Lone Working

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Lone Working

Lone worker monitoring is the practice of monitoring the safety of employees who may be exposed to risk due to work conditions in which they are located out of sight and sound from a person who may be able to offer aid in the event of an emergency.

Employers are responsible for the health, safety and welfare at work of all their workers. They also have responsibility for the health and safety of any contractors or self-employed people doing work for them. These responsibilities cannot be transferred to any other person, including those people who work alone.

Workers have responsibilities to take reasonable care of themselves and other people affected by their work activities and to co-operate with their employers in meeting their legal obligations.

What is a lone worker?

A Lone Worker (LW) is an employee who performs an activity that is carried out in isolation from other workers without close or direct supervision. Such staff may be exposed to risk because there is no-one to assist them and so a risk assessment may be required.

According to the HSE, lone workers might work alone in fixed establishments such as a small workshop, petrol station, kiosk, shop, home office, factory, warehouse, leisure center or fairground. Or they might be people working on their own outside of normal hours such as cleaners, security, and maintenance or repair staff.

In addition, there are mobile workers who work away from their fixed base. For example, workers involved in construction, maintenance, plant installation and cleaning, agricultural and forestry workers, service workers such as postal staff, social and medical workers, engineers, estate agents, and sales or service representatives visiting domestic and commercial premises.

Who could be a Lone Worker?

Staff working on nightshifts e.g. gas station attendant
Contractors working inside occupied premises but in isolation of any close or direct supervision
Delivery workers
Community nursing staff
Cleaners
Rent collectors
Postal staff
Sales representatives
Construction workers

Miners
Engineers
Maintenance and repair staff in the field
Agricultural and forestry workers
Telecommunications technicians
Rural delivery drivers
Social and medical workers
Self-employed people
People who work apart from their colleagues such as receptionists, retail clerks, service station attendants

Workers in the energy industry or oil and gas Industry including upstream workers like surveyors, land managers, drillers, and midstream or downstream workers such as refinery workers and drivers
Outdoor workers
Mobile workers such as traveling salesmen, truck drivers, health visitors, repair technicians
People who work in any type of manufacturing facility
Estate agents