You Might be a Lone Worker and You Don't Even Know It

Cassidy Shield and Karin Marquez from RapidSOS sit down with Nick Brown, Director of Lone Worker Solutions at SafetyCulture, to explore the rapidly growing world of lone worker safety technology. Nick shares how his company evolved from building pizza delivery trackers to creating comprehensive safety solutions for the millions of workers who spend time alone every day.

The conversation covers the wide spectrum of lone worker scenarios, from home healthcare providers and real estate agents to retail employees and remote office workers. Nick explains the critical differences between mobile-first safety applications and physical panic button systems, plus how proper training reduces false alarms while ensuring genuine emergencies get rapid response. He also shares a compelling save story about a telehealth worker who suffered a medical emergency during a night shift and was rescued thanks to automated check-in protocols.

Key topics covered:

[00:00] Intro

[03:42] Defining Lone Worker Safety

[05:56] SafetyCulture Origin Story Pizza Delivery

[09:19] Early Adopters and Industry Use Cases

[11:01] Post-COVID Safety Awareness Shift

[16:24] Mobile vs Hardware Panic Solutions

[19:47] 911 Emergency Response Evolution

[24:52] Healthcare Worker Saves Life Story

[29:06] Bottom-Up Employee Safety Adoption

[32:04] Measuring Safety Incident Visibility

[36:22] Future Technology and Intelligence Features

This episode provides essential insights for any organization looking to protect workers who operate outside the immediate reach of colleagues or supervisors.

Transcript

Cassidy [0:00:15]: Welcome back everybody to The Safety Gap podcast on your Co-host Cassidy.

Cassidy [0:00:18]: I'm here with Karin.

Cassidy [0:00:19]: Karin, How are you doing today?

Cassidy [0:00:21]: You're good.

Cassidy [0:00:21]: Just refreshing.

Cassidy [0:00:22]: How's your day, Ben?

Cassidy [0:00:24]: Where have you been?

Karin [0:00:26]: Okay.

Karin [0:00:26]: So I'm not traveling today, and the background looks the same.

Karin [0:00:29]: So first of all, I had to change up the do for you all.

Karin [0:00:32]: So there had to be something different on this call, But Know it's today.

Cassidy [0:00:35]: I noticed that.

Cassidy [0:00:35]: I was gonna comment about that.

Cassidy [0:00:37]: Looks very nice.

Karin [0:00:38]: Thank you.

Karin [0:00:38]: Today, I had the pleasure of joining chief purpose and his handler Kelsey Jeff Come, which is Jefferson County Now I went out here in Colorado who this agency handled the unfortunate high school shooting last week.

Karin [0:00:53]: I will say for this agency, they...

Karin [0:00:56]: This area has handled...

Karin [0:00:58]: Think this was their third, high school shooting over the last many years, starting with C combine as we all remember over twenty years ago.

Karin [0:01:05]: So to be there and to take chief to just give support to these cell communicators who experienced a a horrific event, you know, be praying send our thoughts to the students that were injured in the family and of course, the responders as well who responded on that day.

Karin [0:01:20]: But giving just a little bit of light in such dark moment as a pleasure to do.

Karin [0:01:25]: So we thank all of our health communicators out there who do the important work and they're, literally the lifeline for folks that are in need in our field responders alike and end.

Karin [0:01:35]: Know we'll be talking about more safety stuff now, and there is still that tele communicator in the middle of all of this that is helping the human in need.

Cassidy [0:01:43]: Well, I appreciate you sharing that, Karin, and obviously, we visit everything else.

Cassidy [0:01:47]: So thank you.

Cassidy [0:01:48]: And with that, why don't we introduce our guests?

Cassidy [0:01:50]: Nick Brown, Nick, a director of loan worker solutions at SafetyCulture, Nick, Welcome to the show.

Nick [0:01:56]: Thanks very much for having me Karin and Cassidy.

Nick [0:01:57]: Great to be here.

Cassidy [0:01:59]: Yeah.

Cassidy [0:01:59]: I'm looking forward to this So what we do when we start these is we'd love to kinda just get a little bit background audio you.

Cassidy [0:02:05]: How did you get into the space of loan worker, safety culture, etcetera?

Cassidy [0:02:09]: And then I will open up a whole host of other questions we'll have for you nick.

Nick [0:02:13]: Yeah.

Nick [0:02:13]: Amazing.

Nick [0:02:13]: So I studied law at University, I worked in risk compliance throughout that time as well.

Nick [0:02:18]: So a pretty strong background in understanding that compliance was really a minimum standard of baseline for businesses to excel beyond.

Nick [0:02:25]: And so when I met, Hayes, the founder She, about five years ago now, it was incredibly refreshing to meet someone that had that similar sort of mindset.

Nick [0:02:33]: And so when I dug more into this idea of loan work, I didn't really understand what it was before meeting him I understood that it touched me, it members my family quite closely.

Nick [0:02:42]: My mom has worked in retail, she ran home shops for twenty years.

Nick [0:02:46]: And whilst you might be around people all the time, you can be completely alone with customers who are potentially aggressive, and we're saying that on the rise today.

Nick [0:02:54]: My my dad, he's worked in as a construction site manager for the last couple of years and prior to that he ran a a business where he went onto to the roofs of houses and cleaned out their gutter often working at heights often alone on sites.

Nick [0:03:06]: So, yeah know, there was this very personal meaning for me around this piece around loan worker.

Nick [0:03:11]: And so over the last five years, I've spent that time at She, and and then later on at SafetyCulture, where I now oversee, but a lot of those loan worker products across the two businesses.

Cassidy [0:03:21]: And for our audience, it'd be great if you could define what loan worker means to you.

Cassidy [0:03:26]: So the first time I heard this term was two years ago when I joined Rapid Sos, and I remember thinking.

Cassidy [0:03:31]: Yeah.

Cassidy [0:03:32]: I had as a human.

Cassidy [0:03:34]: I hadn't really thought about this concept.

Cassidy [0:03:35]: And know you start thinking about it it makes a lot of sense.

Cassidy [0:03:38]: So I'm ability to kinda explain it your words.

Cassidy [0:03:39]: Because I'm sure I'll explain it way better than than I would.

Nick [0:03:42]: I'll do my best.

Nick [0:03:43]: Yeah.

Nick [0:03:43]: Like, I think the name is relatively indicative of what it is.

Nick [0:03:47]: It's people that working by themselves.

Nick [0:03:48]: Right?

Nick [0:03:48]: But my definition is it's anyone who's out of sight or out of sound, out of ears shot of a colleague, whether that's for an extended period of time or just temporarily.

Nick [0:03:58]: And so when you consider it in that context, Team members at their desks can classified, can be classified as loan workers.

Nick [0:04:07]: If I was to have a medical incident right now, and I wasn't on The Safety Gap, how long would it be for my employer realized or someone else realized that they'd been something that had gone wrong.

Nick [0:04:16]: We note the class example, someone out in working in a forest cutting down a tree, what happens if something goes wrong for them, who hears that, Who's aware.

Nick [0:04:24]: And so that's where what working means in my perspective, but has a really wide definition.

Cassidy [0:04:29]: Yeah.

Cassidy [0:04:29]: It's interesting when you and you give those examples because Yeah, especially in a world of working remotely to your point, a lot of us are often like sitting at home by yourself, you know?

Cassidy [0:04:40]: Your family or spouse or whomever or out working, you're at school and you're sitting here by yourself, and I guess technically, you're a loan worker.

Cassidy [0:04:47]: When you think about it this way, a lot of people are loan workers.

Cassidy [0:04:51]: I mean, how would...

Cassidy [0:04:52]: I maybe I don't know if you can characterize, like, how many folks in a given country are actually loan workers.

Cassidy [0:04:58]: I don't know if you've I'm sure you'd done the math on this, but it like it's probably a lot more than we would think if we initially thought about this.

Nick [0:05:04]: Yeah.

Nick [0:05:04]: I mean, it's it's it's it's a little bit challenging to actually quantify.

Nick [0:05:07]: There's millions of people working alone every day, whether they're classified as as loan workers under the traditional sense might be a different case, but it feels know, it's something like fifty six fifty six percent of people spend time working alone every single day.

Nick [0:05:19]: And that continues to increase, You know, you see pressures on businesses on staffing inside of a retail location, for example, where they once was three people on a shop floor.

Nick [0:05:30]: Maybe now there's one or two.

Nick [0:05:31]: It's a trend that we're gonna continue to see, I think.

Cassidy [0:05:35]: So you joined this company, you know, S, who has dedicated this mission around little workers.

Cassidy [0:05:39]: What did you do or what do you do today?

Cassidy [0:05:42]: From a solution perspective.

Cassidy [0:05:43]: And and I'm always fascinated to, like, the origin story of how these things start?

Cassidy [0:05:47]: So if you don't mind, it'd be great to kinda go back if there was one around, like, just how does a company form around ideas and specifically this idea.

Nick [0:05:56]: It's a little bit of a traditional business forming, I think the team that built She were originally working to develop a Pizza tracker for a Pizza company.

Nick [0:06:05]: When you go and order your large pepperoni and you place that order on the phone or through an application, As a customer, the first question, the only question sometimes that you've been asking is when's my pizza getting here.

Nick [0:06:16]: And so the customer, the asset there is is the pizza.

Nick [0:06:19]: It's is it gonna arrive on time.

Nick [0:06:21]: Is it gonna be nice and hot.

Nick [0:06:22]: When it's gonna be here.

Nick [0:06:24]: But on the flip side, for the business, the assets not the pizza.

Nick [0:06:27]: The asset is the individual they're sending, the delivery driver who might be going to fifteen twenty different houses often in unknown areas maybe late at night and facing a really wide variety of people.

Nick [0:06:38]: Members of the public who know their coming, but that's where the risk and the the concern for loan workers really started with the S team, and it it ended up being eighteen months later, they released the the She Loan worker platform here in Australia.

Nick [0:06:54]: Which now is operating all across the world prior to the acquisition of the business by SafetyCulture.

Cassidy [0:07:00]: So how does and by the way, I should admit this.

Cassidy [0:07:02]: But like I I feel like the pizza delivery it takes me back to my time in high school where I'd hear these folks that would literally jump the pizza guy and, like, take the guy's pizza.

Cassidy [0:07:11]: And I asked to be super terrifying for somebody who's out there delivering a house Don't know.

Cassidy [0:07:15]: And next thing you know you got a bunch of high school kids stealing the pizza and trying to steal their money.

Cassidy [0:07:19]: So I totally get it.

Cassidy [0:07:20]: I digress on that story.

Cassidy [0:07:22]: How do you solve this?

Cassidy [0:07:23]: When you say loan worker platform?

Cassidy [0:07:26]: What is it?

Cassidy [0:07:27]: Yeah.

Cassidy [0:07:27]: Has it work.

Nick [0:07:29]: So maybe I'll step back.

Nick [0:07:30]: The loan worker solution is a mobile first application.

Nick [0:07:35]: Gives team members the ability to start what we call an activity, sharing their location, checking in it at appropriate intervals based on the risk or the duration of the job, and giving them the ability to greatly trigger dress alert, if they need to.

Nick [0:07:50]: So that might be through a a Bluetooth button that pairs to their mobile device.

Nick [0:07:54]: It might be through the application itself, and that'll transmit their name, their phone number, their location through to a manager potentially to an alarm receiving center, which is similar to our relationship with Rap Sos in in the United States.

Nick [0:08:08]: And that's very similar inside our safety culture learn worker feature that we recently released.

Cassidy [0:08:13]: So I have a way to get help, a button or an app.

Cassidy [0:08:16]: And then it sounds like there's multiple levels here.

Cassidy [0:08:19]: It could go to a a manager or a worker or maybe there's somebody in my proximity.

Cassidy [0:08:23]: It could go to, a, safety agent who can check on me, and or they could be escalated to public safety.

Cassidy [0:08:29]: Is that how we should think about it?

Nick [0:08:31]: Yeah.

Nick [0:08:31]: Exactly.

Nick [0:08:32]: That's completely accurate.

Nick [0:08:33]: And so it gives managers the confidence that their team have the access to support they might need, and it's all about reducing the time between an event and the notification, the notification of that event.

Nick [0:08:45]: How quickly can we respond?

Nick [0:08:46]: So when it's going through to a safety age, it takes that onus off of a manager, it allows for a professional white glove response, rather than someone who might not be an expert in responding to be charged with that responsibility.

Cassidy [0:08:59]: And So I can imagine this could be used a wide range of use cases as you mentioned.

Cassidy [0:09:03]: I'm just curious Like, who leans into this?

Cassidy [0:09:06]: Who are kind of the early adopters of this type of technology?

Cassidy [0:09:09]: It is specific industry or Is it driven by, like, people trying to keep workers safe is it driven by compliance so we'll to kinda paint the picture?

Nick [0:09:19]: Yeah.

Nick [0:09:19]: I think it depends a little bit on the region.

Nick [0:09:21]: There are really progressive loan worker of laws in Australia, New Zealand and the.

Nick [0:09:24]: Kingdom, which is starting to appear in the United States as well.

Nick [0:09:29]: We've seen in in New York recently.

Nick [0:09:30]: The retail worker Safety Act.

Nick [0:09:32]: He's requiring any business with five hundred or more employees to provide those team members with a panic button, and whether that's through a mobile device and a a bluetooth button or whether it's a a physically worn dress alert button.

Nick [0:09:45]: And some retail certainly a a a key industry there, I would say in addition healthcare care, home health in particular, telecommunications and and utilities, and then facilities management and cleaning as well.

Nick [0:09:56]: They'd be sort of where we put.

Cassidy [0:09:58]: And when you're talking to these, is it largely driven by regulations, we mentioned in new potential like legislation in New yorker.

Cassidy [0:10:06]: What's the equation you're...

Cassidy [0:10:07]: Because at one he had to everybody feels like everybody should have this?

Cassidy [0:10:10]: If I in a business and I have loan workers.

Cassidy [0:10:12]: I should be doing what I need to do to keep them safe and this seems like a really fantastic way to do that.

Cassidy [0:10:18]: But my hunch is is not that easy to get buy in in some cases, and I'm just curious like, that journey you go through to kinda socialize this, get folks to understand the value, etcetera.

Nick [0:10:29]: Yeah.

Nick [0:10:29]: Absolutely.

Nick [0:10:30]: No.

Nick [0:10:30]: It's never that easy.

Nick [0:10:31]: I think it's a different conversation in Australia in the Uk where because it's a legal requirement in a lot of cases, customers will come to us with a really strong awareness.

Nick [0:10:41]: They have something in place today because they need something in place.

Nick [0:10:45]: It goes back to that question of all that perspective of compliance being a minimum standard.

Nick [0:10:51]: And so whilst this does take a box from a regulatory perspective, it can go far above and beyond that for team members.

Nick [0:10:58]: Which is where we see the adoption in the United States.

Nick [0:11:01]: So it's businesses that wanna do more than the bare minimum.

Nick [0:11:05]: They wanna be a point of difference to competitors.

Nick [0:11:07]: What are we doing that the organization down the road directly competing with us for employees isn't doing.

Nick [0:11:14]: And so what we're starting to see is a lot of our customers are actually highlighting this as an employee benefit.

Nick [0:11:19]: A we provide you with the tools you might need to remain safe on the job to get the assistance that you need, when and where you need it.

Cassidy [0:11:28]: Yeah.

Cassidy [0:11:28]: I think, you know, if Think about the United States, we do have labor challenges, like actually getting workers.

Cassidy [0:11:33]: You're Not gonna ask this question in a second.

Cassidy [0:11:35]: I mean, whether people are actually less safe at work or not, they certainly feel less safe.

Cassidy [0:11:41]: Mh.

Cassidy [0:11:41]: And so I can see this being a potential great way to retain and recruit.

Cassidy [0:11:46]: Workers is being a benefit to them.

Cassidy [0:11:48]: So let me ask you that question.

Cassidy [0:11:50]: The world feels like it's getting less safe.

Cassidy [0:11:52]: Like, as a worker, a little worker, I have to believe if you were to ask blown workers, they feel less safe and maybe they didn't in the past.

Cassidy [0:12:00]: That's kind of part one.

Cassidy [0:12:01]: And in part two is, are they?

Cassidy [0:12:03]: Or do you know if they are actually at less safe.

Cassidy [0:12:05]: I'm just curious if how the industry thinks about this.

Nick [0:12:10]: Yeah.

Nick [0:12:10]: Absolutely.

Nick [0:12:11]: I think we can continue to see instances of retail violence, for example, continues to increase every single year that pushes some of the regulatory change that we're seeing in some United States.

Nick [0:12:24]: But across all industries, I think we're seeing a prevalence and the frequency, frontline worker, violence, following Covid really continue to increase pretty significantly.

Nick [0:12:35]: In the world's a little bit of a different place now to what it meant been beforehand.

Cassidy [0:12:39]: Yeah.

Cassidy [0:12:39]: Yeah.

Cassidy [0:12:40]: I mean, when I walk into...

Cassidy [0:12:41]: I won't name the big city.

Cassidy [0:12:42]: But I walk into a Walgreens or a drugstore store in a big city, and I see things locked up.

Cassidy [0:12:48]: My...

Cassidy [0:12:48]: I immediately, but like, go, like, I wonder how people working here feel, You know?

Cassidy [0:12:52]: Yeah.

Cassidy [0:12:52]: Like, the kit feels safe if you gotta lock up all the goods.

Cassidy [0:12:55]: It just tells me bad things have happened here, and they're trying to stop bad things.

Cassidy [0:12:59]: So, yeah.

Cassidy [0:13:00]: I hear you on that.

Karin [0:13:01]: You see the retail and organized crime increasing as you mentioned here in the states, and and I may have actually been in one of those stores recently in an unnamed Big City and actually watched the guy walk out the door and then the staff members saw him too, and so they're like, well, there's really not much they could do.

Karin [0:13:18]: However, I think about your real estate agents, and folks that are going into homes They have a period of time where you're showing the house to multiple people that you don't...

Karin [0:13:27]: Or may not necessarily know.

Karin [0:13:29]: And I actually had a friend of mine had asked me if we partnered with anyone that had a panic button and and I had mentioned you all at that time.

Karin [0:13:36]: Because for them, they wanna make sure that their other agents are also safe.

Karin [0:13:41]: And if after an hour, two hours of this open house, they're not responsive, not answering their phone, how do we disposition that?

Karin [0:13:48]: And then the I come to the public safety side, where I know that we don't want people to feel like they have to have a button to feel safe.

Karin [0:13:56]: However, if I can't safely dial my phone to call nine zero one or even have an an open line where a voice is heard that my company in danger just knowing that there are two layers of safety here.

Karin [0:14:10]: One is that somebody going to respond and verify or validate that I need help or what kind of help I do need, and then it can get escalated to the appropriate services or manager.

Karin [0:14:20]: So just wanted to share those two things.

Nick [0:14:23]: Thank you for doing so, Karin.

Nick [0:14:24]: I mean, for leasing consultants for sales consultants in a real estate environment.

Nick [0:14:28]: There's also often the situation where you're planning to meet a private client at a house that you don't know.

Nick [0:14:35]: Showing them through one on one.

Nick [0:14:37]: For me, it's a scary prospect.

Nick [0:14:39]: So I can't imagine how it must feel for people that have to do that every single day or every other day.

Cassidy [0:14:44]: Yeah Absolutely.

Cassidy [0:14:44]: You said something earlier and I and maybe of reflecting on it, and that is...

Cassidy [0:14:49]: Kinda life pre Covid and life post Covid.

Cassidy [0:14:51]: And I do feel like there is this heightened awareness post.

Cassidy [0:14:54]: And I see these examples everywhere.

Cassidy [0:14:57]: I agree Nick, maybe five years ago.

Cassidy [0:14:58]: I didn't think about the real estate agent, But I'm like, you.

Cassidy [0:15:01]: Now I'm, like, man.

Cassidy [0:15:02]: A person's like, walking into a house with some person had never met or a healthcare care worker or you name it.

Cassidy [0:15:08]: Why is that?

Cassidy [0:15:09]: Is that just something happened to us during Covid?

Cassidy [0:15:11]: Is that, we see a trend of more incidents post or is it just we're just kind of all aware of this now because we spent So so much time alone.

Cassidy [0:15:19]: Maybe that's what it was.

Nick [0:15:21]: Yeah.

Nick [0:15:21]: Maybe the two years we all spent as loan workers was indicative of that.

Nick [0:15:25]: No.

Nick [0:15:26]: I I think at least from my perspective, we're certainly seeing more a greater prevalence.

Nick [0:15:30]: In the loan worker space organizations coming to us because they had an incident where prior to the world shutting down for a couple of years, it was more proactive rather than than reactive.

Nick [0:15:41]: And we still do get those organizations coming through wanting to do more.

Nick [0:15:44]: Before something goes wrong.

Nick [0:15:46]: They're always my favorite customers to speak to rather than, hey, we need something in place because this has happened, and we don't want it to happen again.

Cassidy [0:15:54]: And so there seems to be a lot of...

Cassidy [0:15:56]: Karin mentioned panic buttons and solutions out there.

Cassidy [0:15:58]: How do you coach customers or prospects you're talking to through how to evaluate what the best solution is for them.

Cassidy [0:16:06]: Obviously, you wanted to be yours, But I'm sure they're...

Cassidy [0:16:09]: They get hit by a, you know, if they're interested, there's probably a lot of seemingly similar solutions out there, and I'm sure they're not all but similar.

Cassidy [0:16:18]: But I'm just curious, like, what are some things that people should be keeping in mind as a think about making this decision.

Nick [0:16:24]: Yeah.

Nick [0:16:24]: Absolutely.

Nick [0:16:25]: I think the two schools of thinking.

Nick [0:16:27]: One of them is around mobile first solutions, and the other is around physical hardware and and pendants.

Nick [0:16:33]: And I think both play a really important role and for probably different industries.

Nick [0:16:40]: You know, if I'm walking around a hospital.

Nick [0:16:42]: A physical pendant is probably the right solution for me where a mobile phone might struggle to geo locate me on the fourth floor of the east wing.

Nick [0:16:50]: But if I'm traveling into a number of different homes across a day, and it's important for me to continue to update where my location might be because maybe my shift has changed, maybe the order in which I'm visiting these properties is different.

Nick [0:17:03]: Maybe my schedule is actually not accurate to where I am today.

Nick [0:17:06]: That's where usage can be far more valuable on a mobile device.

Nick [0:17:11]: The other thing is a lot of the physical pendants, You know they're being used when a alert is triggered.

Nick [0:17:17]: But if it's not, it may be living in the bottom drawer of a desk, it it may be being used, but you don't really have a lot of visibility over there.

Nick [0:17:25]: And so when you can see every day that your field team are out.

Nick [0:17:28]: They're on the road, you get that visibility and that peace of mind that this solution that I've put into the hands of my team, whilst we're not seeing a a alert every day, hopefully, it results in peace of mind that if your team get into a situation where they need assistance, they can get it.

Cassidy [0:17:45]: Yeah.

Cassidy [0:17:45]: I think one thing we've noticed in across our customer bases.

Cassidy [0:17:48]: If you're in a role where you're using a device consistently for the role, and you're kind of on and in that device, it kinda makes sense for this to be in that application Versus if you're not, and you're working somewhere, what's...

Cassidy [0:18:04]: Is it easier to pull out your phone and open a device or call nine one or do you need a button a press.

Cassidy [0:18:08]: And so, like, there's some natural scenarios where somebody is working and they live in the on the mobile phone.

Cassidy [0:18:14]: And so it's actually the quicker way.

Cassidy [0:18:16]: And in other cases, like, the phones in the pocket were tucked away in a bag.

Cassidy [0:18:20]: Mh.

Cassidy [0:18:21]: And the quicker way is something that's, you know, around their neck or in their pocket.

Cassidy [0:18:24]: At least that's kind of a fully observe through various these cases.

Nick [0:18:28]: Yeah.

Nick [0:18:28]: For sure.

Nick [0:18:29]: And I think that's why we see the value in integrating with these bluetooth buttons, you know?

Nick [0:18:33]: Yeah depending on where I am, it might be that my phone's out.

Nick [0:18:36]: It might be that I can't reach it.

Nick [0:18:37]: But I still need to get the support.

Nick [0:18:39]: Yeah.

Karin [0:18:40]: Yeah.

Karin [0:18:40]: And it might be that it's not the safest option in the moment either.

Karin [0:18:44]: Right?

Karin [0:18:44]: If that's gonna put you in danger when somebody is confronting you but is not the time that you wanna, you know, necessarily...

Karin [0:18:51]: Excuse me for a moment while you're Solving me.

Karin [0:18:54]: I just need to grab my father.

Karin [0:18:55]: Just doesn't the work.

Nick [0:18:56]: Sharon, that's a really good point because a lot of businesses I speak to.

Nick [0:19:01]: They coach their team to do exactly that.

Nick [0:19:03]: This person's being aggressive towards me.

Nick [0:19:04]: Therefore, I'm gonna step away and make a phone call.

Nick [0:19:07]: It makes a lot of sense in theory, but in practice, if I pull my phone out, there's a really good chance that it actually further to ag and ant organizers someone who could be quite violent or what is on the urgent thing.

Nick [0:19:22]: So...

Cassidy [0:19:23]: Absolutely.

Cassidy [0:19:23]: Garrett, what's the impact of this on, like, the public safety side or the nine zero one side?

Cassidy [0:19:27]: It feels like based on what we see is it's public safety is getting more and more used to these types of devices and signals into nine zero one where there is actually no call.

Cassidy [0:19:36]: It comes through, clicking a button or dependent or mobile app, etcetera.

Cassidy [0:19:40]: Love your thoughts and kind of perspective on, like, the evolution of, like, you know, emergency response around this type of technology.

Karin [0:19:47]: So I think it's still in transition.

Karin [0:19:49]: It still influx.

Karin [0:19:50]: I think that we know in the nine one space that we're moving away from voice centric requests for service.

Karin [0:19:59]: That means somebody picking up the phone and dialing nine one.

Karin [0:20:02]: To say I need help.

Karin [0:20:03]: Now that it's still the preferred method.

Karin [0:20:05]: We always wanna drive people to dial nine one?

Karin [0:20:07]: When you...

Karin [0:20:07]: Cannot.

Karin [0:20:08]: But in those moments that you cannot, and it's not the safest mechanism, what are those other solutions?

Karin [0:20:14]: And so I think there's still a lot of education that's happening in the space and a lot of understanding to the use cases, Nick, as you mentioned, what are the types of folks that are out there?

Karin [0:20:24]: What kind of work are they doing and when might they need emergency?

Karin [0:20:27]: Why would they poke a button rather than calling them one?

Karin [0:20:30]: So you know, our now professionals are so good at handling whatever comes at them, they will figure it out.

Karin [0:20:37]: Even if they don't really know it initially.

Karin [0:20:39]: So if is a call that's coming from a monitoring center, they may wonder well, how do that even gets me in the first place or if it's a silent panic.

Karin [0:20:47]: They are gonna have more questions.

Karin [0:20:48]: So this is really important to make sure that we're getting this messaging out that we're getting the training out through all mechanisms?

Karin [0:20:55]: So that people understand what is that consumer experience?

Karin [0:20:59]: How does it work and how might I receive that in public safety and then, what do we do with it?

Karin [0:21:05]: Right?

Karin [0:21:06]: This a silent panic button, what could be happening and what kind of response do I have to send?

Karin [0:21:10]: We also wanna make sure that we caution around anything that is going to create a lot of false positives.

Karin [0:21:16]: So you've put this monitoring piece in the middle.

Karin [0:21:19]: Right?

Karin [0:21:20]: That can help eliminate those false positives and really verify or validate.

Karin [0:21:24]: That it is a true emergency, and I will say from the number community we're grateful for that.

Karin [0:21:28]: We certainly don't wanna slow down response.

Nick [0:21:31]: Yeah.

Nick [0:21:31]: It's an incredibly important balancing act for us to get right because, of course, we aren't the quickest response possible.

Nick [0:21:38]: Loss ensuring that as many dress alerts that go through are genuine.

Nick [0:21:42]: We wanna reduce the load on public safety.

Nick [0:21:45]: We don't wanna be sending out police vehicles or ambulances, just because someone's forgotten to trigger or for them to check in and confirm they safe rather.

Cassidy [0:21:54]: Mh.

Nick [0:21:54]: And so it's really important bouncing act.

Nick [0:21:55]: We have various notifications in our system that that gets sent through to the user when, you know, it's time for them to check in when their duration is expiring when they're about to trigger a dress alert.

Nick [0:22:04]: Giving them every chance they can to ensure that if they're safe, they note that down so that every single alert that gets triggered that has a genuine event and a genuine need to respond.

Cassidy [0:22:16]: Yeah and in I I assume one of the benefits of kind of the your platform and the approach that you're taking.

Cassidy [0:22:21]: Is these workers are also getting trained on this too.

Cassidy [0:22:24]: Right?

Cassidy [0:22:25]: Like, oh, I accidentally only hit something and there's a notification and or I have a certain time frame that people are gonna check in, and I know what it means if I don't respond to the check in.

Cassidy [0:22:36]: You know, versus, like, just handy somebody dependent and saying, hey, if you get into news, just hit a couple buttons.

Cassidy [0:22:41]: Yeah.

Nick [0:22:42]: Absolutely.

Cassidy [0:22:42]: My hunch is there's like, a level of training around, like, what this means as it gets integrated into kind of, like, the load worker kind of workforce.

Nick [0:22:51]: Yeah.

Nick [0:22:51]: For sure.

Nick [0:22:51]: What we do here is we're fundamentally changing the mobile device from being that, to being a safety tool, a response tool.

Nick [0:23:01]: And that comes with really significant gravity for an end user.

Nick [0:23:05]: If you throw your mobile device on the car seat next to you when you're driving off and it detects a fall, that's gonna trigger an alert.

Nick [0:23:14]: You need to fundamentally treat your mobile device differently than you were prior to having a safety solution like like safety culture on it because it's not the same.

Karin [0:23:25]: Yeah.

Karin [0:23:25]: Our mountain communities are gonna thank you for that.

Karin [0:23:28]: You know, a live folks that fall on ski slopes and things like that...

Karin [0:23:31]: Will receive, influx of signals from those devices.

Karin [0:23:36]: So...

Karin [0:23:36]: Yes.

Karin [0:23:37]: There's another piece of information that you all deliver as well, and that is the person's phone number.

Karin [0:23:42]: So if they push their button, the number one community would still have that phone number to be able to call them, and it's just another layer of verifying and validating what that emergency is ensuring that we're sending the appropriate response.

Karin [0:23:54]: There's also that risk management piece too.

Karin [0:23:57]: Right?

Karin [0:23:57]: If it is, they need help, and it's not an emergency, then slowing those units down, so they're not running with lights and sirens down a road, potentially putting others at risk is also incredibly helpful.

Nick [0:24:10]: Yeah.

Nick [0:24:10]: Absolutely.

Nick [0:24:10]: And if they've got that capability of connecting and discussing with the safety agent, it gives us the ability and gives Rapid Sos, the ability to categorize the significance of the event.

Nick [0:24:21]: Is this, hey, I've I've twisted my ankle.

Nick [0:24:24]: I've broken my leg, or is this?

Nick [0:24:26]: I'm in imminent danger and need assistance yesterday?

Cassidy [0:24:30]: Mh.

Cassidy [0:24:30]: So, Nick, I love these conversations.

Cassidy [0:24:33]: Mc say, really enjoy hearing your favorite stories.

Cassidy [0:24:36]: Are the stories that are most impactful for you and your company in terms of, like, the save stories, the, you know, the success stories and curious if there are a couple that you would like to share to kind of prove, like, to kind of really add some vivid to how this works.

Nick [0:24:52]: Yeah.

Nick [0:24:52]: I've I've got one that's certainly relevant to today's conversation, particularly from the perspective of when is a team member working alone.

Nick [0:24:59]: So we had a a Us based home health organization or home health department of a broader health organization, implement worker solution.

Nick [0:25:09]: And the reasoning for that was for their home health team, going out and visiting a myriad of patients at all hours of the day providing in home care, analysis doing blood work from the comfort of their own home, And so you fast forward a few months after this solution has been implemented.

Nick [0:25:26]: The team feels safer.

Nick [0:25:27]: They've got access to the support they might need when they're out in the field.

Nick [0:25:31]: It's all great.

Nick [0:25:32]: Then they also have a telehealth hub at the hospital site.

Nick [0:25:36]: Where they go for every day, they pick up their equipment, their supplies, they go back there between visits for customers if need be, and they also provide telehealth there.

Nick [0:25:45]: And so they have loan solution on at all times, when they're at work through that whole shift.

Nick [0:25:51]: They're checking in at at regular intervals as part of their internal process and and policy.

Nick [0:25:56]: And one evening, they had a a team member working in and conducting telehealth, working at their desk This is a night shift, so it's three four Am they're checking in with patients who are up at night, making sure all things are going well.

Nick [0:26:11]: Now the only person in the telehealth area when they had a medical incident.

Nick [0:26:15]: No one was aware that this individual was there or if their pre existing medical condition.

Nick [0:26:20]: And so when they passed out at their desk in what is quite a a sort of remote part of a room, a telehealth room, it would have been much longer than the three minutes it took for the manager to become aware of the fact that the team member was failing to check in before they got the assistance they needed.

Nick [0:26:40]: And so in in this particular case, they were able to get rushed to the emergency room on the hospital site for but without that short notification between the in event occurring and the right people they're becoming aware at the right time, let's just say we're fortunate to know that that person that would make a full recovery.

Cassidy [0:26:58]: Wow.

Cassidy [0:26:58]: That's amazing story.

Cassidy [0:27:00]: What drives home that story is, like, the breath of the use case as well.

Cassidy [0:27:04]: Right?

Cassidy [0:27:04]: Because in some cases, this is, like, a person being...

Cassidy [0:27:07]: What we've been talking about today has been a person's cognizant of their in danger.

Cassidy [0:27:11]: And here's a situation where the person it was the network.

Cassidy [0:27:15]: And how it's connected to help this personnel because obviously, they were not in a position to get help themselves.

Nick [0:27:21]: Yeah.

Nick [0:27:21]: Yeah.

Nick [0:27:22]: No.

Nick [0:27:22]: Absolutely.

Nick [0:27:23]: I think it...

Nick [0:27:23]: The telehealth team will the telehealth use case is not why they implemented loan worker, but it just highlights the frequency, the cons of what is really a low risk, but the prevalence of this at all times, you know?

Cassidy [0:27:40]: The use case was not telehealth.

Cassidy [0:27:41]: Mh.

Cassidy [0:27:42]: But the telehealth facility had it.

Cassidy [0:27:45]: Yeah.

Cassidy [0:27:45]: Which I think is wonderful of that that company?

Cassidy [0:27:48]: Why did it decide to do that?

Cassidy [0:27:50]: Why did they decide to not just give it to the home health folks, but they also gave it to the telehealth.

Cassidy [0:27:55]: Team.

Nick [0:27:56]: I think it was an education piece really.

Nick [0:27:59]: Once they implemented this for home health They thought well, what else?

Nick [0:28:02]: Where else can they apply?

Cassidy [0:28:04]: Mh.

Nick [0:28:04]: You know, who else faces similar risk albeit maybe lower risk.

Nick [0:28:08]: Where else can we help to improve the standard, go beyond compliance with our team who are working by themselves out of sight out of the shot of colleagues.

Nick [0:28:18]: Yeah.

Nick [0:28:19]: And so over time, they've continued to grow there, their use cases.

Nick [0:28:23]: They have some people in their Hr team in their, you know, corporate security now that are that are using this particular solution.

Nick [0:28:29]: So I think once you start delving into this area, you realize just how exposed some of your team can be

Cassidy [0:28:38]: Yeah.

Cassidy [0:28:38]: I imagine this is maybe a pretty consistent story where an organization may start in one part of the business, see some success.

Cassidy [0:28:46]: And maybe leadership thinking about else to apply it.

Cassidy [0:28:50]: But I bet a lot of employees are like, well, listen I I see what we're doing for the folks out in the field?

Cassidy [0:28:55]: I also don't feel safe in certain situations.

Cassidy [0:28:58]: So can I get it from my department?

Cassidy [0:29:00]: I'm curious like, is it really a top down?

Cassidy [0:29:03]: Or is it really start to become bottoms up as this spreads through an organization?

Nick [0:29:06]: I think the bottom up can make it spread like wildfire.

Nick [0:29:09]: Yeah.

Nick [0:29:10]: You know, there is an element there of hey, that team has a shiny new toy I want it.

Nick [0:29:14]: But I think the bigger piece is, why is that more risky than what than what I'm doing?

Nick [0:29:18]: You know, I have my own lived experience.

Nick [0:29:20]: Every time I speak when you health home health company, the people who are making the decisions are often twenty year home health veterans that now lead a team, they all have their own story.

Nick [0:29:30]: And whether it's the first team that a business wants to support and protect, or the reality and the realization over time that, hey, we're far more exposed than we thought.

Nick [0:29:41]: This is something that we should be man or offering rather to anyone who wants to use it to anyone who feels like they're out in the field and unsafe.

Cassidy [0:29:49]: Yeah.

Cassidy [0:29:49]: How do you then build the business case around this, or not you, but, like, how does an organization?

Cassidy [0:29:56]: Obviously, there's one that's that's compliance driven.

Cassidy [0:29:59]: We have to do it.

Cassidy [0:30:00]: And maybe that is the initial driver?

Cassidy [0:30:02]: But even in that case, like, in the example you gave, there there couldn't theory be compliance for the home health provider, but there's probably not compliance for telehealth, Hr departments.

Cassidy [0:30:13]: The other people coming into the office who were working late at night on something.

Cassidy [0:30:17]: How do you go about helping companies think about the value of this Roi when it's not regulatory?

Nick [0:30:27]: Yeah.

Nick [0:30:27]: I think a lot of organizations when they start this process, they come to the realization.

Nick [0:30:32]: The...

Nick [0:30:33]: If we're gonna do this, let's do it right.

Nick [0:30:35]: Let's make sure this is accessible, and we try and facilitate that as much as possible as well, by protecting the people that a business needs to.

Nick [0:30:43]: Whatever other considerations aside, And so I'm...

Nick [0:30:46]: I mentioned earlier, the piece around it being a a differentiator point of difference for businesses against their competitors.

Nick [0:30:53]: I think that's really significant for a lot of organizations.

Nick [0:30:56]: This goes beyond the safety budget.

Nick [0:30:58]: Right?

Nick [0:30:59]: It goes beyond protecting team members, but also advertising this as a way for businesses to get more talent through the door, showcase how important they find their teams.

Nick [0:31:10]: And and how much they care and invest in the work being done on the frontline,

Cassidy [0:31:16]: the benefit of having modern technology in a platform and system.

Cassidy [0:31:18]: As I assume you're able to say, here are some of the benefits, hard numbers like, maybe, no number of incidents and how that's gone down over time.

Cassidy [0:31:27]: I'm gonna turn this over to you some I'm gonna butcher this.

Cassidy [0:31:30]: But, like, and or, I'm sure these companies are surveying their employees around how they feel in terms of safety and job satisfaction and engagement and so forth and so on.

Cassidy [0:31:41]: Like, how do companies who implement this think about measuring the results?

Nick [0:31:46]: What we actually tend to see is in the initial sense, the opposite for what you mentioned there.

Nick [0:31:51]: Organizations identify more incidents, not because we've implemented loan, more things are going wrong.

Nick [0:31:58]: These things were still happening, we just weren't capturing them.

Nick [0:32:02]: And so I think that's where safety culture plays best.

Nick [0:32:04]: It's helping the frontline capture information, and then informing business decisions.

Nick [0:32:10]: Based on a greater amount of knowledge.

Nick [0:32:14]: Being passed through from that frontline.

Nick [0:32:16]: That lets them make decisions it lets them make investment to be better businesses at the end of the day.

Cassidy [0:32:21]: Yeah.

Cassidy [0:32:21]: I appreciate the honesty of that.

Cassidy [0:32:23]: That is, I can completely understand why that might be the case.

Cassidy [0:32:26]: Like you're shining a light on something that was kinda going.

Cassidy [0:32:28]: Yeah.

Cassidy [0:32:29]: Below the table or under cover.

Cassidy [0:32:30]: Fascinating.

Nick [0:32:32]: And what we see over time is is the prevalence decreasing of course, as you identify frequent incidents or Mh.

Nick [0:32:38]: Areas for improvement that does trend down over time, but definitely in the initial sense we tend to see a far greater volume of non conform or incidents taking place.

Cassidy [0:32:48]: Yeah.

Cassidy [0:32:48]: You mentioned safety culture.

Cassidy [0:32:49]: If you don't mind it'd be great to hear most of our audiences in the Us.

Cassidy [0:32:53]: Mh.

Cassidy [0:32:53]: And this is a massive company.

Cassidy [0:32:54]: Globally.

Cassidy [0:32:56]: So if you don't mind, and I know they bought the company they you're at, the name is really interesting.

Cassidy [0:33:00]: Safety culture is, like, literally the name of the company.

Cassidy [0:33:02]: I think that's, not some name on the way.

Cassidy [0:33:04]: Yeah.

Cassidy [0:33:05]: Tell us a little bit about that.

Cassidy [0:33:06]: For those who may not know who SafetyCulture is tell a little bit about company.

Nick [0:33:10]: It's a technology company that helps businesses through that best way.

Nick [0:33:12]: Whether it's frontline training and making sure that any non conform are being addressed through bite sized micro learning to the frontline or it's based off of non conform.

Nick [0:33:23]: Through the two now, we have this new loan worker products as well.

Nick [0:33:27]: There's a really wide variety of use cases and of solutions that that are offered inside one product.

Nick [0:33:33]: And something that I think is a really big priority across decision makers at the moment is reducing the number of software vendors a lot of businesses have so many different places.

Nick [0:33:44]: Frontline team members have so many different tools that they might need to use.

Nick [0:33:48]: And so reducing that or ama those into one or not one, but fewer are.

Nick [0:33:55]: Certainly, is a major priority.

Cassidy [0:33:58]: Yeah.

Cassidy [0:33:58]: Well, I don't think I think it's front wanting workers.

Cassidy [0:33:59]: I I think Karin would be all for getting rid of some software vendors Whitney Care.

Karin [0:34:04]: There's so many.

Karin [0:34:04]: I mean there's a a consolidation desire as well inside of the number one space of even public safety because there's so many applications you have to open and log in to and sign into.

Karin [0:34:15]: So, yes, like, the consolidation and putting as much into one as possible.

Karin [0:34:19]: Absolutely makes sense.

Karin [0:34:21]: And I think, you know, we've talked about, cases of danger when you're encountering other people in a different environment.

Karin [0:34:28]: But I think too, you've got park rangers who are out, you know, walking an area on a path that, you know, somebody gets bitten by rattle snake that is a life saving moment and emergency that if they can't get to their phone in time, it's having that backup up, and you think of other, you know, folks that are doing just outside work.

Karin [0:34:49]: I remember in Nebraska several really years ago.

Karin [0:34:52]: They were just so thrilled with having Rapid Sos because if a person out in the corn field, it had an emergency and fell in their safety device went off, they were able to locate them.

Karin [0:35:04]: But this takes it a step further, in engaging with their manager and doing those check ins and and other things.

Karin [0:35:10]: So I just...

Karin [0:35:11]: There's so many use cases that you all can really fit into her safety and when people are alone or even a redundant but backup solution to their device for calling them what if they can't.

Cassidy [0:35:22]: Yeah.

Cassidy [0:35:22]: As a marketer, I was looking at some of the stuff about safety culture.

Cassidy [0:35:25]: And you have the the picture of the worker on top of the wind turbine.

Cassidy [0:35:30]: And that really hits home.

Cassidy [0:35:31]: Well okay, I totally get what you mean by lone worker.

Cassidy [0:35:33]: That is such a vivid picture.

Cassidy [0:35:36]: So I would recommend for people listening this to check out the company.

Cassidy [0:35:40]: I don't normally say that, but it was really eye opening as I've been customer of ours and kinda of seeing the acquisition and we know who's this new company.

Cassidy [0:35:49]: When you research safety culture.

Cassidy [0:35:51]: It's like a really interesting way to think about your workforce.

Cassidy [0:35:55]: And I've looked at a lot of companies and a lot of software in my life, and I found it, a really unique perspective.

Cassidy [0:36:02]: So, you know, for you and your leadership team really well done.

Cassidy [0:36:05]: Where do you guys go from here?

Cassidy [0:36:07]: Like, when we think about loan worker and the solutions you have?

Cassidy [0:36:10]: What's next?

Cassidy [0:36:11]: Like, what's on the horizon?

Cassidy [0:36:12]: You know, I don't, put maybe your two or three year hat on?

Cassidy [0:36:15]: Is it more technology or is it just kind of adoption...

Cassidy [0:36:18]: Adoption of, like, the technology that exists?

Nick [0:36:22]: Think it's always more technology, and it's making it easier for the frontline to use.

Nick [0:36:25]: In a home health context, for example, we know their best work is not done when they're on their phone and doing multiple clicks to get something done.

Nick [0:36:32]: It's about a seamless experience.

Nick [0:36:34]: How can we provide them with the highest caliber of protection, whilst ensuring that they're able to connect on a human level with the people that they're servicing.

Nick [0:36:43]: And so for me, it's increasing the intelligence of the product, how do we integrate it with more parts of our tool.

Nick [0:36:50]: How do we ensure that it speaks to an an Hr platform that's hosting all of the employee data?

Nick [0:36:57]: How do we extend access to teams that are outside of of cellular coverage, how do we make sure that we're able to one day triangulate the location of a team member, inside a building with sensors, you know, you're in this particular room based off where your mobile device is is pinging.

Nick [0:37:11]: Mh.

Nick [0:37:12]: Things like geo fencing.

Nick [0:37:13]: If we've had three or four events in the last two months, at an unnamed suburb, let's notify when team members go in and leave that area because that's really crucial information for us.

Cassidy [0:37:23]: Yeah.

Cassidy [0:37:23]: That's amazing.

Cassidy [0:37:23]: What what we respectful time?

Cassidy [0:37:26]: I know you have to get to work being in Australia?

Cassidy [0:37:28]: I like to ask what is the question that I should have asked that I didn't ask.

Nick [0:37:33]: Oh, I think you guys were pretty well researched.

Nick [0:37:35]: I don't have anything for you, Cassidy.

Nick [0:37:38]: I think you guys done...

Cassidy [0:37:41]: Well, good.

Cassidy [0:37:41]: Well, I'll ask one more.

Cassidy [0:37:43]: Obviously, you're all over the world, the company's I headquartered I believe in Australia, you're in the United States.

Cassidy [0:37:49]: How do you think about rollout and expansion in the United States?

Cassidy [0:37:53]: What's the best way for people who listen to get a ahold of you all?

Cassidy [0:37:55]: Like, are there certain industries or or Geo you're going after or is it really, like you're just open for business across the country?

Nick [0:38:02]: Yeah.

Nick [0:38:02]: We've got a presence in Kansas City.

Nick [0:38:04]: That's where we've been for sort of the last ten years.

Nick [0:38:06]: I just actually moved back from a, Kansas City office, go chiefs.

Nick [0:38:09]: And then...

Cassidy [0:38:11]: I'm super bowl.

Cassidy [0:38:11]: We're all super bowl for you guys.

Nick [0:38:13]: I mean, we haven't on a game since I left Us.

Nick [0:38:16]: Is all I'll say.

Nick [0:38:17]: So maybe there's something that...

Cassidy [0:38:20]: Bring you back.

Nick [0:38:21]: Yeah.

Nick [0:38:21]: Maybe Coach Reid and we need to have conversation.

Nick [0:38:23]: We've got a presence in Kansas City across New York across Austin.

Nick [0:38:27]: So we're open for business.

Nick [0:38:29]: We have been for the last ten years.

Nick [0:38:30]: Anyone who's listening them wants to have conversation.

Nick [0:38:33]: I'm more than happy to fit you into part of the morning routine.

Nick [0:38:35]: I might be walking in Sunny Coo, but Make sure I can make some time for he wants to have a conversation.

Cassidy [0:38:40]: I love that.

Cassidy [0:38:41]: One day really appreciate your time.

Cassidy [0:38:43]: And for those, if you can't find Nick, you can feel free to reach out to Karin, I feel like Karin knows half the country when it comes to safety and security, So here you go.

Cassidy [0:38:52]: We'll be happy to...

Cassidy [0:38:52]: A help out in any way we can.

Cassidy [0:38:53]: So thank you again, Nick for the time.

Cassidy [0:38:55]: We appreciate the conversation super insightful.

Nick [0:38:57]: Take you care, Cassidy.

Nick [0:38:58]: Thanks, Man.

Cassidy [0:38:59]: Alright.

Cassidy [0:38:59]: Have a good day.