SHEQSY Protect Your Lone Workers
Whether they’re healthcare workers doing home visits, utility workers servicing remote areas, or surveyors completing inspections, your lone workers need to be protected. duress alarm SHEQSY’s lone worker app allows them to raise a duress alarm, check-in at regular intervals, report hazards and share their location with colleagues.
Lone working procedures should be documented in your lone worker policy and clearly communicated to your employees.
What is a lone worker?
A lone worker is anyone who works alone and is not in direct contact with colleagues during their work, for example, construction workers, retail staff, a receptionist at a large office building, taxi drivers and home care workers. Lone working also includes those who work in remote locations such as a field location or from home.
In order for employees to work alone safely it is essential that an employer puts in place a robust emergency management system and procedures. This could include a lone worker app that enables staff to check in at regular intervals and provide emergency help requests via their device during and after shifts.
It is also vital that the lone worker device has a panic button and GPS location capability to alert safety personnel to where the employee needs assistance. SHEQSY’s lone worker app offers all of this functionality and more. SHEQSY also enables businesses to align their incident management process to support their lone worker policy and track historic lone worker data (work activities, pre-start form responses, location notes, hazard reports and more). This enables managers and supervisors to keep on top of incidents when they happen.
The definition of a lone worker
Typically, a lone worker is an employee who works alone and is not in contact with others. They may also work in remote or hazardous locations and are not easily identifiable by other workers. The definition of a lone worker has grown considerably broader since the COVID-19 pandemic and includes many more employees than ever before.
All businesses should have a risk assessment in place before assigning staff to work alone. It’s important to review the risk assessment periodically and update it as necessary.
It’s also vital to develop a policy and procedures for working alone and ensure that all employees are trained in this policy. You should also have a lone worker emergency plan and a contact person that will be responsible for activating this in the event of an incident. Some companies may already have detailed incident management processes in place and, if this is the case, these should be aligned with your lone worker policy.
The dangers of lone working
Lone workers are more vulnerable to injury or attack as they have nobody to call for help. They also tend to be exposed to risks that aren’t accounted for in their general risk assessment.
For example, many health and social care staff work alone in patients’ homes or on outreach visits. They are often at risk of physical or verbal abuse from patients, their families, or the public.
It’s legal for your staff to work alone, but you need to risk assess their environment or situation and put in place suitable controls to protect them. These might include a set time for them to check in with you and a contact person, as well as technology that lets them stay connected to their team or the emergency services. Lone working can also be stressful, which may impact on mental wellbeing. If the risk is too high, it’s better to avoid lone working altogether or provide more supervision.
The benefits of lone working
A lone worker system will allow you to track the safety of staff without having to rely on your team remembering to check in. Time based systems, such as ours, will automatically count down from an agreed number of minutes and when the time has passed the employee will receive a request asking if they are OK.
If they are not, an alert will be sent to a supervisor and the emergency response can begin. It will also save a lot of time wasted by trying to find out where a member of staff is.
Every business should have a clearly defined working alone policy and it is essential to ensure that all employees who are at risk of being attacked or harmed understand the arrangements in place to protect them when they are working alone. This should be reinforced at all inductions, team meetings and when new employees join your workforce. A good lone working system will help reduce the risks of this type of work and improve productivity.