Rethinking Employee security in High Risk Environment

A recent tragic incident involving a Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KPLC) field employee has brought employee safety into question.

According to an official statement from KPLC, an employee was attacked while working on suspected fraudulent electricity consumption. Despite being rapidly airlifted and receiving medical attention, he unfortunately succumbed to his injuries. The company further noted that this was not an isolated case, as similar incidents targeting field teams have occurred before.

This raises a difficult but necessary question for all organizations: Are your employees truly safe while carrying out their duties? When organizations think about security, attention is often placed on offices, headquarters, and physical infrastructure. However, for many sectors like utilities, logistics, sales, construction, agriculture and service providers, the real risk exists outside of controlled environments.

Employees in the field often operate in unpredictable environments, remote or poorly monitored locations, areas with limited emergency response coverage and situations involving public interaction or infrastructure exposure. In such contexts, safety now comes down to real-time protection and rapid response capability.

One of the most concerning aspects of repeated incidents like this is it reveals that this is not an isolated security failure, it is a systemic risk pattern. When similar incidents occur multiple times within the same operational context, it suggests there are gaps in:

• Risk forecasting before deployment

• Field security protocols

• Incident response coordination

• Protective planning for frontline workers

At this stage, the conversation must move beyond incident response and toward structural prevention or risk management. Workplace safety incidents in the field carry consequences far beyond the immediate tragedy. Employers are likely to face a variety of short term and long term consequences  like; 

• Loss of skilled personnel

• Emotional trauma for employees and their families

• Operational disruptions

• Legal and reputational exposure

• Reduced staff morale and confidence in safety systems

• Reputational exposure 

When incidents repeat, there is a danger that organizations begin to treat them as tolerable risks that are “part of the job" rather than the security failures they truly are. Employee safety must be treated as an integrated security responsibility not just an HR or operational concern.

This requires a shift in approach:

• Every field assignment should be evaluated for risks, not assumed safe by default.

• Understanding the safety profile of locations before teams are deployed.

• Ensuring field teams are never operating in isolation without rapid response capability or support.

• Clear, fast pathways for response when situations escalate.

• Not all assignments require the same level of exposure. Risk should determine protection levels.

• Team members should be trained and empowered to help take responsibility for their personal safety

No output, deadline, or service target should come at the expense of human life and this incident is a reminder that many employees continue to work in environments where risk is real, present, and sometimes underestimated.

So the question remains: Are your employees safe not just in theory, but in practice?