March 2018

Contract Talk
YOUR CALL: ARE THE DAYS OF
SMARTPHONES ON SITE NUMBERED?
The publication of two reports in recent weeks begs the question of whether smartphones
are safe to use on site. Janine Brady, SIG Roofing’s Marketing Manager, looks at whether
the fact that phones are so smart these days could actually be their undoing.
Of the nine most dangerous jobs in the UK,
roofing is in the top three according to
Adzuna – a job search engine that used
its own data along with research from the Office
for National Statistics (ONS) to compile the list.
When you look a bit closer at the figures
for roofing, you’ll find that the data
also includes scaffolding, and
the report found that the
majority of workplace deaths
are due to falls. Falling or
injuries sustained while falling
accounted for 29% of all
workplace deaths last year – and
scaffolding is one of the most dangerous
careers in the country, as 69 scaffolding-related
deaths have occurred since 2010.
It’s a stark reminder of what a challenging
profession roofing is and why there are a raft of
stringent regulations in place to keep everyone
safe at work.
Issued hot on the heels of the Adzuna study was
a completely unrelated report by Microsoft which
found that technology – such as smartphones –
is becoming increasingly distracting for workers.
The report stated that it’s due to the fact that
we’re all constantly being bombarded by a steady
stream of emails, messages and notifications
from social media sites.
Driven to distraction?
For us in roofing, the publication of these two
reports so closely together poses the question as
to whether smartphones are becoming too
distracting for use on site, and we wonder about
the dilemma this presents to
owners of roofing companies
because of the duty of care to
keep themselves, their
employees and their subbies safe
at work. On the one hand,
smartphones are an
absolute essential on site, as
they ensure we’re all
contactable. You could even
venture to say that
smartphones have boosted
productivity because of the
ability to get online when you’re
onsite and access a wealth of
information at your fingertips. It’s now
commonplace for smartphones to be used to check
the status of deliveries or to download spec sheets
from manufacturers’ websites, often simply by
tapping an app.
Attention grabbers
However, smartphones have become super-smart
in mastering the ability to grab our attention. It’s
like they’re slowly turning us into modern-day
versions of Pavlov’s dogs because we’ve all
become compelled to check our smartphones the
instant they beep or buzz because of the worry of
missing out. And even if we can’t respond to them
straight away, they do play on our minds and we
check them at the first available opportunity – and
this level of distraction isn’t always helpful when
we work in the third most dangerous job in the UK.
While their intelligence could be their undoing, it
could also be a smartphone’s saving grace – by
using their functionality to dial down their ability
to distract us. Here are a couple
of simple tips that can be used
by everyone on site.
Change the frequency of
notifications – the fewer notifications you
receive, the less likely you are to check your
smartphone. Notifications can be limited and you
can also use the phone’s Do Not Disturb mode.
Hide social media apps – a lot of people have
social media apps on the home or front pages of
their smartphones, but try putting them in folders
on the last page of your phone instead. That way,
you’re less likely to habitually click the Facebook
or Instagram icon.
Use a watch – that way, you won’t need to check
your phone to see what time it is – and then be
tempted to check updates.
Install addiction-breaking apps – counterintuitively,
you can reduce your phone use by
installing apps such as Checky, which gathers
data about your phone use, showing you how
many times you unlock your phone in a day and
logging this behaviour over time.
You’d be surprised how some simple tips can play
a small but important role in keeping everyone
safe on site through the reduction of distractions,
and we’d welcome comments on Twitter:
Contact SIG Roofing
0845 612 4304
www.sigroofing.co.uk
@SIGRoofing
Left: Janine Brady, SIG Roofing’s
Marketing Manager
18 TC MARCH 2018