Smarter Safer Team


  Saturday 19th December, 2020
  Author: Shannon Grohs
  Categories: Business Tips

Gippsland Pest Management Is always looking for new ways to improve our working environment and the safety of our team. With this in mind we have made the choice to implement Apple Smart watches as a required uniform item that all field staff must wear. To some this may seem a bit excessive, but we have made this choice for a number of reasons.

1. Improved the safety of solo workers.

A big part of a field technicians’ role at Gippsland Pest Management is to help our clients with their pest issues. This task can include activities such as climbing into small confined spaces, working at heights and in many cases doing these activities alone in the field.

Whilst we have implemented many precautions. Such as sending two technicians if the height is above a certain height or using a Scissor lift where required. As well as providing training for these situations, we still felt we could do more. The Apple Smartwatches new fall detection feature has addressed our complaint. This feature detects a hard fall and then calls 000 and your emergency contacts. We found ourselves asking can you afford not to use this feature?


Another feature we have found that has had us asking the same question is the critical alerts the watch provides if you are in a noisy environment or working with noisy equipment. Making staff aware of this gives them a friendly reminder to wear their ear muffs and look after their hearing.

The same can be said of the CO2 detection feature that can be used in a confined space or roof void to measure the Blood oxygen levels of your staff. We agree this is not a feature staff would be using regularly, but the one time they do use it could be a life saving situation.

2. Streamlining Work.

Another great benefit of the watches to our team is the way they are notified of changes in their day. A great example of this is when navigating to clients homes their watch vibrates when they are getting close to where they need to turn. The watch screen also shows them which way they need to turn. This simple feature takes away the anxiety of navigating to a new client address.

It has also streamlined their day. This has been achieved notifications of incoming messages or new jobs from our office staff. These notifications allow field staff to see these details in a quick glance and easily dismiss them if they aren’t relevant. Or quickly action them if they are without needing to get a phone out of their pocket or worse still the car.

3. Limitations of watches

As with everything in this world, there is limitations to the technology. Smartwatches can’t prevent a fall and they can’t force you to eat healthier. But we feel by providing these tools it can help make small changes in a direction that helps provide a happier, healthier work place. Sadly some tools that are available in other countries are not yet available in Australia. We hope this will change as the Technology is taken up by business.

For example the Apple Watch6 we have rolled out to all staff has the ability to notify the user that they are experiencing an irregular heart rhythm. This would be invaluable to businesses that have employees that work solo. It’s promising that New Zealand has now turned on this feature. Hopefully in the next few years this will come to us in Australia. When this happens Gippsland Pest Management will be right there waiting.

Welcome to Our New Factory!!!!!!!

  Sunday 6th December, 2020
  Author: Shannon Grohs

Wow, what a year it has been! This year we made a HUGE decision and decided to rent a Factory. This decision stemmed from Tara completely losing it. Because the stock had taken over the whole shed...

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