One late night, Harris, the maintenance man of the plant site, stepped into the far-off grounds to carry out checks on the machinery. While inspecting the pumps, he lost his footing, and his leg was severely injured. Lying lonely in the area with poor cell phone reception, he had to wait more than 90 minutes before help reached him. 

Thankfully, he survived. 

However, the incident led to a critical rethinking of the solo-work policies in his company and many others.

No longer does the situation belong exclusively to a few within the mining sector, where operators would walk into the shadows of deep mines without knowing what dangers were awaiting them. 

Nor does it represent higher heights atop skyscrapers or vaults held by unstable external structures. Employees performing invaluable tasks alone within the domain of day-to-day business could well be subject to the possibility of such accidents as Harris encountered.

How very risky an employment sector: isolated and defenceless. But should it all come down to good luck or antiquated communication methodologies safeguarding their own selves?

Wise risk assessment for lone working is required in such situations. Here are a few digital tools meant for that secure mechanism.

Who Are Lone Workers?

A lone worker is any employee who works with no direct supervision and is not within eyesight or earshot of another individual. This includes, but is not limited to, night-shift security guards, field technicians, delivery drivers, social-care workers, utility engineers, and even remote employees working from home.

The working environments within which their traipsing occurs are far from predictable, which only serves to make the assessment of risk beyond fulfilling just a regulatory requirement a moral imperative.

The British Safety Council presents shocking figures that almost 150 lone workers are attacked daily in the UK. Among these, physical assaults can be found here as well as accidents, illness, and environmental hazards.

The Significance of Risk Assessment

Risk assessments are systematic methods used to identify hazards, analyse risks, and put controls in place to minimize them. All these multiply with lone workers. They are prone to:

• Slips, trips, and falls 
• Physical assault or aggression
• Sudden illness or medical emergencies
• Faulty equipment
• Deprived of social support, this brings on mental stress.

Regular and specific risk assessments will ensure employers do not violate health and safety laws and, more importantly, endanger human lives.

Why Traditional Risk Assessments Have Failed

Most businesses use generic paper-based checklists or spot check-ins to cover the lone working scenario. While they mean well, these methods are simply reactive rather than proactive interventions. They fail to continuously monitor employees in real time and do not offer any provision for alerting a supervisor instantly during emergencies. Moreover, they do not support centralized oversight.

Put simply: you cannot manage what you cannot monitor.

Building a Smarter Lone Working Risk Assessment Strategy

Here’s a structured approach to creating a modern, efficient strategy for your lone workers:

1. Understand Job Roles and Associated Hazards

Start by determining who is a lone worker—can it be night cleaners, security, field-based engineers, or delivery drivers? Next, evaluate the specific risks that exist in each role.

This could include identifying risks for a delivery driver, such as injury from a traffic accident, an encounter with aggressive animals, or assault with delivery doorstep interactions.

However, just as a maintenance worker may encounter electrical risks or the risk of falling while working alone in an area where a person could become isolated. It is important to mention this step for the safety of lone workers because safety for lone workers will not be the same for all roles.

2. Use Technology to Monitor

With applications and programs on the rise that allow for safety to be tracked and monitored in real time, all while ensuring that it does not violate the individual’s right to privacy. Lone workers can now be tracked, monitored, and signalled for alert for safety, all while maintaining their privacy.

Using the lone worker app, they can include GPS location tracking, check-in timers, and inactivity alerts. Thus, ensuring you always know where a worker is and, more importantly, the condition of the worker.  

For example, if a technician has not checked in after the allotted period available, the system would send out an automatic alert to supervisors when a lone worker check-in would be expected.

3. Automate Emergency Protocols

In emergency situations, every second matters. Many lone worker apps come with built-in panic buttons, fall detection, and motion sensors that trigger immediate alerts when unusual behavior is detected.  

If a security guard collapses or a field worker is immobile beyond a set time, the system sends emergency signals to pre-assigned contacts or control rooms. This reduces the time taken to mobilize help, ensuring that lone workers are never left stranded during a crisis.

4. Update and Review Risk Assessments Frequently

Risk assessments must never be treated as a one-time arbitrary thing. The strategy should be fluid as the work environment keeps on changing. Besides, new hazards emerge in the field, and new threats may emerge. Smart people apply analytics, GPS history, and incident logs to point out patterns. Such as locations with frequent alerts, or roles with recurrent breaches in lone worker safety.

For instance, a specific route with repeated panic alerts should probably have the zone reassessed or more support added. With regular revisiting of assessments, your strategy remains relatively fresh and relevant.

5. Promote a Safety-First Culture

Such assessments are just a start. They should get feedback from a wider culture that is concerned with well-being in the workplace. A company that shows real concern about safety encourages its employees to be more engaged, more loyal, and more open about the challenges they face.

So, use risk assessments to open the door for discussing not only physical safety but also mental health, fatigue, and workload. Celebrate safe practices, reward vigilance, and let your team know that staying safe is a small part of what makes them successful on the job. A culture of care develops improved morale and better retention, making your employees more resilient and productive.

Final Thoughts

Lone workers are part of today’s world. It is the category of workers that makes sure that the lights are on, the water flows, the deliveries arrive, and the systems run.

Great risk goes with great responsibility.

By developing a better strategy for lone worker risk assessment in real time, you reduce those risks and create a much safer, more accountable, and more supportive workplace for your people.

It’s time to move beyond outdated forms and manual check-ins. Protection of lone workers has never been more efficient than it is with smart applications and digital risk assessments.

Let us know if you’d like a version suitable for adaptation to Smart Workforce or any other feature integration.

Frequently Asked Questions