Duty of Care: Owning the Moral Obligation of Workplace Safety

Tim Male:

Hey everyone! Thanks for joining our session today. Really excited to have you here with us. So today we're going to be talking about duty of care, what it means for your business and what an actual practical approach would be for protecting employees and maintaining your duty of care responsibility. So really excited to dive in today for the next handful of minutes. So just to get started, I'm Tim Mal. I'm a product marketing manager here at LVT. I'm also your host today.

So I've worked pretty closely with folks like you throughout my tenure here and in the security and physical security and safety space. So excited to take what I've learned and what I've heard and ingested over that time and share that with you today.

So before we get started all the way, let's talk about what duty of care is. I'm sure most of you know what we're talking about today, but just so we set expectations because there's fiduciary responsibility and different things related to duty of care. So for our purposes today, we're going to be talking about duty of care as the legal obligation of an organization like yours to prevent harm and protect others from anything nefarious damage, injury, or even fatality as it relates to employment with your organization. So to put that in other words, it's the policy framework that you use to maintain the best interests of your employees in this case when it comes specifically to safety.

So all good and well, but there's some pretty scary statistics out there that relate to the problem of workplace violence and make duty of care a really important, timely obligation on your end. So when you take a look at the numbers here, it's really hard to look away from them. I know they're pretty scary, but you'll notice that workplace violence has jumped pretty significantly by 62% in 2025 alone. So it's increasing. It's rising, it's climbing, and we need to be adaptable and make sure that we're building a program that can work around that and prevent that from affecting your business. Sadly, 470 employee fatalities occurred in 2024. That's the most recent data we've got. So unfortunately, 470 just shy of 500 individuals came to work and didn't go home to their families, which is alarming. So not only that, we're also thinking about there's the assaults that happen too.

Now that don't always end up in fatality, but also impact employees in different ways. So that's exorbitant. That's over 50,000 unique assault-related injuries. For the most recent data we've got, which is from 2023 to 2024, that's a lot of specific injuries related to assault. That's not somebody tripping on a cord and hurting their ankle, that is truly related to violence in the workplace. So the problem is far and wide. Now, when we talk about injuries and assaults and that sort of thing too, there's also a cost to the business there. The average days away from work are averages around six. So that's six days of downtime that the organization experiences loss of productivity and impacts also the employee morale. So these are really big material impacts that workplace violence has on organizations. But also just quickly, want to touch on the fact that this isn't just one industry.

We're not just talking about specific areas that may not apply to you. We're talking across the board. Specifically, healthcare accounts for the lion share of these reported incidents is over 72%, which is 10 times more than other industries. But following closely, we see that retail carries a 57% violent crime fatality experience in parking lots. So not only is healthcare experiencing a climb or the most of employee-related injuries and incidents, but also from a retail perspective, those are happening in the parking lot. So thinking outside of the building, these are actually happening outside of the four walls of the organization. So then you'd look at construction theft, you look at public sector instability, you look at all of these different things. That 62% increase in workplace violence that you're seeing is closing the gap across all different industries and different experiences. And that has trickled down effects.

So employees don't feel safe. It sort of ripples outward. Productivity drops and people start to check out. You experience a lot of different challenges that aren't just specific to the employee feeling unsafe. You experience that decrease in productivity. So the employee starts to ask, well, if this organization doesn't care about me or I don't feel safe, why should I care about it? It's not what we want to hear. There's also an increase in desensitization for employees. So this is just a crummy part of the job. And so why would I report these incidents when they happen all the time? Then you don't know incidents are happening and then they escalate and then you have a really big problem on your hands. It can also lead to decrease in brand and location reputation. So this could take the form of, did you see that viral video of that employee getting hurt?

I don't want to work there. I don't want to shop there. I don't want to go there. So that also impacts your brand, your bottom line, and also the outcome of your business. And finally, an increase in turnover. This isn't surprising when employees are feeling unsafe. So they're thinking, this job is unsafe. I have responsibility to my family, my partner, my kids, my whomever. I don't want to keep working here. I want to find something else. So these are really big impacts that expand just beyond an employee feeling unsafe. These are actually material impacts to the business that explains why duty of care is not only a business responsibility, but it's truly a moral responsibility and they go hand in hand.

So this is the core tension. On the left, you're trying to avoid these foreseeable incidents before they happen. You're trying to see around corners and manage that left of bang experience that I know you're all familiar with. And on the right-hand side, you're dealing with investigations and preventing incidents from recurring after something happens. How do you manage that and then handle the impacts of that incident, but also not allow it to continue to happen because individuals target your site. We know that traditional approaches for this fall short on both sides. Cameras will record. They don't necessarily do anything other than record, so they aren't intervening with the experience. Deescalation training kicks in too late. That's putting employees directly in harm's way. And most common solutions should require an employee to get directly involved. When employee has to get directly involved, you're actually putting them much closer to that workplace violence challenge of experiencing an assault or something worse.

So it's really dangerous, really high risk, but it's also just a difficult puzzle to solve. How do you balance these two things effectively? It's really tough and we understand that we acknowledge that. So before we move forward, I want to hear from you. I want to know what you have implemented to prevent and deter these foreseeable incidents in your business. What are you guys doing? What are you trying to do today on top of all the other things that you're doing to prevent these incidents that you know could happen to your frontline employees across different industries? So we'll see what we get.

Interesting. Yeah. It looks like got a couple responses here. Yeah, looks like cameras. Someone mentioned security guard, virtual guard. Yeah, makes sense. And those are the leverage that are available to you. It's kind of what you have available today and what the security and safety world recommends and provides to you. So yeah, that makes sense. Lots of good things, but still with their own challenges, they bring in their own issues, their own shortfalls, their own benefits. There's a lot of different things happening there. Oh, somebody mentioned varying hours of operation. Well, that's a challenge. Don't want to limit your hours of operation because there's a business impact there. So great call-outs. Appreciate the candor for sharing this. So now that we know what you all are doing, let's talk about what a good program would look like. From employee frontline safety and making sure that folks are happy, comfortable, and your business moves forward, what does this look like?

There are four prongs or four pillars to a successful duty of care approach when it comes to safety and the levers that you can pull with the security and safety world. The first is creating a visible security presence. Something that makes bad actors say, oh, this site is actively monitored. There's sophisticated security here. Probably not somewhere I should engage negatively with. They're not just reporting me, they will do something about it. So you have to have that visible security presence. You also want to introduce an autonomous intervention, which we'll dig into in a second, but it doesn't wait for a human to take action. Something is actually intervening with a bad actor or a trespasser, a loiterer, an unhoused individual on site. It's engaging with that person before somebody has to get involved. So you're actually avoiding having to put that person in harm's way.

The third piece is on demand deterrence. So what levers can be pulled that an employee can pull and leverage that empowers them to feel safe and actually to maintain their own safety and security without having to actually directly engage with a threat. And the fourth is sort of an escalation path. Not everybody will be deterred by these levers and these pillars. We need to actually create an escalation path that is simple and easy for employees to use should something move beyond a simple action or a simple behavior. If something really is getting out of hand, they need to have an escalation path that they can leverage. So the kind of bonus umbrella requirement here for these four is that it also shouldn't feel like another full-time job to them. Your staff is there to work for your business, obtain the OKRs, propel the business forward, achieve timelines, achieve revenue, whatever it might be.

They shouldn't feel like they have to learn a whole new approach just to feel safe at work and just to baseline be protected by your duty of care responsibility. So let's dig into each one of these. First is that visible security presence. So there are three characteristics that are crucial here. And remember, we're not just talking static cameras, we are talking a sophisticated and imposing security presence. So something that is clearly visible to both your employees, they see it and they know that they're protected, there's sort of air cover there, but also visible to bad actors. Again, as I mentioned, they see sophisticated security infrastructure and they know that this is probably not a site that they want to challenge because there are much softer sites that they could target that don't have sophisticated security infrastructure. It also needs to be active and engaging with the environment.

So that could be things like audio, strobe lights, sirens, something that actually engages with the environment, not just those static cameras, CCTV, or even guards that take shifts and patrols and they can find gaps and holes. This visible security infrastructure is imposing and they know. And to that point, it thwarts those desensitized criminals. Even the folks who are really sophisticated in the ways that they work like organized retail crime or what have you, they are unsure what they're looking at. When they get on site and they see something really sophisticated and something that is engaging with the environment is really imposing, they don't know what it will do. They don't know what it's capable of. So that sends the message to them that your site is protected and probably not worth challenging. So a good example of this would be things like mobile surveillance units like you see here or mounted intelligent security systems, which create a see it in fear experience with bad actors or criminals, but also a see it in respected experience with frontline employees.

It's a direct message to those folks that you care for their wellbeing and you're protecting their site.

The second piece is not just having that imposing security presence, but also making sure that it engages with the environment in an autonomous way. Creating a deterrence profile, deterrence experience that doesn't require those frontline employees to get involved with whatever threat is on site. Their job is to keep the business moving, not to consistently be engaging with bad actors or with behaviors that are unwanted. So in order to have this autonomous effective deterrence profile, it needs to do a few things. It first needs to actively engage with the environment, which we alluded to before, but it needs to be smart enough to engage at the right time. Because again, as we talked about, bad actors may find that if the lights are just going off all the time, they become desensitized. They're like, oh, that's not doing anything. Let me go ahead and engage with this site.

The second is adapting to the threat or behavior in real time. This kind of also piggybacks on that desensitization experience. If it engages with behaviors in real time and is actively engaging with those behaviors, pivoting the approach, adapting to what threats are on site, it continues to give the impression that the site is being monitored, it is protected, and that somebody will respond immediately when something happens. So bad actors don't like that. They want to be able to engage with softer sites where they aren't challenged. And finally, again, this desensitization though, because bad actors aren't deterred by cameras or even canned audio responses, they need something that directly calls them out, directly engages with them, directly acknowledges their behavior, what they're wearing, what they're doing, all of that so that they feel, again, like somebody is actually engaging with them. And frankly, nobody has to.

There's an autonomous experience here. This is where AI really shines in the field. With tools like AI talkdown and hardware that focuses on behavioral monitoring, your employees can remain safely within the building or without of harm's reach while the security system delivers a personalized customized deterrence action or workflow. Again, to make that bad actor feel like, "Hey, you're being monitored right now, you probably need to leave." So important stuff, it's imposing, it's there, it's also engaging with the environment in a personalized, adaptable way. But like we talked about, employees are also the greatest asset and turnover is a huge challenge. So you also want to provide them with empowerment. You want to provide them with frontline tools that give them peace, security and agency over their safety experiences. So that also provides that duty of care cover that gives them that good feeling that you care about them because here in your hands is a way to actively deter a bad threat or a bad actor.

So that should be something like low lift, easily activated. Again, you don't want them feeling like they have to learn something new or learn a whole new program, a whole new system. It should be easy to engage with and easy to use so that they feel safe, but they also feel supported. They don't want to feel burdened by their own safety and therefore make the assumption that you feel burdened by their safety. It also should empower the user so they should know how to use it, when to use it, and the use case for it. So you use this platform or this profile or this panic button or this app when there are specific things happening or when you need to get to your car from building or when you are arriving early on site and there's no one else there, they need to better understand that to feel empowered in using the solution that you provide, but it also should not require the employee to engage with the threat.

So again, keeping them out of harm's way where violence is concerned, where things could go left and go awry and they could be part of the statistics that we talked about earlier. So it should allow them to safely remain out of harm's way, but also feel safe in what you're providing with them. So an example here is things like panic buttons or a solution like LVT SafeNow, which is kind of the gold standard. So this places the ability to activate security measures directly in an employee's hands. I'm sure you all know panic buttons and what have you. So in doing so, the tools both empower the user to avoid the threat, but it also reminds them that you care for their safety and wellbeing proactively. It doesn't take something happening on site for then you to turn around and say, okay, everybody needs panic buttons.

You're reaching out and saying, "Hey, this is a solution that we know is important to you and we're thinking ahead and trying to prevent incidents from happening because we care about you and therefore protects your business." So easy to use, empowering and doesn't require them to actively run out and engage with a threat. So important stuff. But of course, not all threats are created equal, unfortunately, as much as we all would like them to be blanket, easy to eat and manage across the board. There will be times where these previous approaches just don't deter a persistent or motivated individual. That's why for this last pillar of successful duty of care where your physical security is concerned is providing that escalation path. So it should be giving employees a direct line to emergency services, not just like 911 on speed dial on an interior phone. This should give them a very easy to use path to engage with law enforcement.

It should be as simple as possible. So a swipe of a button, a press of a button. I think it's really important to ensure that it's easy to use because as we know, if something begins to escalate, fight, flight or freeze will kick in. So then we have to manage that experience on behalf of the employee, see around those corners and allow the employee to find safety while engaging with law enforcement in a very quick, very easy way and then achieve the fastest response possible from law enforcement because every second counts in an escalated emergency situation. So making sure that that response happens quickly. So all of this goes hand in hand, giving the employees the direct line, making sure it's easy to use and making sure law enforcement can respond quickly is your last step of providing duty of care because sometimes things will just happen.

So that's where those more sophisticated panic buttons, mobile escorts or virtual escorts where you call in and somebody escorts you to your car or safe now again, LVTs app for frontline employee safety, provide the right amount of protection. It clearly defines and activates the escalation path during an emergency so that bad scenarios can be managed and kept from the worst possible outcome, giving the power to the employee to engage as a frontline individual with law enforcement when things are not panning out as we'd like to see them. So I know it's a lot of information. So to recap, we've got those four pieces that are crucial. We've got the physical security presence, something like an MSU or a security infrastructure mounted to the wall that's not just cameras where we're talking intelligent speakers, sirens, strobes, all of those different components, which is clearly visible, actively engaging, and signals to anyone that this site takes security seriously.

It has to have autonomous intelligence. So AI-driven deterrents like AI talkdown from LVT, which would engage dynamically with the environment and call out specific attributes, clothing, behavior to say that we are monitoring you, you need to leave so that it doesn't just become background noise or canned responses, canned audio, canned lights, canned strobes, sirens that bad actors will ignore. You have to have those frontline tools, which are low lift on- demand options like SafeNow or virtual escorts. Employees can trigger a response from the mobile device and manage an experience without directly confronting the threat, clears their path to their car, to the construction site, to wherever they're trying to go without actually doing anything beyond a swipe or a press. And lastly is the escalation path. This one is the most straightforward. It's a direct line to emergency services through something like SafeNow so that if a situation unfortunately does escalate, the team isn't scrambling to find a solution and get in touch with security or law enforcement.

They are easily able to access that quickly because every second counts. So really great stuff, four pillars of a really great strong frontline employee safety, duty of care experience. So for the next just couple of seconds, let's take a look at what this looks like in action in the real world. So here we've got a hospital when hospitals operate twenty four seven, they have lots of staff. They're typically sprawling sites. There's lots of different places for bad actors to hide, to wait, or to engage with shift changes with nurses or discharges, whoever it is that is accessing these large sites. By having security posture there, you see those two mobile surveillance units in the corners, you're telling the individuals on that site that they are protected, the employees are protected, employees are able to engage in their jobs but not with bad actors and move without the building, move around the site, move across the premises with care.

So these mobile surveillance units would give that imposing experience. They would actually engage with individuals who should not be there after hours or in specific areas. Maybe there's a corner of the premises that nobody should be on. You can engage with that and tell them they're loitering and trespassing and need to leave. And then empowering all of these nurses, doctors, and staff with panic buttons or something like Safe Now so that way when they want to go to their car and they want to ... It's 40 AM and there's a shift change, they actually can get there and feel safe.

Similarly, there's a bus station that we've put together here, which is often also twenty four seven, or if not twenty four seven, very close to it. There's a lot of people coming and going. It's really high traffic and can be an attractive location for vagrancy, for more hostile threats like gatherings or gang activities. So by again, placing those really visible imposing security infrastructures like an MSU on site, you're telling individuals who are coming and going, the customers, that there's a protected site, we're watching, we're monitoring, we're engaging, but you're also telling the employees who work there into the different hours of the evening and engaging with different individuals, all different walks of life, that security is just around the corner and again, is setting them up for success with things like SafeNow. So if they need to walk to take out the trash or if they need to walk to their vehicle in different off hours or they see an individual who's looking a litle bit suspicious based on the training that you've provided, they can activate SafeNow, which would activate the mobile surveillance units, let them know that the site's being monitored and they can get to their car easily and successfully.

And finally, we've got construction. So construction sites we know are typically not twenty four seven but require sophisticated protection around the clock because there's all kinds of fancy equipment. There are materials. There's also subcontractors who are arriving early or late or leaving late to the site. They may be the first one there, the last one to leave. So again, there's lots of places for bad actors to access, to hide, to get on site and actually maybe they're trying to steal lumber or another material and unfortunately a subcontractor gets there really early and they end up engaging with one another. That's not what we want. We want to avoid things like that. So again, you see these mobile surveillance units, they're imposing, they're there, they suggest the site is covered and secure. They can be set up with AI talkdown so that way if somebody's there after hours who shouldn't be there, it can call them out, let them know they need to leave, they're trespassing, they're loitering and give them a direct description of what they're doing so that the person says, "Wait a second, somebody's watching me and telling me to get going.

" So that's great. And then also you can empower subcontractors, superintendents, and all different employees with an experience like SafeNow so that when they are the first to arrive, last to leave, maybe they come on site, they see a wild animal that they want to deter. They can activate the unit so that way it can deter bad actors, deter the threat, push anybody along who should not be there so that way they're safe and comfortable. So really great stuff. It's all really important to make sure that it's imposing, it's easy to use. The power is also in the employee's hands, but also backed up with your security platform, really smart, really sophisticated. And folks, like you understand the value of this today, why things like this would support a duty of care experience or framework partnered with LBT. So this is an example here of that AI talkdown that I was talking about, but essentially the nuts and bolts here are that because the unit actually directly engages with a threat, calls out what they're wearing and what they're doing, it gives that perception that the site is being monitored even in the off hours, which then eliminates trespassing.

It eliminates loitering, it pushes people away from your site and onto something else. And that will protect those individuals both twenty four seven around your frontline individuals twenty four seven, but also the site itself after hours. So it's kind of a win-win across the board.

So to put it really plainly as we wrap up here today, duty of care requires two things, a shift from what happened to not happening at all. How do you get proactive? How do you get in front of it? How do you find the sweet spot on that left of bang to make sure that things don't happen on the site without needing employees to actively engage with threats? How do you prevent the threat from even showing up to begin with? And then similarly on the right, you've got this enabled proactive approach to security, not this historical reactive posture that unfortunately security and safety typically takes, which is something has happened and now we need to prevent something from happening again. It's more about being proactive so that nothing happens and nothing escalates to begin with to protect those core business objectives, protecting from turnover, protecting the brand reputation, making sure employees feel safe and productivity stays high and morale stays high.

So both of these aspects are part of that more established sophisticated duty of care program. So they carry all the sophisticated characteristics we talked about today, but the core goal here is to make sure that employees are empowered, safe, and capable while protecting your goals and the organization's reputation at the end of the day.

So obviously each layer we discussed carries its own benefits. There was a lot of information here and kind of a rapid fire approach. So I totally understand if there's more to discuss, but we also know that each site is different and it may not need every layer or every pillar that we talked about from this kind of sophisticated duty of care program. So here at LVT, we exist to support those unique nuances and characteristics of sites and challenges that you experience. So if anything that we covered today really resonates, we want to talk with you. So feel free to get in touch with us at the link below that you see here and we really look forward to it. So with that, I appreciate the time that you spent with me today. It's been really great sharing this with you. I hope it was helpful.

I hope you take away just a couple of different nuggets of information that help you engage with your duty of care program in a better way and making sure that you protect your employees, keep them happy, keep them safe. We want everybody to show up to work and also return home to their families in the way they arrived. So thanks for the time. Take care. We'll see you soon.