Businesses Urged to Review Lone Working Risks as Flexible Operations Become More Common

Businesses are being encouraged to strengthen arrangements for employees who work alone as changing working patterns, extended operating hours and increasingly dispersed workforces leave more people carrying out duties without immediate supervision or support.

Lone working is common across a wide range of sectors, including construction, facilities management, utilities, security, retail, property maintenance, logistics and professional services. Health and safety specialists say the practice is not inherently unsafe, but risks can increase significantly when employees encounter an emergency, aggressive behaviour, equipment failure or a medical incident while nobody else is present.

The Health and Safety Executive defines lone workers as people who work by themselves without close or direct supervision. The regulator says employers must manage the health and safety risks before allowing employees to work alone and should consider issues including supervision, communication, training and emergency arrangements.

Safety advisers say one of the most common weaknesses is treating lone working itself as the hazard rather than examining the activities being performed and the circumstances surrounding them. An engineer working alone in a plant room, for example, may face very different risks from a salesperson travelling between customers or an employee closing a retail premises at night.

“Lone working changes the consequences of an incident because immediate assistance may not be available,” said Mark Davies, an occupational health and safety consultant. “A relatively manageable situation can become much more serious if nobody knows that something has happened or where the employee is.”

The growth of flexible and hybrid working has also broadened the issue beyond traditionally high-risk occupations. Employees may work alone in offices outside normal hours, travel independently to customer locations or spend significant periods working from home. Safety professionals say organisations need to understand where lone working occurs rather than assuming it is limited to field-based employees.

Communication arrangements are receiving particular attention. Mobile phones are commonly relied upon as the principal control, but advisers warn that this may be insufficient where employees work in areas with poor reception, perform hazardous activities or could become incapacitated before calling for assistance.

Some businesses are introducing formal check-in procedures, automated monitoring systems and dedicated lone-worker devices capable of raising an alarm when an employee fails to respond. GPS-enabled technology and fall-detection systems are also increasingly being used in higher-risk environments.

However, health and safety professionals caution against assuming that technology alone resolves the issue. Procedures must establish what happens when an employee misses a scheduled check-in, who receives an alert and how quickly assistance can realistically reach the worker.

Risk assessments may also identify activities that should not be performed alone at all. Work involving certain machinery, confined spaces, hazardous substances or particularly high-risk maintenance activities may require additional personnel or specific emergency arrangements.

Employee consultation is becoming another important part of the process. Workers themselves can often identify circumstances in which they feel particularly vulnerable, including visiting unfamiliar locations, working late at night or dealing with members of the public.

Davies added: “The important question is not simply whether somebody works alone. Businesses need to understand what could happen while that person is alone and whether the controls would still work without another person present.”

As working arrangements continue to become more flexible, lone working is expected to remain an important area of occupational risk management. For organisations operating under ISO 45001, identifying lone-working hazards, consulting workers, establishing appropriate controls and reviewing whether those arrangements remain effective form part of a wider systematic approach to protecting employees wherever work is carried out.

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