How to carry out a lone worker risk assessment (step-by-step)

A lone worker risk assessment is simply a review of the hazards an employee faces when working without close or direct supervision, and the controls required to manage them.  

In this guide we’ll walk you through a risk assessment approach aligned to HSE’s own framework, enabling you to complete your own assessment quickly and effectively.  

The legal position, and who counts as a lone worker 

According to Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, ‘it shall be the duty of every employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all his employees.’ It’s important to note that this duty covers lone workers as well as anyone else you employ. 

Regulation 3 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 gets more specific: every employer ‘shall make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to the health and safety of his employees to which they are exposed whilst they are at work.’ 

This regulation also dictates that if you employ five or more people you’re required to record the significant findings of the assessment, and any group of his employees identified by it as being especially at risk. Lone workers are absolutely one of these groups that needs identifying. 

Legislation doesn’t mandate any specific technology or monitoring product. What it does require is that the assessment is suitable and sufficient, and that the record of the assessment (where one is needed) is genuinely kept. 

HSE guidance INDG73 describes lone workers as people who work by themselves without close or direct supervision. This covers a larger number of employees than you might initially think, including: 

• Field-based staff 

• Homeworkers 

• People on fixed sites working solo shifts 

• Anyone occasionally alone as part of an otherwise supervised role 

Step 1: Identify everyone who works alone 

The first step in a risk assessment is to list every role and situation in which someone works without close or direct supervision. This includes roles that are only solitary some of the time. 

The following groups are often missed out at this point: 

• Out-of-hours staff and keyholders: Activities such as responding to an alarm call at night are certainly lone-working tasks, even if someone’s day-to-day role is supervised 

• Homeworkers: Employers have the same duty of care to people who work from home as any other employee 

• Contractors and the self-employed: Risks to this category of workers still needs bearing in mind when they're employed alone on your business's behalf, even if you don’t directly employ them 

• Staff attending another employer's premises: HSE specifically states that you’re expected to ask the host site about its risks and controls before your employee attends alone 

Step 2: Map hazards by role and location 

As we’ve already discussed, lone worker roles can vary significantly. A mobile engineer doesn’t face the same risks as a homeworker, or an out-of-hours receptionist. This means a generic hazard list isn’t sufficient and won’t hold up under scrutiny.  

What’s required here is to first map hazards by location. Thankfully this needn’t be an arduous task and a simple grid like the one below is a quick way to structure your thinking, before you then move on to assess by role.  

Once you’ve mapped by location you can layer HSE’s lone-worker-specific risks across whichever roles apply within your organisation. These include violence, stress and mental health, medical suitability to work alone, and the workplace itself - for instance if it’s in an isolated or rural area. 

Medical suitability is worth particularly careful consideration. An employee with a condition that’s manageable under supervision may have a different risk profile when working alone. 

Step 3: Judge the risk and decide controls 

Consider how likely each hazard is, alongside how serious the consequences would be, and deal with the worst combinations first. Then when you’re deciding on suitable controls, the legal test is ‘reasonably practicable’, which means balancing the level of risk against the time, cost and effort of controlling it. It’s important to understand that you’re not expected to eliminate every conceivable risk - just to take sensible, proportionate steps to reduce it. 

The next part of your assessment is to work through controls in this order, moving down the list only when the higher option isn’t practical: 

1. Eliminate lone working for the task, if the risk is too high to accept 

1. Change the task or its timing to reduce exposure 

1. Add supervision or scheduled check-ins 

1. Provide training and clear communication procedures 

1. Add monitoring and emergency response as a control, not a substitute for the steps above 

Lone worker monitoring belongs at the end of that list. It’s a really useful control for higher-risk roles, but works alongside training and clear communication procedures instead of replacing them.  

It’s worth knowing that while for many tasks your risk assessment will decide on the appropriate controls, specific high-risk work legally requires a second person. This includes: 

• Confined spaces where a supervisor and rescue role are both required 

• Work near exposed live electrical conductors 

• Diving operations 

• Vehicles carrying explosives 

• Fumigation 

Step 4: Record your findings properly 

A compliant record captures a number of things: 

• The hazards identified 

• Who might be harmed, and how 

• The controls already in place 

• Any further action needed 

• Who owns each action 

• A review date 

Under Regulation 3(6), if you employ five or more people you must keep this information in writing, with a note of any groups of employees you’ve identified as being especially at risk. 

Thankfully there’s no need to build your own risk assessment template from scratch. There are free risk assessment templates and examples from HSE that can be easily adapted to suit your needs. 

Step 5: Review, and know when a static assessment isn't enough 

It’s necessary to review your assessment whenever there’s a chance it may no longer be valid. This includes after a near miss, an accident, when new sites or equipment are introduced, when a role changes, or just on a regular schedule for higher-risk roles.  

A written assessment is designed to cover foreseeable risk, but it can’t cover everything a lone worker might encounter. This is where dynamic risk assessment comes in.  

This is the ongoing, on-the-spot judgement workers have to make as a situation occurs, such as deciding not to enter a site because something feels off. But dynamic assessment only works when employees are properly trained and supported by employers to make these calls.  

What assessors most often miss 

Many risk assessments share the same blind spots, so when you have a draft, it’s worth checking it against these common issues: 

• Medical suitability to work alone isn’t considered 

• Violence risk is an afterthought and not adequately assessed 

• Lone workers visiting other employer’s sites are never asked about host-site risks 

• Escalation procedures are written down but never tested 

• A single generic assessment is copy-pasted across very different roles 

• Homeworkers aren’t included in the assessment  

• Contractors are assumed to be someone else’s responsibility 

Securitas work with each client so as to understand all of their lone worker challenges around weather conditions, known cellular black spots and staff health conditions to ensure that the correct lone worker package is selected for the business.

Securitas' Advisor tool allows the collation of all of the necessary information gathered between both parties and provide a professional pdf report for the client summarising all of the areas of concern and the appropriate Securitas solution to meet those needs.

Worked example: a mobile service engineer

Here’s a simplified, hypothetical example to show what an assessment might look like in practice. The scenario is a mobile service engineer visiting commercial and domestic sites alone, sometimes after standard working hours. 

This assessment recognises four hazards, a risk judgement for each one and the controls chosen. When done in practice you would also record the date, assessor, review date and sign-off. 

The point is a safer system, not more paperwork 

Carrying out a lone worker risk assessment is relatively simple:  

• Identify employees who work alone 

• Map potential hazards by location and role 

• Judge the risk and choose proportionate controls 

• Record your findings 

• Review regularly 

Thanks to the HSE templates that are available and the straightforward process detailed in this guide, this doesn’t need to be a headache. It does, however, need to be genuine. Your risk assessment needs to reflect how people in your organisation actually work - this kind of assessment is much more valuable than one just created to be filed away. 

If you decide that monitoring is an appropriate control for a role, our lone worker solutions page is full of useful information about the devices and apps available. And to learn more about the full legal and monitoring picture, take a look at our lone worker monitoring guide.  

To discuss how you can keep your lone workers safe, from risk assessment to 24/7 monitoring, get in touch with our team today. 

Please note, this guide is general information, not legal advice. For a decision specific to your business, consult HSE guidance directly or take independent advice. 

FAQs 

What is a lone worker risk assessment?  

It’s a review of the hazards an employee faces when working without close or direct supervision. It covers the journey, site, task and controls required to manage each one. 

Is a lone working risk assessment a legal requirement in the UK? 

Yes, assessing risk to employees falls within the general duty under Regulation 3 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999. If your organisation has five employees or more you must record the significant findings in writing. 

What should a lone worker risk assessment include? 

The identified hazards, who could be harmed and how, controls that exist currently, further action required, who’s responsible, and a review date. All these fields are covered in HSE’s free risk assessment template. 

Who should carry out a lone worker risk assessment? 

This must be a competent person with the right training, experience and knowledge. Getting input from lone workers here is invaluable thanks to their intimate understanding of the risks involved.  

How often should a lone worker risk assessment be reviewed? 

Whenever there’s a chance that it’s no longer valid. This could be after an incident, a change in site, equipment, role or an employee’s health. For higher risk roles it’s wise to review on a regular basis even if not much has changed. 

What is a dynamic risk assessment? 

This is the ongoing judgement a lone worker has to make as a situation occurs, as well as the written assessment. Doing this effectively requires adequate training and employer support.