Lone working terms, explained plainly

Lone worker

A lone worker is someone who works by themselves without close or direct supervision, for all or part of their working day. That includes people alone on a site, in a vehicle, in a customer’s home, or at home.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) uses this definition. Working alone is lawful in the UK, but the employer must assess and control the risks before anyone does it.

Lone working: what UK employers need to do

Lone working policy

A lone working policy is a written statement of how an organisation keeps people who work alone safe: who counts as a lone worker, what the risks are, the controls in place, how workers keep in touch, how they raise the alarm, and what happens when they do.

No UK law names a lone working policy, but the duty to manage the risks under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 is usually met by writing one.

Lone working risk assessment

A lone working risk assessment identifies what could harm a person working alone, judges how likely and how serious that harm is, and records the measures that reduce it.

An employer with five or more employees must write the significant findings down. It must be reviewed when the work, the people or the place changes.

How to write a lone working risk assessment

Dynamic risk assessment

A dynamic risk assessment is the judgement a worker makes on the spot, as a situation unfolds, about whether to continue, change the approach or withdraw. It sits on top of the written risk assessment, which is done in advance.

SOS alert

An SOS alert is a call for help raised by the worker, from a button in an app or on a device, which tells named people where the worker is and that they need help now.

In SafetyEvo the worker holds the SOS button for two seconds, a short countdown allows a pocket press to be cancelled, and then the office is alerted. The alert keeps escalating until a named person acknowledges it.

SOS alerts

Escalation (escalation ladder)

Escalation is the sequence of people and channels an alert goes to until someone takes responsibility for it. An escalation ladder lists those people in order, with how long each has to respond before the next is tried.

SafetyEvo escalates by push notification, then text message, then an automated voice call, to each person on the ladder in turn, and never drops an alert without a named owner.

Incident management and escalation

Acknowledge (an alert)

To acknowledge an alert is to take ownership of it: the person who acknowledges becomes the named responder, escalation stops, and the worker can see who is coming.

Check-in timer

A check-in timer is a countdown a worker sets before a risky task. If they do not confirm they are safe before it runs out, the system raises a missed check-in alert on their behalf.

In SafetyEvo the timer runs on the server, not the phone, so a closed app or a flat battery cannot stop the alert.

Check-in timers

Welfare check

A welfare check is a message or call from the office asking a worker to confirm they are safe, with a deadline. No reply within the deadline raises an alert.

SafetyEvo welfare checks appear on the worker’s screen with one tap to answer, can carry a voice message from the office, and record the outcome on the incident timeline.

Welfare monitoring

Silent phone (quiet phone) alert

A silent phone alert is raised by the monitoring system when a worker’s phone stops reporting during a shift for longer than an agreed window, because a dead battery, no signal or a closed app look the same as a worker in trouble.

SafetyEvo first wakes and nudges the phone and the worker, then alerts the office with the reason it can see (battery, signal or app stopped). The alert closes itself when the phone reports again.

Welfare monitoring

Man down (fall detection)

Man down, also called fall detection or worker down, is an automatic alarm raised when a device detects a fall, a hard impact, or no movement for a set time, on the assumption that the worker cannot raise the alarm themselves.

It is useful at height and in confined spaces, and it produces false alarms when a phone is set down. SafetyEvo does not offer fall detection at present; check-in timers and silent phone alerts cover the gap.

Duress PIN

A duress PIN is a second code a worker can enter when forced to cancel an alarm under threat. The screen shows the alarm as cancelled, but the office is told the worker is under duress.

SOS alerts

Lone worker device

A lone worker device is a dedicated piece of hardware, such as an ID badge style unit, a fob or a wearable, with an alarm button, GPS and a mobile connection, used instead of or alongside a phone app.

Devices suit people who cannot carry or reach a phone. Apps suit people who already carry a phone and need no extra kit to charge or lose.

Lone worker app

A lone worker app turns the phone a worker already carries into their safety system: an SOS button, check-in timers, live location while on shift, and alerts that reach named people.

The SafetyEvo app

BS 8484

BS 8484 is the British Standard code of practice for lone worker services, covering the device or app, the alarm receiving centre and the response procedure. The current edition is BS 8484:2022.

Certification to BS 8484 is held by monitoring services, not by employers, and is what allows a police response to be requested through an alarm receiving centre. SafetyEvo is not BS 8484 certified; its monitored plan with a UK alarm receiving centre is planned, not live.

Alarm receiving centre (ARC)

An alarm receiving centre is a staffed control room that takes alarms around the clock, checks them, and calls the agreed people or the emergency services.

SafetyEvo alerts go to your own named people today. Sending them to a UK alarm receiving centre as well is a planned, separate plan.

Heartbeat

A heartbeat is a short, regular message a phone sends to the server to say it is alive, with its battery, signal and app state. Missing heartbeats are how a monitoring system knows a phone has gone quiet.

Geofence

A geofence is a virtual boundary around a place. Crossing it can trigger an action, such as marking a worker as on site or raising an alert when someone leaves a safe area.

Incident timeline

An incident timeline is the record of everything that happened on an alert, in order and with times: when it was raised, who was told and by which channel, who acknowledged, every note, and how it was closed.

SafetyEvo timelines are append only, so nothing can be edited or removed afterwards, which is what an investigation or an insurer needs.

Reporting and audit records

Audit log

An audit log records who did what in a system and when, including who viewed a person’s location. It protects workers from misuse of their data and protects the employer by showing what was done.

Security and compliance

Clock in and clock out

Clocking in and out records the start and end of a worker’s shift for attendance, pay and working time purposes.

In SafetyEvo the button that starts a shift and switches protection on is the clock in, so attendance and safety come from the same tap. No biometrics are used.

Clock-in and attendance

On-call cover

On-call cover names who is available to respond outside normal hours. In a safety system it decides who receives an alert first at night or at the weekend.

Rotas and on-call scheduling

HSE (Health and Safety Executive)

The Health and Safety Executive is the UK regulator for workplace health and safety in Great Britain. Its guidance on lone working, leaflet INDG73, is the reference most employers follow.

RIDDOR

RIDDOR is the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013, which require employers to report certain serious workplace accidents and incidents to the HSE.