Crescent Point Energy is one of Canada’s largest light and medium oil producers, with resources in the Williston Basin in Southwest Saskatchewan and the Uinta Basin in Utah. Recently, the company grew its drilling inventory by approximately 1,000 net locations. Managing such an operation requires hundreds of people who often work alone.
Health and safety advisors at Crescent Point had little visibility into lone employees’ safety. Each worker was required to check in by phone in the morning and at the end of the day, but monitoring during the shift itself was informal and irregular. Most importantly, if someone missed a check-in, supervisors had no insight into why, or even where the worker was. Approximately 650 employees in the U.S. and Canada were identified as being at-risk, including operations personnel who check wells or work in gas plants, maintenance personnel, engineers, and environmental workers.
It is estimated that 25 million employees across North America work alone. Some of these workers travel to remote locations to monitor or maintain equipment, however, not all lone workers are remote workers. Who are considered lone workers? In many jurisdictions around the world, a person is “alone” at work when they are on their own, or when they cannot be seen or heard by another co-worker. Everyday examples include long haul transport drivers, security guards, social workers, and service/repair workers.
The challenge for employers is how to keep these mobile employees safe while on the job. The need for employers to do a better job of protecting lone workers is real and urgent. In fact, up to 5,000 workers are killed on the job each year in North America. That’s more than 90 workers every week, upwards of 13 deaths every day. Employers have a moral responsibility to keep workers safe while also complying with legislation specifically aimed at protecting these workers and keeping their business running smoothly.
One of Crescent Point’s strengths is having a data-driven culture. This principle informs their safety program as well. When health and safety advisors looked for new ways to monitor lone workers, they chose a data-driven solution that helps workers stay safe by providing automated insights. For at-risk workers in the field, Crescent Point deployed Aware360’s SafetyAware. The app-based system uses smart phones and satellite devices, along with web-based monitoring, to support lone workers. SafetyAware supports lone-worker safety legislation while keeping workers and managers productive, providing 24/7/365 live response services to help workers in emergencies. If an employee fails to check in, the system automatically shows any hazard or other alerts the employee used, as well as their last known location.
Implementing SafetyAware allowed Crescent Point to monitor their employees in real-time, and reinforced their safety culture, on and off the clock. Supervisors and health-and-safety advisors now face potential emergencies with more insight, as well as assess overall safety with reporting that summarizes activity and usage.
In Saskatchewan, for example, a young man and his father were trapped by a wildfire. The SafetyAware solution not only alerted emergency services but also provided the pair’s location so they could be found. In the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, an employee of Crescent Point Energy was traveling with her partner when a landslide swept them off the highway. Although the worker was off duty, the SafetyAware app on her phone was not. The woman used the SafetyAware application on her work phone to send a message that alerted emergency services.