How to roll out a lone worker app with union support

1. Plan with the right people in the room

• Put the head of EH&S, or a named rollout team, in charge.
• Map each role to the features its risk calls for: panic alerts, scheduled or geofence check-ins, fall detection, idle detection, indoor beacons.
• Pilot with a cross-section of roles and departments before the wider rollout.

2. Bring the union in early

• Meet labour leadership before launch, not after.
• Show a hands-on demo and share written answers on what data is collected, where it is stored and who can see it.
• Agree the privacy limits in writing and include them in the working alone procedure.

3. Limit tracking to work

• Use geofences so monitoring starts when a worker arrives at a site and stops when they leave.
• Use shift schedules so the app is quiet off shift.
• Decide whether workers can change their own settings or whether supervisors set them centrally.

4. Remove the admin burden

• Push the app to managed phones through MDM.
• Let geofences and schedules switch monitoring on and off, so nobody has to remember.
• Spot-check check-ins, alerts and geofence triggers against who is actually working alone, to find coverage gaps early.

5. Start simple, then expand

1. Launch panic alerts and geofence check-ins first.
2. Review adoption and how alerts were handled.
3. Add fall detection where height work, trip hazards or health risks are common.
4. Add idle detection where loss of consciousness is a critical risk.
5. Pilot each new feature with one group before switching it on for everyone.

Simple to set up, easy to use

OnGuard keeps the rollout light: no hardware to issue, no manual start and stop, and settings managed from one dashboard.

Get the full white paper

Our white paper, A Strategic Framework for High-Adoption, Low-Overhead Deployment of a Feature-Rich Lone Worker System, covers this plan in depth for EH&S teams and labour representatives.

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