At Spin, safety is our top priority, whether it’s ensuring the safety of our riders or advocating for safe streets for all.
But Spin’s commitment to safety starts in the workplace. That’s why, this National Safety Month, we wanted to celebrate the ways we commit to a safe working environment for our employees who repair, maintain, and redistribute our scooters and e-bikes.
“We believe that great operations must be built on a foundation of safety, starting with our culture and values—what we talk about every day, what it feels like to walk into a warehouse—and continuing through rigorous safety processes, developed by a world-class team, supported with technology that provides real-time insight into the safety of our employees and service vehicles,” said Dan Winston, Vice President of Market Operations for Spin.
“Our people ensure we’re delivering great service to cities and communities, which is why we’re consistently selected for renewals and competitive permitting processes,” Winston said.
Spin has 51 warehouses across Canada and the U.S. On a given day, Spin’s warehouse employees inspect, clean, and redistribute tens of thousands of e-scooters and e-bikes.
In an industry infamous for its reliance on contractors, Spin has always been proud to employ our operations staff because this allows for greater accountability, personnel development, and consistency in training, as well as creating paths for professional growth.
Spin combines in-person oversight with technology to ensure a data-driven approach to measuring performance and safety.
Our warehouses, where scooters are gathered, charged, repaired, and cleaned, are subject to regular inspections and cleanliness reviews to assure they meet our standards. And our employees spend a fair amount of time gathering and redistributing scooters in company vans.
Road safety is central to Spin’s mission and this is doubly true when it comes to our employees.
“I started working at Spin in 2019 and since then I have witnessed the safety foundation grow especially when it comes to driving,” said Rubie Cardwell, Team Lead.
All the vehicles employees use to pick up, drop off, and redistribute scooters are outfitted with safety devices that help monitor safe and efficient driving habits. This is in addition to regular in-person driver assessments that ensure the highest levels of professional standards are maintained.
“I was initially weirded out by the thought of being watched or maybe even being caught singing a couple tunes while riding around collecting scooters,” Cardwell said. “I soon found out that the device helped make me a better, safer, and more attentive driver.
The habits Cardwell learned driving as a Spin employee extend to behavior outside of work, too.
“I now wear my seatbelt in all moving vehicles, I’ve learned that text messages can wait, and how to monitor and be aware of my speed,” she said.
The technology in Spin’s vehicles helps protect our employees by allowing us to quickly and factually determine the causes of incidents involving our drivers when they do occur.
This data-driven approach allows managers to assign our driver’s safety scores—which measure speed limit compliance, abrupt stopping frequency, and instances of distracted driving, among other criteria—in real-time.
In addition to Federally-mandated training, Spin employees receive a number of supplementary trainings through a rigorous workplace safety curriculum developed in-house, tailored specifically to the challenges unique to micromobility, like customized ergonomic training focused on the unique task of manually handling different types of form factors and safe handling of lithium ion batteries.
We are able to require our employees to regularly review these training sessions and deepen their knowledge of workplace safety.
“We operate on a foundation of regulatory compliance enhanced with best management practices and a strong safety culture. We are on the leading edge of setting the standard for occupational health and safety in the micromobility space," said Anthony Fernandez, Director of Operations Optimization and Safety.
"Our team includes Board of Certified Safety Professionals (BCSP) credentialed safety experts,” he said.
“Over the past 12 months, we have been able to transform the way Spin looks at safety and have increased employee engagement and safety awareness as a whole. We have implemented a safety management system that helps us streamline reporting, focus on corrective and preventive actions, and promote visibility to safety performance across the organization,” said Fernandez.
During National Safety Month, we wanted to spotlight the people who make that possible: our employees, who give their all everyday to deliver the high quality of service our customers have come to expect.
We believe that the foundation of providing riders with a safe, sustainable way to move through their communities is a workplace culture that prioritizes safety and accountability.
