The complete guide
Lone worker safety.
Every year, millions of people work without a colleague nearby. This is a practical guide to keeping them safe - what the law requires, when the risk actually peaks, how workers call for help, and what a response that arrives looks like. It is grounded in a full year of first-party monitoring data, not estimates.
Six things to get right
What lone working is
The definition, who counts (more people than most realise), and why the law treats it as its own risk.
What the law requires
Duty of care, the specific regulations per region, and who is personally liable when it goes wrong.
The data on when risk peaks
A year of monitored duress activations: after-hours, weekends, and the industries where alarms turn real.
How workers call for help
Duress alarms, panic buttons, fall detection, safety timers and check-ins, and how they fit together.
What good response looks like
Why the response matters more than the button, and the two numbers to demand from any vendor.
Build the program
Free risk assessment, policy, check-in procedure and incident templates to document your controls.
What a year of alarms taught us
We publish our numbers because nobody else in this category does. A few that change how you think about lone worker risk:
- Risk concentrates after dark. 34% of confirmed emergencies happen after hours (6pm–6am), from just 22% of activations. Read the analysis ›
- One alarm in six is raised by nobody. 17.7% of activations are automatic - a fall, a missed check-in, an expired timer - firing when the worker couldn't press anything. Read the analysis ›
- Every industry has its own rhythm. Retail risk peaks in the evening; community-sector risk hits one-in-six after 9pm. Read the analysis ›
- The response never slows down. The 7-second median holds at 2am, on weekends, on public holidays. Read the analysis ›
Read the full State of Lone Worker Safety report › · Browse all the statistics ›
Devices for every shape of risk
Aggression you see coming needs a reachable, silent trigger. Isolation that takes the worker out of the loop needs automatic detection. Most teams need both.