Lone Worker Protection How to Protect Lone Workers in Isolated Environments

Protecting lone workers is a top priority for organizations that value employee safety. Whether it’s a late-night security guard, home healthcare provider or remote maintenance technician, these employees work in isolation and are more susceptible to serious injuries in the event of an emergency.

Conducting a risk assessment and developing a lone worker protection policy is essential. Read on to learn how the latest technology helps keep these vulnerable employees safe and secure.

1. Automated Check-Ins

Lone workers can be vulnerable to verbal abuse, physical assault and other safety threats. Having a reliable lone worker safety system in place ensures staff can raise an alarm with just the click of a button, and that the system will contact the right people to respond quickly. This could include colleagues in the office, the lone worker's employer, their medical team or emergency services.

A good lone worker monitoring solution will allow employees to check-in with the system at regular intervals. This is important because it gives the lone worker peace of mind that someone will always know where they are and what they’re up to. It also helps if an emergency situation does occur as the team will be aware of their location and other details provided during the check-in.

Traditionally, it’s been up to the lone worker to manually contact their manager and verify they’re safe. This is a risky option as they may forget to do this, or the team may fail to follow up on missed safety checks. Using an automated voice call for routine safety check-ins is more efficient and resilient to human error.

DATAMYTE offers a cloud-based service that automatically verifies an employee’s identity through a voice call and schedules check-ins at pre-determined intervals. The call is designed to be resilient to missing calls and voicemails, retrying up to 5 times. Man Down Australia The worker can also use the on-screen panic button to immediately alert their team if they need help.

2. Geofence Boundaries

Some lone worker jobs include tagging building checkpoints on security tours, monitoring equipment in the field, and delivering services at customer locations that may present physical, environmental or biological hazards. These are the types of jobs that need to be treated with a high level of care and protection.

To ensure that a lone worker is on task, many safety solutions like Aware360’s SafetyAware have a geofence capability. A geofence is a virtual boundary set up within a GPS location tracker’s app. When a device enters or exits the designated area a preprogrammed action can be triggered.

For example, an administrator can create a geofence around a key zone that’s restricted to vehicles or personnel in a mining location. The system would then alert administrators and the lone worker’s group when a device enters or exits this region. This enables organisations to comply with site safety policies and protect their people.

Another example is using a geofence to protect individuals who have wandering behaviours caused by dementia or other cognitive disease. By creating a geofence around home or other designated areas, family members can be notified when their loved ones leave these zones and can quickly return them to safety. This type of lone worker protection is invaluable for individuals who live in isolation and require extra support to prevent them from wandering.

3. Real-Time Alerts

Whether they’re responding to an emergency or simply unable to check-in, lone workers may need help immediately. That’s why a good lone worker system will automatically notify a monitor within the organisation or a call centre when an alert is received. These monitors should be familiar with your lone worker policy and know how to respond. They can dispatch police or other emergency services or escalate the situation through internal channels as appropriate.

For example, many security companies use guard tour management software to track patrols in real time, and can instantly alert their dispatch team when a security officer misses a check-in or is approaching their overtime ceiling. This helps managers to evenly distribute shifts and reduce costs while guaranteeing the safety of their lone workers.

The best lone worker protection systems use an app that works on mobile devices your employees already own, which eliminates the cost of additional hardware. It can be customised with the information you need to communicate and enables your lone workers to signal for help even if their mobile device is locked.

This hands-free safety solution incorporates a panic button and timed monitoring session and uses GPS coordinates to send an emergency signal directly to a 24-hour monitored SOS center via your own branded app. It’s an effective deterrent, as it lets your lone workers know that if they’re threatened or their session expires, law enforcement will be deployed to their exact location.

4. Video Recording

Any employee who works alone in remote or isolated environments, such as security guards patrolling retail or residential communities, late-night health workers visiting patient homes, and remote maintenance technicians repairing facilities, is considered to be a lone worker. This group is particularly vulnerable to harm as they do not have access to immediate back-up support if something goes wrong.

Conducting regular and detailed lone worker risk assessments is the best way to identify hazards. Once a full list of risks has been compiled, organizations can then implement a comprehensive safety program to mitigate them.





This could include training, activity monitoring, emergency support, and a range of other tools to help keep employees safe and healthy at work. A good place to start is a lone worker management system like SHEQSY that helps supervisors track and manage employee activities in real time.

In addition to allowing managers to monitor the location of all lone workers, these systems can automatically trigger rules based on a range of conditions. These can be triggered by a fall, a lone worker entering an unauthorized area, a panic button being pressed, or a system malfunction. Then, all relevant data is fed into a cloud-based dashboard where supervisors can view and respond in accordance with their organisation’s policy. To learn more about how to use a lone worker monitoring service to protect remote and isolated employees, check out our free e-book: The Essential Guide to Lone Worker Protection.