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Following on from your risk assessment, you will need to produce a safety policy for your lone workers. A lone working safety policy is a guide that will set out your companies’ rules on working alone and help your employees to understand the risks they may face.
Employers have a general duty under the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 to ensure the health, safety and welfare of their employees as far as is reasonably practicable, which includes providing safe systems, a safe place of work and suitable arrangements for employees’ welfare.
Regulation 3 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 requires a suitable and sufficient assessment of risks arising from work activities (including lone working) to be undertaken.
Regulation 13 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 requires employers to consider the physical and mental capabilities of employees when deciding on the tasks they will undertake.
A lone worker safety policy and risk assessment helps you to meet your duty of care under this legislation.
To ensure your lone workers understand and follow your policy, you should keep it as concise and simple as possible. Use language they would understand and clearly outline what is expected of them.
Clarity is important, so consider the layout of the document as well as the language used.
In order to get your lone workers on board with your new lone worker policy, you should consider involving them in all aspects of the process. Ask them to help you identify risks and suggest ways they would feel safer.
Once your lone working policy has been developed, consider holding a workshop or health and safety day where you can openly discuss why you have developed the policy and what has been put in place. Be sure to focus on a clear safety message and the benefits to your lone workers.
A lone worker procedure refers to a series of steps that need to be followed in order to work alone safely. You should document your lone worker procedures in your lone worker policy document.
You may find it useful to write a number of procedures suitable for different groups of employees so that they are able to digest the correct information easily.
Lone working procedure examples:
This is not an exhaustive list and there are many more scenarios that will require a lone worker procedure. However, implementing as many procedures as is necessary can save lives. This is why it is important that your procedures are made compulsory and you avoid any language that could suggest a choice such as ‘you should’ or ‘you could’.
When first introducing new work alone procedures, it is important to provide briefing and training for your lone workers so that they know exactly what is expected of them. A written step-by-step guide should be distributed for them to refer to and it may be helpful to produce a safety checklist for your lone workers to follow until procedures become routine.
Free lone worker policy template and guide
Need some help getting started? We have created an in depth lone working policy guide and document template for you to use in your business
Our intuitive app allows employees to check in safely following a lone working session and raise an alert in an emergency.
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