Zetifi urges safety checks for lone workers on road

Zetifi has issued five safety recommendations for fleet and safety teams during National Safe Work Month, aimed at organisations with workers on the road or operating alone.

Employers should review whether staff can call for help beyond mobile coverage, assign clear responsibility for every safety alert, identify who is driving each vehicle, agree procedures for missed lone-worker check-ins and test emergency responses from start to finish.

The advice comes amid high workplace risk on the road. Safe Work Australia data cited by Zetifi shows vehicle incidents were the leading cause of work-related deaths in Australia in 2024, accounting for 42% of the 188 workers killed.

Many organisations still manage safety events through a mix of email, spreadsheets and standalone systems. Zetifi argues these disconnected processes can slow responses and blur accountability, especially when staff move into remote or low-coverage areas where conventional telematics systems may lose visibility.

Coverage gaps

The first recommendation focuses on communications black spots. Organisations should map the routes and worksites where workers regularly lose mobile service, including regional highways, large rural properties, and underground or sub-basement urban locations.

They should then check whether the equipment issued to workers functions in those areas and provides a dependable way to raise an alarm. Workers also need to understand the limits of the devices they carry and know what steps to take if a connection is unavailable.

Dan Winson, Chief Executive Officer of Zetifi, said cost was not necessarily the main barrier. "We're certainly not saying that organisations have to triple their spending on work safety measures," Winson said. "In most cases the tools already exist, and the first job is finding out where your people drop out of contact. For someone working alone, knowing they can make that call if something goes wrong takes a real weight off. Without it, the stress of being out of reach can build over time and turn into a mental health concern in its own right, on top of the physical risk."

Clear ownership

The second recommendation addresses responsibility for incoming alerts. A duress alarm or missed check-in only has value if it reaches someone who knows they must act, with handover arrangements in place if that person is unavailable.

Shift changes and after-hours operations require particular attention because responsibility can become unclear at those times. Organisations should walk through those processes with workers, supervisors and safety teams before a live incident occurs.

The third recommendation deals with driver identification in shared fleets. Vehicle records do not always match the person behind the wheel when teams swap vehicles across shifts, which can delay an incident response.

To reduce that risk, fleets should use a system such as a driver app, identification fob or in-vehicle identification camera to link vehicles to the correct driver whenever a change occurs. This helps ensure alerts and incident records are tied to the right individual.

Lone workers

The fourth recommendation focuses on check-in procedures for employees working alone. Those arrangements should be based on the worker's task, location and level of risk. A technician visiting sites in town faces different conditions from someone spending most of the day alone on a remote property.

Employers should define who monitors each worker, how quickly a missed check-in triggers follow-up and when extra help should be called. Both the worker and the person monitoring them should understand the arrangements before the job starts.

The final recommendation is to test the full response process when a worker calls for help. Written procedures remain assumptions until organisations run an exercise that tracks an alert from activation through to a real response.

Such a test should include situations where mobile coverage is limited or the first designated contact does not answer, because those conditions often mirror real incidents. Exercises can reveal whether responders receive enough information to locate the worker and arrange assistance.

Winson said many businesses have documented safety procedures but have not rehearsed them under realistic conditions. "Most organisations have a safety process written down somewhere," he said. "Far fewer have tested it from start to finish. Running an exercise where the call doesn't connect, or the first person on the list doesn't pick up, is the fastest way to find out whether your people would actually get help."

Remote industries including mining, utilities, agriculture and transport face added exposure because of long distances, fatigue and communication gaps. Those sectors often depend on workers spending extended periods outside standard mobile coverage, increasing the importance of alerting, identification and response procedures.

Winson said the actions outlined were practical steps rather than large investment projects. "Every one of these steps is within an organisation's control," he said. "None of them needs a big budget. They need someone to ask the hard questions now and National Safe Work Month is a good time to start."