Guide to Mitigating the Work Health and Safety Risk to Lone Workers

Identifying the lone workers in your organization

Lone worker, it’s a pretty capacious term. But unless organizations have a detailed understanding of who’s included in the category, they might be unwittingly misidentifying their lone worker populations. The consequence of doing so: companies incur higher-than necessary levels of work health and safety risk.

So who are the lone workers in your organization? It might be difficult to tell. After all, a lone worker doesn’t always work alone. Most jurisdictions, for instance those in Australia, define lone work as professional work undertaken in a remote or isolated fashion and carried out in a fixed facility or away from a worker’s typical base.

Traditional representatives of the lone-worker class include social workers, security officers, truck drivers, delivery agents, realtors, in-home health aides, and traveling sales people. Meanwhile, the industries who’ve historically employed the bulk of the lone-worker population include manufacturing, construction, property maintenance and real estate, retail, healthcare, utilities, operational security, logistics, energy, and the creative industries.

The take-off of mobile work in advanced economies complicates that picture a bit, though, as does the growth of contracting and subcontracting, which is actively swelling the ranks of lone workers. In most jurisdictions, now, lone worker is just a catchall term used to describe any employee, direct or contracted, who works in a location where regular communications and steady supervision aren’t always available, as explains the New Zealand Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment.

So why do organizations need to take adequate stock of their lone worker populations? Well, organizations usually undertake lone work to gain a market advantage. So, in failing to manage their lone-worker populations, organizations run several risks adverse to those business interests. For one, lone-worker anxiety, from mismanagement and/or neglect, tends to erode employee productivity, engagement, and morale, leading to increased turnover and a lower corporate reputationⁱ.

Further, without effective, internal policies, lone workers, already a higher-risk occupational group, might put themselves in harm’s way. In turn, accidents owing to insufficient or ineffective lone-worker risk management can create serious liability for an organization.

Negative effects of unregulated lone work:

• A drop in productivity
• More employee absences
• Worse on-job morale
• Greater likelihood of occupational mistakes and mishaps
• Increased turnover
• A lower corporate reputation
• Financial and legal penalty

By the book: Defining “lone work” 

The definition of lone work varies by jurisdiction and so does the nomenclature. For instance, Australia’s work health and safety regulator, Safe Work Australia uses the category of remote and isolated work, simply defined as work that is isolated from the assistance of other people, either because of the location, time, or nature of the work being done.

According to Safe Work Australia, remote and isolated work doesn’t necessarily mean that a worker is alone, or even isolated. Indeed, a (city) building cleaner working without help qualifies as a remote or isolated worker, just as much as a truck driver who’s far away from an urban center. 

Safe Work Australia gives the following examples of remote or isolated workers:

• Semantics of collaboration diagrams
• Process diagrams
• Choreography diagrams

Source: Safe Work Australia

How organizations can ensure proper care for their lone workers

Hiring employees to perform remote and isolated work is by no means illegal. However, managing the work health and safety risks to your lone worker population is part and parcel of your duty of care requirement as a PCBU (Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking).

To refresh: the duty of care is the employer obligation (within reasonable limits) to ensure the health and safety of all workers while they’re at workⁱⁱ. In fact, the general duty, in most jurisdictions, is to eliminate any and all risks to worker health and safety. If those risks can’t be fully eliminated, as might be the case with remote and isolated work: those risks must, then, be minimized to an extent that’s reasonably practical. 

It’s also important to note that PCBUs owe this duty of care to third-party contractors, often the parties who will be executing remote and isolated work, as well as to direct employees. It’s an obligation that can’t be transferred to a party other than the PCBU – it can’t be foisted on to lone workers, for instance. The PCBU alone is required to manage the risks associated with lone work. 

Risk assessment and control: Two steps to manage the work health and safety risk to lone workers

So how, then, should you effectively deal with the work health and safety risk to your lone workers? For starters, your lone-worker risk mitigation strategy should be part of (not distinct from) the larger work health and safety risk mitigation strategy at your organization. Here are the two crucial steps to take:

Figure 1. Goals for lone worker risk management. 

1. Assess the lone-worker risk

Context matters. That’s the fundamental precept of any work health and safety strategy and should be at the cornerstone of your lone-worker risk mitigation protocols.

In many contexts, remote and isolated work carries more inherent risk than other forms of work, whether it’s greater exposure to violent acts from customers or poorer access from emergency services should any incident occur. Therefore, one of the objectives of the risk assessment will be to fully consider the factors intrinsic to the kind of lone work executed at your organization. To do so, you’ll have to ask some of the following questions to adequately gauge the lone-worker riskⁱⁱⁱ: 

What kind of lone work is being done? 

It’s not enough to know that lone work is taking place. As a risk manager, you need to know the precise nature of the lone work that’s being done. Cleaning an office at night carries far different risk than work with heavy machines, at heights, with hazardous substances, or (even) simply in a hazardous plant.

Simply knowing whether high-risk activity is involved in lone work isn’t enough, though. WHS professionals and risk teams need to dig deeper. Risk is always dynamic. At first glance, driving might not seem like a high-risk activity, but factor in long hours and the potential for violence and aggression on the road, and risk increases. The same goes for (extreme) environmental conditions. 

Where is the lone work taking place? 

Sometimes, remote and isolated work takes place at a significant geographical remove from emergency response and rescue services. 

When is the lone work being done?

Statistically, remote and isolated work at night typically increases the risk of exposure to violence.

How long will the lone work take?

Similarly, the risk to a lone worker might grow as time (on the job) increases. 

Who are your lone workers?

Remote and isolated work is often specialized work, calling for a specialized skill-set. Both the business unit assigning the work and the team controlling for work-related risk should know the lone worker’s level of experience and training. HR should be brought into the loop as well if there’s a pre-existing medical condition that can increase risk. 

What means of communication do you have with your lone workers?

Finally, risk teams must ascertain what kind of communications the lone worker will have (with base operations), while on the job. Will a team in a fixed setting remain in regular contact with the lone worker? And also, is the remote and isolated work taking place in a location where available communications might be impaired?^iv 

Lone-worker risk mitigation: Key factors to consider

Security and safety

Lone workers are often at higher risk of attack from customers and/ or strangers. Similarly, lone work poses a high risk of on-the-job mishaps, accidents to which organizations will find it more logistically difficult to respond.

Isolation

• Social: Many lone workers may suffer from the effects of social isolation, which over time can dampen employee engagement, morale, and productivity. If possible, organizations should seek regular opportunities to bring lone workers in contact with the rest of the team.
• Organizational: Though in a remote or isolated work environment, lone workers should still receive the same information, training, and development opportunities as those granted to other employees
• Technological: The same logic applies to access to advanced technologies. Lone workers should be able to access the same digital platforms as their office-based colleagues

Source: Employment New Zealand

2. Control the lone-worker risk 

Once you’ve identified and assessed an acceptable level of lone-worker risk, it’ll be time to implement controls, actual strategies and tools, to manage the risk, either to significantly mitigate it or eliminate it altogether. This isn’t a theoretical business exercise: PCBUs have a legal obligation to control the work health and safety risks to their lone workers.

Necessary controlling measures will vary by jurisdiction, but they usually include the following:

• Worker consultation and involvement in the consideration of potential risks and in the development of measures to control them
• Taking affirmative steps to remove risks (where possible), or implementing control measures
• A degree of specialized instruction, training, and supervision
• Periodic review of the risk assessment as well as subsequent reviews after significant changes in working practice

Those control measures, however, only provide a floor, not a ceiling, for acceptable behavior. To recoup the full benefits of remote and isolated work without succumbing to the threats, the PCBU must implement its own best-practice controls. Remember, effective controls will reduce or eliminate at least one of the following risk components:

• Probability of occurring 
• Severity
• Exposure of people and equipment^v

In the case of remote and isolated work, best-practice control efforts need to start with suitable training for lone workers, training which focuses on concrete, practical strategies to remain safe in specific lone-work settings. Those remote or isolated environments also need to be made as safe as possible for lone workers, which means that business and risk teams must perform due diligence on the setting that the worker is entering and relay those findings to the lone worker. 

Additionally, senior leadership at a PCBU can also allay some of the organizational and social isolation that attends lone work – that isolation can dampen employee engagement and lower productivity – by making a point to communicate the employer’s commitment to the lone worker’s health and safety. 

What’s more, business teams should only recruit capable employees for remote and isolated work. For instance, professionals already accustomed to performing lone work are more likely to bring valuable experience and expertise to the lone-work, risk mitigation consultation, development, and engagement process. In turn, that experience and expertise can improve the process for future lone workers, a boon to the PCBU.

Finally, PCBUS must provision their lone workers with the necessary tools and services to perform remote and isolated work effectively and safely, whether it’s access to workplace layouts, the help and supervision of a buddy, personal protective equipment, first aid supplies, communications technologies, the list goes on. On the PCBU’s end, keeping movement records of lone workers, potentially via satellite-powered tracking systems or lower-fi call-in systems, will also help mitigate the work health and safety risk to lone workers. 

 

Citations

i     Health and Safety Executive: Work-related violence: Summary of key points. Available at http://www.hse.gov.uk/violence/conclusions.htm.

ii     Tom Musick, Safety and Health Magazine: Lone worker safety: Organizations can take steps to ensure safety for people who work alone. Available at https://www.safetyandhealthmagazine.com/articles/12628-lone-worker-safety.

iii     Safe Work Australia: Managing the work environment and facilities: Code of Practice. Available at https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/system/files/ documents/1809/code_of_practice_-_managing_the_work_environment_and_facilities.pdf.

iv     Ibid.

v     Federal Aviation Administration: FAA System Safety Handbook. Available at https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aviation/
risk_management/ss_handbook/media/Chap15_1200.pdf.