assistance and rescue our lone workers. 

So, here is the question: who is there for you? Who is waiting for that alarm from one of your people – that alarm that everyone hopes never comes? But it might come. Something might happen and that means someone needs to be there, waiting and waiting. In the morning, in the evening, on Christmas Day or New Year’s Eve, on weekends, in the darkest hours of the night. Today and tonight, tomorrow and tomorrow night, every day and every night. Twenty-four seven. 

“No worries,” you say, “our HR manager or crew supervisor has it covered”. Do they? Are they there, waiting, 24/7? You know the truth is no, they are not: it is simply not possible.

Anyone who can read a clock can see that there are 24 hours in a day and seven days in a week, and in order to really be there 24/7 would take a small army of people. Without a proper solution in place, it is a disaster waiting to happen. 

Do you want to know what the kicker is?

Loose change – pennies – is all it takes to have that proper solution in place. All that money spent on the vehicles, the mobile phones, the safety training, the PPE, the tracking devices… but what’s missing is those few extra cents each day to make it all join together. 

Imagine the worst case happened. Afterwards there would be a review, looking for ways to improve and avoid a repeat. And the cost to implement the new solution – the one that should have been there from the start? Just pennies per day.  

Why, oh why, wasn’t it in place before? 

We can help you do the right thing and take care of your people. Peak 24/7 has been supporting smart Queensland councils since 2015 with its lone worker monitoring.

To find out how it can help protect your council and its frontline workers, contact Julian Harris on 0408 987 021 or jharris@wearepeak.com.au.