Lone worker safety: employer duties and protection systems — dedicated device or smartphone app?

Most jurisdictions do not ban lone working outright, but employers must protect workers' health and life, assess risks and implement suitable controls. Regulations often require at least two people for particularly hazardous work, such as confined space entry, some work at height or work on energised equipment — there no electronic system replaces a second person.

Elsewhere, the risk assessment decides whether lone working is acceptable and which controls are needed. This guide is informational and is not legal advice — check the specific requirements for each job with your safety professional.

Start with an inventory: who works alone, where and how often. For each task assess the likelihood of an event (fall, electric shock, poisoning, heat stress, assault, sudden illness) and how long it could take for help to arrive — often the decisive factor.

The outcome should be concrete controls: no lone working for selected tasks, check-in schedules, an alarm system, procedure training and a named alarm recipient on every shift.

No device or app saves anyone without the procedure it triggers. Define who receives alarms, how fast they must respond, what they do when the worker cannot be reached and who takes over when the first person does not answer.

Plan for no signal, flat batteries and false alarms. Rehearse the procedure before go-live and measure the time from signal to confirmed response — the only metric that really shows how effective protection is.

There are two approaches. Dedicated devices worn on a belt or harness often offer specialist features such as gas detection, ATEX versions or satellite connectivity. A phone app uses the motion sensors of a phone the worker already carries to detect falls and inactivity.

Dedicated hardware is the right choice where ATEX certification, gas detection or work without mobile coverage is required. In many other settings — field service, maintenance, security, logistics — an app protects more people faster and at lower cost, without buying and servicing extra devices.

The VIMS Lone Worker module runs as an app on the worker's phone: it reacts to falls and prolonged inactivity (with a window to cancel false alarms), and offers an SOS button and scheduled check-ins. Location is captured at the moment of an alarm or check-in, not as continuous tracking.

Alarms go to named recipients with escalation, and the alarm and response history stays in the system as evidence the procedure works. A confirmed event can move into the incident register, root cause analysis and corrective actions — in the same system as your risk assessment. The module is in beta and does not replace supervision required by law.

Lone worker describes both the person and a category of protection systems: dedicated devices (personal units with SOS and man-down), smartphone apps and alarm receiving centre (ARC) services that receive and escalate alarms around the clock.

A check-in is a periodic confirmation by the worker that all is well; a missed check-in triggers an alarm. A QR/NFC point records the worker's zone where GPS fails — in halls, basements and tunnels.

An alarm response procedure defines who receives the alarm, how the situation is verified (call, second person), when emergency services are called and how the event is recorded. Without it, no device or app provides real supervision.