Duty of care (workplace safety)
Duty of care is the legal obligation on an employer to take all reasonably practicable steps to protect workers from foreseeable harm arising from their work.
Every workplace safety law in Australia, New Zealand and the UK is built on this idea. The WHS Act (AU), the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 (NZ) and the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 (UK) all place a primary duty on the employer, and none of them accept 'the worker was alone' as a defence - if anything, working alone raises what counts as reasonable.
For lone and client-facing workers, 'reasonably practicable' has hardened over time. Regulators and courts increasingly expect: a documented risk assessment for lone work, a reliable means of raising an alarm, escalation when a worker cannot be reached, and evidence the system actually works. Officer liability provisions mean directors and executives carry personal exposure for systemic failures.
The practical test is simple to state: if this worker is threatened or collapses in the next hour, how does help find out, and how fast does it arrive? If the honest answer is 'when someone notices they haven't come back', the duty is not being met.