Working alone, in the community and online

A growing share of work happens away from a fixed workplace with colleagues nearby. Home care workers, social workers, real estate agents, delivery drivers, ride-share and taxi drivers, inspectors, utility workers, security guards on night patrol, cleaners working after hours and many employees working from home all spend at least part of their day alone or out of sight of co-workers. Working alone is not unsafe in itself, but it removes the protection that comes from having others nearby to deter aggression, notice a problem and call for help. At the same time, digital tools have created new ways for harassment to reach workers wherever they are. This lesson covers how to protect workers who are alone, mobile or remote, and how to prevent and respond to online harassment.

What counts as working alone

There is no federal OSHA standard on working alone. Employers must still protect lone workers under the General Duty Clause, and OSHA guidance for health care and social services, late-night retail and taxi drivers addresses working alone. California's Labor Code section 6401.9 requires employers to consider workplace violence hazards, including working alone, in their plans, although it does not apply to employees teleworking from a location of their choice. Some states regulate specific lone-work settings: for example, several states have laws on panic buttons for hotel housekeepers who work alone in guest rooms, and many cities have such ordinances. Industry standards and good practice fill much of the gap, and a written lone worker procedure is a sensible part of any workplace violence prevention program.

Working alone covers more situations than people often think. A pharmacist alone in a store at night, a home support worker in a client's home, a property manager showing an apartment, a worker staying late in an empty office, a security guard patrolling a site, a parking enforcement officer and a researcher doing field interviews are all working alone for part of their shift. So is someone working at home, although the risks there are usually different.

Assessing lone work

Start with the general risk assessment from Lesson 5 and add questions specific to lone work: How long is the worker alone? How far away is help, and how long would it take to arrive? Can the worker communicate reliably, including in areas with poor mobile coverage? Does the work involve contact with the public, cash, enforcement or clients with a history of violence? Are there medical risks that could leave the worker unable to call for help? Is the location known and is it safe to reach, park and leave? What happens if the worker does not check in?

Controls for lone and mobile workers

• Avoid lone work where the risk is high: send two workers, schedule visits to high-risk clients during the day, or meet clients in a safe, public or office setting rather than at home.
• Screen in advance: gather information before a first visit, such as who lives at the address, any history of violence, pets, weapons, and safety concerns raised by other agencies, consistent with privacy law.
• Plan the visit: share the itinerary, including addresses and expected times, with a designated contact; plan parking, routes and exits; and know where help is available.
• Communicate: provide reliable phones, radios or satellite devices where coverage is poor, and lone worker apps or devices with duress buttons, fall detection and location tracking, used with clear privacy rules.
• Check in: set up a check-in procedure with defined intervals, a person responsible for monitoring, and an escalation plan when a worker misses a check-in.
• Empower workers: give them clear authority to leave any situation where they feel unsafe, without penalty, and to reschedule a visit or refuse service when conditions are unsafe.
• Use a code phrase: agree a phrase that a worker can use on the phone to signal danger without alerting the person present, such as asking the office to "check the blue file".
• Train: provide training in situational awareness, de-escalation, the check-in system, home visit safety, vehicle safety and what to do if things go wrong.

Designing a check-in system

A check-in system is only as good as its response. Each check-in should confirm that the worker is safe; a missed check-in should trigger a defined sequence of actions with a time limit for each. The interval between check-ins depends on the risk: the higher the risk, the shorter the interval. Some employers check in at the start and end of each visit; others use automatic timers that alert a monitor if the worker does not cancel them.

Vehicles and travel

Many lone workers spend much of their time in vehicles. Basic precautions include keeping the vehicle well maintained and fueled, parking in well-lit areas facing the exit, keeping doors locked while driving and parked, not leaving bags or equipment visible, having a plan if followed or approached, and avoiding giving rides to clients unless a policy allows it and the risk has been assessed. Taxi, ride-share and delivery drivers face particular risks; controls include cashless payment, in-vehicle cameras, partitions, GPS tracking and emergency buttons connected to a dispatcher.

Working from home

Remote work reduces some risks, such as commuting and contact with the public, but it can create others. Workers at home may be isolated from support, may experience online harassment, may have blurred boundaries between work and personal time and, in some cases, may be exposed to domestic violence at the same place where they work. Employers' legal duties generally extend to home workplaces, although their practical control over the space is limited.

Practical measures include regular contact between managers and remote workers, clear policies on communication outside working hours, inclusion of remote workers in training and reporting systems, and making sure that remote workers know how to report harassment and access support. Employers should also make it known that domestic violence affecting remote workers is a workplace issue, and that the worker can ask for help confidentially. Lesson 9 covers domestic violence in more detail.

Online and virtual harassment

Harassment through email, messaging apps, video calls and social media is now one of the most common forms of workplace harassment. It can be relentless, because it follows workers home, and it can involve large audiences when it happens in group chats or public posts. Examples include insulting or threatening messages, sexual messages or images, exclusion from group channels, mocking colleagues in video meetings, sharing private information or images, impersonation, coordinated pile-ons in comments, and publishing a worker's personal details online, sometimes called doxxing.

Anti-discrimination law applies to harassment through any medium. Courts have accepted that messages, social media posts and video calls can contribute to a hostile work environment under Title VII when they have a connection to work. State laws on harassment and workplace violence, including California's definition in Labor Code 6401.9, cover threats regardless of how they are delivered. Federal and state criminal laws address threats, stalking, cyberstalking and non-consensual distribution of intimate images, and the TAKE IT DOWN Act of 2025 created federal requirements for removing non-consensual intimate images, including AI-generated ones, from online platforms.

Employers should cover online conduct in their harassment policies, set expectations for respectful communication in workplace channels, give administrators the ability to remove abusive content and block users, train workers on how to document online harassment, and support workers who are targeted by members of the public online, for example journalists, public servants and health workers who face abuse on social media because of their jobs.

Reviewing lone work arrangements

Lone work procedures should be tested and reviewed like any other control. Run occasional drills in which a monitor deliberately simulates a missed check-in to see whether the escalation steps are followed and how long they take. Review any incident or near miss involving a lone worker, ask workers whether the check-in system is practical, and check that phones, devices and contact lists are up to date. When a worker's caseload, route or client mix changes, revisit the risk assessment for their lone work.

Finally, make sure that lone workers have a say in the arrangements that protect them. They are the people best placed to know whether check-in times are realistic, which locations feel unsafe and which devices work in practice, and procedures designed without them are often ignored.