It runs every October. Most workplaces mark it with a poster and a morning tea. If you are responsible for people who work alone, here is a week-by-week plan that leaves something behind instead.
National Safe Work Month is held every October in Australia, run by Safe Work Australia. It is a national campaign encouraging workplaces to commit to safe and healthy work. Safe Work Australia has announced the 2026 theme as Safe work is for life, with four weekly focus areas running through the month.
Safe Work Australia describes the theme as reflecting the fundamental purpose of work health and safety: preventing work-related death, injury and illness, while recognising the long-term impact workplace harm has on workers, families, businesses and communities.
The month is split into four focus areas. The official campaign material, including free resources and event listings, is on the Safe Work Australia campaign page.
Campaign details above are Safe Work Australia's, sourced from their 2026 theme announcement and verified on 2 August 2026. Duress is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or a partner of Safe Work Australia. Check their site for the current campaign details before planning around specific dates.
Safe Work Australia sets the focus for each week. What sits under it here is ours: something a team responsible for lone or isolated workers can actually run, using free templates.
Safe Work Australia's focus: Why work health and safety matters.
Open with your own numbers, not a poster. Pull last year's incidents and near misses for anyone who works alone, and name the gap between what was reported and what people actually experienced. If you have nothing to pull from, that is the finding.
Safe Work Australia's focus: What work health and safety protects.
Cover psychological safety alongside physical. Remote or isolated work and exposure to violence and aggression are both named psychosocial hazards under Australian WHS guidance, which puts lone-worker risk squarely in scope for this week.
Safe Work Australia's focus: The long-term impact of workplace harm.
Test the plan rather than reading it. Run a check-in failure as a tabletop exercise: someone misses a scheduled check-in at 7pm, who notices, how long until anyone acts, and who is called. Time it honestly and write down where it stalls.
Safe Work Australia's focus: Action across all workplaces.
Close the loop so the month leaves something behind. Turn the week 3 findings into two or three dated actions with an owner each, and put the review date in the calendar before the month ends.
From our own alarm data for the year to 30 June 2026. Real numbers land better than a poster, and these are ours to share.
Across 1 July 2025 – 30 June 2026, 815 were confirmed emergencies. Most alarms are not emergencies, and that is the point: people have to be willing to press the button when they are unsure.
Half of all alarms were answered in under 7 seconds, and 94.2% within 30 seconds. Useful for setting the expectation of what "someone is coming" actually means.
Of the confirmed emergencies, most were resolved with an operator on the line, without needing emergency services. Calling for help early is not an overreaction.
After-hours work accounted for 22% of activations but 34% of confirmed emergencies. The risk profile of a 7pm visit is not the same as a 2pm one.
Fall detection, missed check-ins and expired safety timers accounted for roughly one alarm in six. Those are the alarms nobody was able to raise by hand.
Source: the Duress lone worker safety report FY26, covering 1 July 2025 – 30 June 2026. Free to cite with attribution.
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