The challenge
Mornington Peninsula Shire’s outreach and field-services teams operate across more than 700 km² of coastline, parkland, and mixed-density suburbs. Workers are routinely alone, often in remote spots, often after dark.
Existing safety processes relied on radio check-ins and personal mobile phones, with no consistent way to escalate when something went wrong. After a near-miss in 2023, the executive committed to deploying a connected workforce safety platform across every public-facing role.
The approach
Duress was selected after a six-vendor evaluation. The shire deployed the Duress App to 80+ frontline staff and Phoenix devices to teams in higher-risk roles. Pathfinder gave operations leads visibility across all teams without compromising worker privacy when no incident was active.
Implementation took three weeks total, with on-site training in two cohorts. The 24/7 ASIAL Grade A1 monitoring centre took over alert handling from day one.
The outcome
In the first six months, average alert-to-response time dropped from 4.2 minutes to under 30 seconds. Operations leads now run quarterly safety reviews using Pathfinder’s incident history, satisfying the shire’s WHS audit requirements without manual reporting.
Workforce confidence improved measurably, with internal surveys showing a 32% increase in workers reporting “feeling safe at work” within twelve months of rollout.