It is becoming a more and more common sight at workplaces: employees looking at and using tablets, smartphones or other handheld devices in relation to their job. Technology has made it so an increasing number of work tasks can be performed on such devices.
Given this, it can be important for companies to give careful thought to what sorts of workplace policies they have regarding worker use of such devices. Among the things such policies can have impacts on is safety.
When one thinks of potential safety risks that can come up in connection to handheld device use at work, one might mainly think of cyber safety risks, like data breach risks. However, risks to the physical safety of workers, customers and others could also come up.
One source of such risks is distracted walking. Distracted walking is not just something that could happen out on the roads or sidewalks; it can also happen in a workplace. Using a handheld device while walking around the workplace could cause a worker’s attention to drift away from where they are walking and what they are doing. This could lead to accidents that could leave workers or others (such as customers) seriously hurt.
So, the possibility of workers engaging in distracted walking is one of the things a business may want to think about when deciding what sorts of workplace policies to put in place when it comes to employee use of handheld devices at work.
A business could end up facing challenging legal matters, such as litigation that has the potential to have major financial impacts, when a customer gets severely injured on business premises and the injuries were allegedly due to the conduct of the business’ workers, such as distracted walking by such workers. When such issues come up, taking the wrong steps when it comes to defense efforts could be very costly for a business. So, in these kinds of situations, a business may want a skilled personal injury defense attorney’s assistance with developing a defense approach.
Source: KJZZ, “Distracted Walking Leading To Distracted Workplaces,” Christina Estes, Nov. 15, 2016
