53 million+ lone workers operate across the US, Canada, and Europe, a figure that continues to grow. In 2023 alone, the EU recorded 2.83 million non-fatal workplace accidents, with the majority occurring without witnesses present.
For executives and operations directors, this represents lost productivity, direct financial costs, and significant legal risk.
Without proper lone worker protection measures, a minor incident can quickly escalate when help isn’t immediately available.
A lone worker is anyone working without direct supervision or immediate colleague support, facing increased risk during incidents or emergencies.
Across international health and safety frameworks, isolation isn’t inherently dangerous, but a significant aggravating factor that can increase the severity of an incident. Data shows that workplace incidents often lead to serious consequences:
When workers operate alone, delayed response times significantly increase the severity of incidents.
This applies to many types of activities, particularly those involving physical risk, hazardous environments, or specific safety requirements such as electrical work, working at height, or remote field operations.
Across Europe and internationally, employers have a duty of care to ensure the safety and health of their employees.
In the EU, this obligation is defined under Directive 89/391/EEC, which establishes that employers must take all necessary measures to protect workers in every aspect of their job.
In practical terms, when risk assessments identify hazards related to lone working, organizations must implement:
These principles are reflected in most international safety frameworks, including OSHA requirements in the United States and national risk assessment frameworks such as France’s DUERP (Document Unique d’Évaluation des Risques Professionnels).
Failing to protect lone workers extends beyond regulatory compliance . It exposes organizations to major financial, operational, and workforce-related risks:
Beyond compliance, this is a core business risk.
For years, standalone lone worker alarm devices were the standard. Today, they struggle to meet the demands of modern work environments:
As work environments become more complex and mobile, these limitations become critical.
Effective lone worker protection requires both technology and operational readiness, from detection to intervention:
To meet these requirements without multiplying devices, STREAMWIDE’s Team on the Run solution combines alerting, location, and coordination into a single platform. The professional smartphone becomes a unified safety tool for lone workers.
In practice, beyond triggering alerts, Team on the Run (TOTR) enables full real-time incident management:
Investing in a modern LWP solution like Team on the Run (TOM) goes beyond regulatory compliance. It sends a strong message to field teams: their safety matters every day.
By improving response times and streamlining equipment, organizations strengthen worker protection while ensuring business continuity and operational performance.
Our experts will help you assess your needs and implement a protection solution tailored to your operational requirements.
A LWP (Lone Worker Protection) device, also known as DATI (Lone Worker Alarm Device), is equipment (dedicated device or smartphone app) designed to detect distress situations, manually or automatically and send a geolocated alert to a supervisor or monitoring center.
There is no single global regulation mandating LWP devices specifically. However, in most regions:
In practice, LWP/DATI solutions are widely used to meet these obligations.
Several sectors are particularly exposed, including:
Beyond these sectors, any activity involving isolated work or irregular hours (cleaning, on-call duties, night shifts, remote interventions) may also be concerned.
