Section 5:
Efforts to protect lone workers
On average, organisations have 3.2 types of protective systems in place for lone workers.
We were interested to know what kind of protective measures were being put in place by organisations to mitigate risks faced by lone workers. There are a multitude of tools available on the market, ranging from alarms and panic buttons to apps and software systems. What is the adoption rate for technology vs. more traditional methods for managing lone worker safety? We identified the following common protective measures:
Executives
We asked both executives and lone workers what kind of protective measures are in place in their organisations. According to executives the most common type of measure in 2024 are scheduled calls or checks (87%), followed by scheduled supervisor visits (82%).
On the technology end, just over half were using lone worker apps and devices in 2024.
We also found that lone worker apps and emergency alarms/panic buttons are the additional measures that executives would most like to put in place.
Lone Workers
The results were similar for lone workers. In 2024 scheduled call checks led the way at 81%, followed by scheduled supervisor visits at 68%.
As with the executive responses, emergency alarms have increased at the expense of most of the others (especially scheduled visits). Lone worker app use has also increased.
How effective do executives and lone workers find these measures?
When executives were asked how effective they believed these measures to be in mitigating risk, we found that the order of effectiveness was broadly in line with the measures they were already using. Does this indicate that they feel they are already using the best protective measures? We observed a change in the mean score for executives between 2021 and 2024, in which only lone worker apps and emergency alarms have increased. All others have measures declined.
When we asked lone workers to rate the effectiveness of the protective measures listed above, we noted that they appeared to favour those that involved human contact. Buddy or pairing systems led the way, followed by scheduled supervisor visits, and then scheduled calls.
Despite this, we found that the change in mean scores for lone workers between 2021 – 2024 showed only lone worker apps have increased since 2021. All others had declined.
Bonus Question: What is important when choosing a lone worker solution?
We asked the executives to rank a series of factors in terms of importance when choosing a lone worker solution (results converted into a score). The top 3 factors were:
- Ease of use
- Ease of roll-out
- Security