What happens when a lone worker misses a check-in?

A practical procedure for a missed check-in

HSE guidance says employers should keep in touch with lone workers and respond to any incident; it does not prescribe the steps. HSE's training, supervision and monitoring page is the place to start. The steps below are our suggestion, not a standard. Use them with or without software.

1. Allow a short grace period. Decide in advance how long is reasonable (for example 10 to 15 minutes) before a missed check becomes a concern. Too short and you create false alarms; too long and the delay is the risk.
2. Try the worker again, by the same route. Send a reminder. Repeat it once or twice at short, fixed intervals.
3. Try a different route. If a text has not worked, ring them. A voice call is harder to ignore and also tells you whether the phone is on and answering.
4. Check the obvious. Look at what you know: where was the worker due to be, what was the last contact, was there a known risk at the job?
5. Move to the next person. If you still have no answer, alert the first named contact, such as a supervisor or manager. Give them what they need: the worker's name and number, the job, the last known location, what has been tried and when.
6. Give each person a fixed time to respond. If they do not acknowledge, the next person is told. Without a time limit, the chain stalls.
7. Know when to call 999. If there is any reason to believe the worker is in danger, or you cannot reach them and have reasonable concern, call the emergency services. Do not wait for the whole chain to finish. Many organisations also agree in advance who may visit the last known location.
8. Close it and write it down. Record when the worker was reached or found, what happened, who did what, and any change needed to the process.

False alarms and late replies

Expect them, and let a worker who replies late stand the process down. Treat a false alarm as information about timings or contacts, not a failure by the worker, or people stop checking in. See welfare checks that don't annoy your team.

How NALW automates it

Everything below describes the standard settings in NALW. Retry timing and some options are set per schedule, and your own configuration may differ. See How it works for the full flow and the product tour for screenshots.

1. The check goes out by SMS, email, or a one-tap web link, depending on how you set up the schedule. With the web link, the worker taps "I'm safe", "I need help" or SOS. The tap also records their location at that moment. No app is installed.
2. Grace window. On schedules using the web link, the system waits a set number of minutes after the nudge (15 by default) before treating the check as missed.
3. Reminders. If there is no response, the check is sent again after 5 minutes by default, up to two more times, so three attempts in all.
4. Zoe phones the worker. Where the voice follow-up is switched on and a phone number is held, Zoe, NALW's AI voice assistant, rings the worker once and asks if they are all right. Zoe is an AI, and will say so if asked directly. Only the worker's own words can mark them safe: voicemail and call-screening messages are ignored. The call is given 5 minutes by default before the system moves on. See Zoe and AI calls.
5. Escalation. If the worker is still not confirmed safe, NALW works down the escalation list you have set for that schedule, in order. Each contact is alerted by email, text with a take-over link and, if you have chosen it, an AI voice call. The system waits 5 minutes for an acknowledgement before alerting the next person. When someone acknowledges, the ladder stops. See escalation.
6. Account owner. If the list is exhausted without an acknowledgement, the account owner is alerted by email, text and an AI call. The ladder does not repeat, and the incident stays flagged on the dashboard until a person acknowledges or closes it.
7. Immediate escalation for SOS or distress. If a worker texts SOS or HELP, uses the SOS button on the check-in page, or tells Zoe they are not OK, escalation starts at once with no waiting for retries. Overdue shifts clocked on by text (START with no DONE by the expected finish) escalate the same way.
8. If a text or call cannot be delivered, the timers are skipped and NALW moves straight on rather than waiting for a reply that cannot arrive.
9. Late reply. If the worker answers after escalation has started and says they are safe, the people alerted are told to stand down. The incident stays open until a person closes it, with an outcome: confirmed safe, false alarm, handled offline or other, and a note.
10. The record. Every message, call outcome, acknowledgement and closure is logged with a time, so you have an audit trail. See compliance and reports.

What NALW does not do

That is why the procedure above includes choosing contacts who can act, giving them clear instructions and testing the process. Name at least two contacts, brief them in advance and test the process every few months. Read our guide to building an escalation ladder that actually gets answered, and adapt the steps above into your own lone-working policy.

Frequently asked questions