Knowing where a lone worker is can make a real difference when something goes wrong. For security officers working alone, travelling between sites or patrolling large premises, location information could help a supervisor reach them more quickly if an alarm is raised or contact is lost, says Josh McNicholas, pictured, Senior Member at Evalu-8 HR Software.
That does not mean an employer needs to follow every movement throughout a shift. This question has become more relevant as the Government consults on the future regulation of workplace monitoring technologies, including GPS and location tracking. No decision has yet been made about what measures will follow, but employers can still review how they use this technology now. The starting point should be simple: what does the organisation genuinely need to know to protect the worker?
Start with the risk
GPS is a tool, not a lone-worker procedure in itself. Before using it, an employer should identify the risk it is trying to manage. An officer may be working at an isolated site, patrolling an area with unreliable communication or responding to an incident away from a staffed control room. In those circumstances, the organisation may need to confirm that the officer has arrived at the correct assignment, know their last recorded location if an alert is raised, or establish whether they have completed a patrol safely.
Each of these has a clear purpose. None automatically requires the employer to watch where the officer goes throughout the day. The technology may be capable of collecting a detailed movement history, but that does not mean all of that information is necessary.
A location is only useful if somebody responds
The Health and Safety Executive says employers must manage risks to lone workers, keep in touch with them and respond to incidents. Location technology can support those responsibilities, but only if the organisation has decided what happens after an alert is received. Who sees the alert? How quickly should they act? Who tries to contact the officer, and what happens if there is no response?
The procedure should also explain when a site contact or the emergency services should become involved, who makes that decision, and what information they will need.
A location on a screen may show where an officer was when an alert was raised. It cannot explain what has happened, whether the worker is injured or whether the location is still accurate. The complete process therefore needs to be tested, including missed check-ins, failed calls and incidents that happen out of hours. Testing only the alarm button could create confidence in a system that has never been followed through to a real response.
Decide when visibility begins and ends
Not every lone-working situation requires the same level of monitoring. An officer completing a routine patrol could check in at agreed points. Someone attending a higher-risk incident may need to share their location until the situation is resolved. A worker at a fixed site may only need their location to become available when an alert is raised. The ICOโs guidance on worker monitoring says employers should be clear about why monitoring is necessary and use the least intrusive method appropriate to that purpose.
Employers should therefore decide when location information is collected, who can see it and when collection stops. Tracking that continues after an assignment or shift has ended may be difficult to justify as a lone-worker safety measure.
Workers should not have to guess how the system operates. Saying that an app โuses GPSโ tells them very little. A clearer explanation would be:
โYour location is recorded when you start and finish an assignment. It will also be available to the control team if you raise a lone-worker alert.โ
If location information is also used for attendance, investigations, or another purpose, that should be explained separately.
Keep access relevant
A controller responding to an alert may need an officerโs last known location. A site supervisor may need to confirm that somebody has arrived for duty. Neither necessarily needs access to every workerโs complete movement history. Access should reflect each personโs responsibilities and be removed when somebody changes role.
Employers should also watch for the data gradually taking on a different purpose. Information originally collected for emergency response might later be used to question how long officers spend in particular areas or compare their movements. That is a new use of the information and should be considered separately. A safety justification should not become a blanket reason for monitoring every part of an employeeโs day.
Track the risk, not every movement
Before introducing location technology, an employer should be able to explain what risk requires it, when the workerโs location will be visible, who owns the response, and what happens if contact is lost. It should also be clear when tracking stops, how long information is retained, and when the arrangement will be reviewed. Location technology can help protect lone workers, but it cannot replace clear responsibilities and a tested response procedure.
The aim should be to find and support somebody when they need help, not to maintain continuous visibility simply because the system allows it.
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