Understanding Lone Worker Policy

What is a Lone Worker Policy?

A lone worker policy is an official set of guidelines, practices, and rules that establish your organization’s regulations for ensuring the safety of employees working alone or in isolated environments. Every lone worker policy should outline general guidance for working safely, potential lone worker hazards and risks, roles and responsibilities, clear and simple safety procedures and processes to follow, tools to use, how to assess and report incidents, and what to do in cases of emergency.

Why is a Lone Worker Safety Policy Important?

Between healthcare workers providing home visits, surveyors completing site inspections, utility workers operating in dangerous or remote areas, in unpredictable weathers like a snowstorms, office employees working from home, lone workers come in many forms. They all have one important thing in common: they work alone or isolated, without close, regular, or direct supervision, and therefore, face higher health and safety risks than those who don’t.

It may be legally required of your organization to have a lone worker health and safety policy in place, especially for certain cases like working at night.

Lone Worker Safety Legislation

Australia’s Work Health and Safety Act 2011 maintains that, so far as is reasonably practicable, organizations must ensure “the provision and maintenance of safe systems of work” and “the provision of any information, training, instruction or supervision that is necessary to protect all persons from risks to their health and safety.” It also states that workplaces and workers’ health must be monitored to prevent illness or injury.

Lone Worker Health and Safety Risks

When employees work alone, they’re exposed to a higher risk of experiencing a serious incident. According to the UK’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE), risks that particularly affect lone workers include the following:

• the workplace itself (e.g., if it’s located in a rural or isolated place)

• physical violence in the workplace

• stress and mental health or wellbeing

Emergency Response

Having the right real-time monitoring systems, check-in and reporting procedures, and emergency response coordination processes in place can ensure that organizations know exactly where lone workers are, what they’re doing, and that they’re safe.

So how do you monitor employees when they work alone? You can deploy a lone worker safety app called SHEQSY by Mitti (by SafetyCulture). It’s a lone worker safety solution that protects workers in real-time with duress alarms, periodic check-ins, and overtime alerts–while keeping managers informed.

What to Include in a Lone Worker Safety Policy

Your lone worker policy document should be customized to meet your organization’s needs, comply with legal obligations, and mitigate specific lone worker risks. However, there are a few essential elements that every organization should include in their lone working safety policies, no matter the industry:

• Policy purpose statement – State why your organization has created the policy, how it will keep lone workers safe, and how the policy aligns with your organization’s goals and values.

• Clear identification of lone worker risks – A lone worker safety policy can’t be successful without clearly and specifically defining the risks associated with each lone-working role.

• Defined processes, procedures, roles, and responsibilities – Your lone worker policy must define lone worker processes and procedures, as well as each person’s roles and responsibilities in detailed, non-negotiable terms.

• Specific reporting procedures – Detail the steps employees must take to report a hazard, incident, or near-miss. This data will help managers and lone workers learn from any incidents and continuously improve the lone worker policy and its procedures.

• Additional resources and contact information – Make it easy for lone workers to ask questions or share concerns they have about lone worker safety. Ensure that emergency contact details are easy to find and that further training are available.

How to Create a Lone Working Policy

While organizations may have various requirements and guidelines for lone working, the following steps can be used as a framework to building an effective policy:

1. Identify all lone worker roles.

Start by identifying all of your employees who work alone regularly. Some examples include delivery drivers, home healthcare workers, utility maintenance staff, social workers, and even employees working from their home offices.

2. Determine and assess the risks.

Identifying as many lone worker hazards and assessing their risks is critical to the effectiveness of your lone worker safety policy. Ultimately, the goal is to identify (and then rectify) as many health and safety issues as possible.

This lone working risk assessment example can guide you through the eight steps involved in identifying and assessing lone worker risks:

1. Identify the hazards.

2. Evaluate who (or what) might be harmed and how.

3. Analyze the likelihood and severity of potential incidents.

4. Determine how to minimize the risks and mitigate any hazards.

5. Implement new policies, processes, and procedures.

6. Train your workforce.

7. Record significant findings.

8. Regularly review your lone worker risks.

If you identified a variety of different lone worker roles in Step 1, then it may be advisable to complete a lone worker risk assessment for each role. Only then, can you be sure that you have identified all of the common risks your employees could face.

3. Define lone working safety processes and procedures.

With common hazards and risks in mind, set out to create a clear, specific, and practical guide to working alone safely. This section of the policy should be customized to fit your organization’s industry, employees, and other unique factors.

4. Define roles and responsibilities.

Next, you must outline the roles and responsibilities of everyone covered in the policy: lone workers, team leaders, managers, supervisors, officers, and if applicable, your professional security monitoring center.

5. Provide health and safety training and resources.

It’s very important to ensure that your management team and lone workers understand your lone worker policy, how to use it, and most importantly, why they should. Your lone worker policy should include additional resources, information, and opportunities for training.

6. Regularly review and update the policy.

Lone worker roles, workplaces and their conditions, government regulations, and industry best practices can all change over time. Perhaps the most important step in creating a lone worker policy is reviewing, updating, and improving it regularly. Depending on the nature of the work, annual or bi-annual reviews and updates may be wise.