Major threats faced by housing staff
Due to the varied nature of the workforce, employees within the housing sector are facing a growing number of large-scale threats which can affect both employee safety and business continuity. Employers have a duty of care to protect their workers, but this can prove challenging for large organisations with disparate staff.
Fires
Fires are a major concern for housing organisations such as associations and estate agents, particularly following the Grenfell Tower incident in 2017. The tragic incident which caused 72 deaths and injured over 70, due to a number of fire hazards present in the building. The exterior cladding was one such hazard and has found to be widely used in buildings around the world, creating a potential for similar incidents in the future.
This year, a building with the same cladding as Grenfell ignited in Melbourne, Australia and spanned 8 floors. Similar fires were also seen in Brazil, Dubai, Indonesia, Israel, and France in the past 4 years.
While the situations around Grenfell led to an extraordinarily high fatality rate, house fires are not uncommon. Recent statistics show that there were 19,656 reported fires in London alone in 2018, while 2% of all social renters experienced a fire in their homes in the year spanning 2016/17. Of this, 25 % were serious enough to require emergency response.
With housing employees spending much of their time in client’s homes, they are at risk of being caught up in fires while their employer is likely to be unaware of their location and whether they are able to evacuate the building safely.
Criminal activity
Criminal activity is also becoming more common during working hours and in public spaces, creating more opportunity for employees working within the community to be involved in an incident.
Employees travelling between appointments and meetings can easily be caught up in such incidents which are extremely unpredictable and have largely changed in nature to random attacks on busy streets.
Riots and protests are also a threat across many parts of the world and innocent bystanders can easily get caught up in clashes and violent attacks.