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The Complete Guide to Workplace Safety and Vibration Monitoring & Measurement

Workplace safety requires more than avoiding accidents. It requires a culture where risk is continuously measured, mitigated, and managed. In industries like construction, manufacturing, and heavy engineering, one of the most overlooked risks is vibration exposure.

Hand-Arm Vibration Syndrome (HAVS) is preventable. And yet, thousands of UK workers are affected by it every year due to prolonged use of vibrating tools without effective monitoring. At Feraru Dynamics, we’re committed to creating solutions that build a better tomorrow, today. We’ve put together this guide that explores how advanced vibration monitoring fits into broader workplace safety monitoring, how traditional data collection falls short, and how safety technology like HAV-Sentry creates a safer future for workers across the UK.

Workplace Safety

Why Workplace Safety Monitoring Needs a Rethink

Every employer has a duty of care under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. But as workforces become more distributed, tools more powerful, and regulations tighter, traditional methods of monitoring risks are no longer reliable.

Manual Data Collection: A Risk in Itself

For many organisations, vibration exposure is still tracked through:

  • Paper logbooks

  • Verbal shift reports

  • Time-per-tool estimations

These methods are not only prone to error: they often underreport actual exposure. A 2022 study by the HSE found that nearly 40% of employers failed to assess or manage vibration risk adequately, often due to unreliable data collection and a lack of regular monitoring with focus on control measures.

Can you Improve Workplace Safety Through Vibration Monitoring?

In their HSE guidance, the government makes a distinction between monitoring and measurement for vibration exposure.

HAV-Sentry is unique because it's a compliant measurement device, offering all that monitoring devices offer, but with the assurance that the data is compliant to ISO standards and HSE guidance.

See here: hse.gov.uk

Monitoring alone is not sufficient as you need to show you have done as much as possible to reduce the vibration risk. With monitoring it could be the case that exposure has already reached set limits. This is why the guidance specifically states that you need to reduce the risk to the lowest possible level. Therefore, measurements of vibration exposure produce the most accurate way of achieving effective control measures for HAVS.


The Role of Safety Technology in Construction and Industry

High-Risk Industries, Higher Expectations

Construction, civil engineering, utilities, and manufacturing are all high-risk sectors for vibration exposure. Yet many still rely on fragmented systems for health and safety monitoring.

The industry is starting to shift, with growing adoption of:

  • Industrial safety devices that measure environmental and personal exposure

  • Wearable safety technology in construction for real-time risk detection

  • Connected dashboards to centralise compliance, audits, and reporting


According to the HSE, the cost for 2023/24 of occupational ill-health in the UK construction sector exceeds £1.2 billion, with HAVS playing a significant role.

HAV-Sentry: Smart Vibration Measurement That Works for You

HAV-Sentry is designed to solve the data problem at the heart of HAVS compliance. It removes guesswork, manual errors, and fragmented reporting by offering:

  • Real-time vibration exposure tracking per user and per tool

  • Automated compliance reporting and audit trails

  • Live dashboards for supervisors and safety leads

  • Health trend analysis for early detection and prevention


By combining wearable sensors with intuitive software, HAV-Sentry becomes more than a monitoring system, it becomes your frontline defence in workplace safety.

And because it integrates with existing workflows, it doesn’t disrupt your operations—it strengthens them.

Worker Health and Safety Best Practices

Whether you're a safety manager, compliance officer, or site supervisor, your priorities are the same: keep your people safe, your processes compliant, and your operations efficient.

Here are five proven strategies:

  1. Integrate real-time measurements into daily workflows

  2. Use predictive data to inform rotations and tool servicing

  3. Automate documentation to streamline audits

  4. Invest in wearable safety tech to bridge data gaps

  5. Educate workers on risks and how their data is used to protect them


Modern workplace safety measurement isn't about checking boxes. It's about empowering your team with the right tools, the right data, and the confidence that they’re being protected every step of the way.

If you're ready to transform your safety culture and move beyond unreliable logs, HAV-Sentry is here to help, quietly, intelligently, and always with your workforce at the centre.