How Can Your Business Prioritise Lone Worker Safety?

An increasing number of businesses are coming to depend on the efforts of their lone workers. Whether electricians out working in people’s homes or data analysts working from their local cafe, when those workers aren’t in an office or other form of fixed workspace, prioritising their safety can become a lot trickier. Prioritising this issue is often absolutely essential - here’s how you can do so in an effective manner.

Risk assessments

Tackling any safety-related issue should start with a structured risk assessment. After all, you can’t protect someone if you don’t know what it is that they need to be protected from. With lone workers, this becomes increasingly essential. 

Due to the highly varied nature of their different working conditions, no two lone workers will face exactly the same kinds of threats on a day-to-day basis. You need to take the time to identify the kinds of hazards that may be present so that you can then take meaningful steps to mitigate those risks.

Communication technology

In recent years, a number of technologies have emerged that can significantly increase the safety of lone workers. Lone worker apps are a simple solution that can be highly effective in many instances. 

They can be downloaded onto existing smartphones, meaning that businesses don’t need to invest in additional hardware, and workers don’t need to carry around even more equipment. These apps can have a wide range of features that allow workers to stay in contact at all times, allowing them to get help when necessary.

Employee training

One of the most important steps you can take to protect lone workers is to provide them with extensive training. This training will focus on equipping them with the knowledge necessary to understand and deal with the various risks they may face out in the field. Whether that’s how to de-escalate confrontational situations or assess potentially dangerous weather patterns, the training will need to be highly specialised and updated on a regular basis to ensure that it remains effective in the long term.

Emergency response strategy

While you can try to prevent incidents from happening, this shouldn’t represent the entirety of your approach to lone worker safety. Things will go wrong in some instances, and what matters then is how prepared you are to provide workers with the right kind of assistance. 

You need to ensure that you’re adequately prepared to provide help, whether medical or technical support, in a wide variety of different emergency situations. As it is with fire escape drills, these plans should be practised on a regular basis, to ensure they remain as effective as possible.

Lone worker safety may not seem like something that requires prioritisation, especially for businesses that have never had to deal with a serious incident beforehand. This couldn’t be further from the truth; it’s absolutely not something to overlook, and the implications of getting it wrong can be truly catastrophic. By taking the measures listed above into consideration, you can maximise the chances that you’re able to properly look after your lone workers, decreasing the risk that anyone comes to harm while out in the field.