What Is a Lone Working Risk Assessment?
A lone working risk assessment template aims to ensure safety for solitary employees against the possible hazards they are exposed to. According to the Health and Safety Work Act of 2015, employers are obliged to provide their employees with a safe work environment, and if that’s not possible, then with the necessary personal protective equipment so that they can get help quickly in the case of an emergency.
It’s the case for many jobs that a worker will eventually have to be the first, last, or only man or woman on the premise. Whether it’s the security guard patrolling the streets late at night or the night shift closing up shop, both are exposed to risks that the regular dayshift would not. Be aware that worker’s compensation also includes the commute to and from work, so it’s in your best interest to make sure that employees who open and close the shop have a safe way to work and also back home. Having an employee who doesn’t have a car close up after the buses stop running might prove troublesome in court if they were to get robbed on their way home.
It might come as a surprise, however, that an employee can still be considered to be working alone even when there are other workers on site. If an employee is out of sight or hearing range, they are considered to be a lone worker and need to have their worksite assessed for accompanying dangers.
This article is about:
1. 3 Measurements of a risk assessment for working alone
2. 7 steps to conduct the assessment cheklist
2. A digital solution for your checklists
What Are the 3 Steps in a Lone Working Risk Assessment?
Employers should focus on safe working practices and protocols to minimize risks to which individual workers may be exposed. The three most important points to consider when carrying out a risk assessment:
1. Carry out a Risk Assessment and Take Masures
It’s essential to carry out regular risk reviews to identify occupational work hazards that are more prone to befall solitary workers. For employees working alone, it is particularly important to ensure that they are exposed to as few risks as possible because there won’t be anyone else on site to call for help if anything should go wrong. Because of this, the lone worker’s ability to rescue himself in the event of an accident should also be taken into account. The prospect of a worker surviving the accident is how certain risks are calculated and then categorized according to their level of danger:
- Low danger – the person remains capable of action.
- Increased danger – in case of an emergency, the person’s ability to act remains limited
- Critical Danger – in an emergency, the person is no longer able to act.
2. Check and Communicate Health Status
All staff should be physically capable and free of injury before the start of their shift. It’s important to open up a discussion about their mental health and physical fitness levels. This can be done by consulting a company doctor. By taking the right precautions and suitable preventive measures, employees’ health risks can be minimized.
In order to create good and, above all, safe working conditions when alone, it is important to communicate concerns about health and safety hazards, as well as other concerns they may have while working. At the same time, all safety measures must be jointly decided and implemented. The risk for hazards should be continuously reviewed and adjusted.
3. Keep the Overview and Offer Training Sessions
You should carry out regular checks while on-site by using a lone working policy template to evaluate working conditions and performance. Try to build a personal relationship with your staff and ensure that training and counseling is provided regularly.
What are the 7 Parts of a Lone Working Risk Assessment Checklist
The lone working risk assessment must be designed in such a way that the inciting factor can be traced back in the case of an unfortunate incident. Having properly filled-out documentation legally protects companies if they should be taken to court or a claim has been filed against them.
According to the recommendation of the Occupational Health and Safety Act, a risk assessment is successful if the following 7 steps are observed:
- Define work areas and activities
- Identify hazards
- Assess hazards
- Determine measures
- Execute measures
- Verify effectiveness
- Update hazard assessment
How a Digital Solution can Benefit a Lone Worker?
Employees who get sick and injured because they work alone can be costly, and let’s face it, they are at greater risk. Protect your teammates and yourself by regularly checking compliance with all internal standards via a mobile app. By regularly checking and easily analyzing the data in the Lumiform software, you can avoid lost productivity and lost wages.
By using a digital checklist, all questions can be clarified step by step and dangers reliably assessed. In addition, a checklist minimizes the risk that auditors forget to do an inspection or accidentally overlook certain checkpoints. Furthermore, clean, transparent documentation helps to prevent high fines for non-compliance with legal regulations. Safety officers benefit from many more advantages, especially when reviewing fall protection with Lumiform:
- See a continuous increase in quality and safety: Through the flexible checklist construction kit, you can constantly optimize safety in regards to working alone. Since Lumiform guides the inspector through the inspection, there is no need for training.
- Using the super intuitive mobile app, you and your teammates can conduct checks in the field with ease.
- All results, images, and comments are automatically bundled in a digital report.
- Comprehensive analyses help you to identify inefficient areas in your company more quickly and, thus, help you continuously improve your auditing and inspection processes.
- In addition, we offer more than 9,000 ready-made templates to help companies get started digitally in no time.
