From Financial Services to Architects meeting clients or visiting sites to traditional sales roles, many people regularly work “on the road”. These jobs are not typically dangerous but the business still needs to look after their wellbeing and ensure that they are safe, be it traveling, during visits or even working from home. 

The duty of care and legal responsibilities are the same. Out of sight doesn’t mean out of mind…. actually it's the opposite as it is more complex to manage risks when staff aren't with a colleague or under direct supervision.  

There are two main areas of Health and Safety law. The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and the Health and Safety at Work regulations 1999. 

The HSE provides a good “Lone Working” outline here

https://www.hse.gov.uk/lone-working/employer/index.htm 

The law is that BOTH Employer and Employee must take reasonable precautions for their own and other’s health and safety. The starting point is assessing risks and then implementing necessary measures. 

The requirements are clear, doing nothing or ignoring lone working risks is clearly not an option, unless you want to break the law and put your staff and business at risk.  

Once you understand the risks it can be easy and cost-effective to manage them. But you need to do something. 
It’s not about complexity you simply need to have a reasonable and practicable policy with a robust safe system of work. 

MyTeamSafe’s award-winning lone worker safety solution is all about reassurance for both lone working staff and the office team. It’s about knowing that staff are safe and where they are.

The day-to-day risks may have been assessed as low but they are always present. "Uncontrolled" risks are always the hardest to control; staff constantly being in unfamiliar locations, varying environmental risks (slip, trip and fall hazards) or even intimidation/aggression.  

MyTeamSafe is specifically designed to keep the business in control. The vast majority of lone workers prefer that a colleague are their point of contact/buddy, not a remote Call Centre (ARC) that doesn’t know them or their situation.

Managers need to know that everyone is safe and when they are not they will be quickly notified.

Manual “call-in” systems can work but they require both lone worker and office staff to remember, always be available and to act if someone hasn’t called in.

This takes time to manage and can be complex to ensure that it is sufficiently robust at all times of the day, especially knowing exactly where people are.