Canadian HR Reporter

www.hrreporter.com 19 screening process, without the need for additional surveillance. This makes it well suited to circumstances where an employee might work independently or in remote settings. Fewer injuries, lower costs Triple-S Steel is a manufacturer of steel products for the construction industry, with locations in Houston, San Antonio and Forth Worth in Texas, Knoxville, Tenn., Salt Lake City, Utah, Denver, Col. and Fontana, Calif. The 60-year-old company deployed Aware4Duty across a workforce of 900 employees spread over 40 locations in the U.S. And the results were impressive: The company noted a 50-per-cent reduction in its Recordable Injury Frequency Rate (from 1.6 to 0.8) while cost-related accidents were reduced by 30 per cent. " T he interac tion be tween our leadership team and our employees from a safety perspective has just gone through the roof. It has increased everyone's safety awareness," says Hickman. "Also, we have lowered our workers' comp claims activity; the costs have definitely come down. And paying for alertness. It can determine an employee's fitness for duty in less than a minute — regardless of the cause of the impairment (including fatigue, medication, illness, extreme stress or substance abuse). The app is non-invasive and requires no biological samples. It's based on Psychomotor Vigilance Testing (PVT), used by the United States military and NASA. The employee engages in a 60-second game-like assessment that measures and notes any deviation from their personal baseline. The tool is designed to be unbiased by providing objective results that allow managers to make informed decisions while gathering important data on their workforce. Screening results are recorded in real time, and only those scores that are outside an individual's baseline are sent to their managers or supervisors for followup. And while wearables or cameras can constitute a violation of individual privacy — especially as some devices are required to be worn 24-7, even when an employee is not at work — this one is app-based, so an employee can be cleared to work upon completion of the Aware4Duty is about the equivalent of one workers' comp claim." Increased productivity is the result of both a healthy workforce and a safe workplace, and this app takes a proactive approach to ensuring that employees recognize their role in this effort. By accepting accountability for their own rest, employees arrive at work in a better mental state, thereby improving their precision and efficiency. "One employee said his family traditionally had a BBQ every Sunday night with a fair amount of partying. T hey ' ve changed it to Saturday night so he's better rested for work," says Hickman. When combined with a well-managed framework of workplace safety programs and policies, alertness testing is a ground-breaking tool in the fight against employee fatigue, stress and substance abuse. With measurable benefits to workplace safety, productivity and accountability, Aware4Duty is the type of assessment tool appreciated by HR professionals seeking an economical option to compliment their fit-for-duty policies while respecting an employee's privacy. CHRR Steve Matthews is CEO of Aware360 in Calgary. For more information, visit www.aware360.com. "I can't say for sure we avoided an accident, but we kept an employee who had no business working that day from hurting himself or others." Tanner Hickman, Triple-S Steel

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