How to protect internationally travelling lone workers
What are the health and safety responsibilities of those working abroad?
If one of your team members travels abroad for work, you will have responsibilities relevant to both the country they are in and the one in which they are usually based.
If the team member travels or works alone, they might experience greater (or at least different) risks than they would in the UK. In this article, we’ll help you familiarise yourself with these potential risks and help you understand how to deal with them.
Guidelines for lone working while travelling
While it is hard to provide guidance for every type of international work, we will set out some general guidelines and good practices that will help you protect your workers –and your business.
If you want to make sure you’re meeting your legal responsibilities, we encourage you to both research the health and safety requirements of the country your team is working in and to apply the same diligence that you would for UK-based workers.
Legal responsibilities of employing lone workers who travel internationally
Technically, the HSWA (Health and Safety at Work, etc Act 1974) only applies within the UK. While someone is working internationally, they will need to meet the health and safety requirements of that country.
When asked for comment for this article, the Health and Safety Executive told us the following:
“We have no jurisdiction to comment on the requirements or enforcement of health and safety legislation overseas. Anyone wishing to establish legislative standards outside Great Britain is encouraged to contact the relevant enforcing authority in the country concerned.”
Despite this, however, UK employers have a duty of care to protect their workers from foreseeable hazards. If someone is going on a business trip, for instance, their employer should perform a risk assessment and make suitable arrangements for their safety.
Specifically, the International Standards Organisation says:
“top management should be responsible and accountable for the overall implementation of policies to reduce the risks to employees associated with travel overseas”.
Understanding lone working when working internationally
Introduction to lone working
The UK’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) requires employers to give special consideration to employees who work alone (lone workers).
The HSE defines lone workers as:
“those who work by themselves without close or direct supervision”, including “anyone contracted to work for you, including self-employed people”.
While many people might think about lone workers as people who work in complete isolation for all or most of the time, it can also include those who work with the public –and even some people who work near their colleagues but who do not have that “direct” or “close” supervision. That’s why we at Safepoint offer the following definition (based on NHS guidance):
“A lone worker works out of eyesight or earshot of their colleagues for some or all of their working day.”
If you’d like a full introduction to lone working, we encourage you to read Guide to lone working. Otherwise, it’s important that you understand that lone working comes with inherent risks that should be properly considered and mitigated.
What countries have lone worker laws outside the UK and Ireland
While the UK has some of the strictest and most conclusive laws and legislations around lone working, other countries do have similar laws, including:
Australia
Canada (depends on province or territory)
France
Germany
New Zealand
Spain
Please note that the US also has some lone worker protections (particularly for hospitality workers) in some states, such as New York, Las Vegas and Washington.
Why is lone working so relevant to working abroad
One of the main risk-factors of working alone is the lack of support and supervision from colleagues and managers. Simply put: working alone can make it more likely that something will go wrong and, if it does, more difficult to seek help.
With that in mind, it’s only natural that travelling internationally can come with heightened risk. When a worker’s supervisor is a thousand miles away and in a different timezone, it becomes much harder for them to support the worker’s health and wellbeing.
On top of communication and supervision, however, there are several risks specific to working alone abroad. We’ll go through these in the next section.
What lone working risks are specific to working abroad?
Some of the risks specific to lone working internationally are:
Lack of communication and supervision from your team.
Language barriers make it harder to seek help and support.
Differences in equipment or techniques.
Differences in safety standards.
People visiting from other countries may be seen as targets by thieves and other criminals.
Differences in healthcare standards or access.
Stress and mental health risks due to feelings of isolation.
What should UK employers consider when sending their workers overseas?
Of course, every organisation is different, but there are some key steps you can take to keep your staff safe when they’re working abroad. Many of these suggestions are valuable whether a staff member is working alone, or as part of a team –but remember, lone working can increase overall risk.
Build international working into your risk assessment
You may want to expand your risk assessment to include risks related to international travel. Consider some of the general areas we discussed above, but also ones specific to the country that’s being travelled to.
Preparing for country-to-country differences
It’s important to understand how your country differs to the one your employee is visiting.
For an overview, you may want to look at the UK Government’s Foreign Travel Advice. This will give high-level advice on where is and isn’t safe to travel to, and what support British nationals can receive if they visit there.
Some differences may be related to an overall culture –maybe there are more dangerous roads, or a higher level of crime – whereas some may be related to the work itself. It’s good to look at both the broad picture and the role of the worker(s) and to build your risk assessment appropriately.
Insurance
It’s important to note that most personal travel insurance policies will not cover you for working abroad, and that your business insurance may not cover employees who work abroad.
It’s important to think about areas such as public liability insurance and professional indemnity cover.
Crucially, make sure that you and your workers have suitable medical insurance. Remember:
Personal insurance may not cover you for injuries sustained on work trips.
The GHIC (Global Health Insurance Card) which replaced the EHIC (European Health Insurance Card) provides UK residents with some medical coverage in most of Europe. The GHIC does cover those who are travelling for work, but may not provide the same levels as the NHS.
If you are travelling to work in the US, it is very important that you get comprehensive health insurance. The average cost for a 3-day hospital stay in the U.S. is around $30,000. So, even if you or your workers are travelling on a “B-1 Visa” (which covers temporary business visitors such as those travelling to “consult with colleagues, negotiate a contract, attend a conference or educational seminar, or take part in a short-term training program”, you will still need to look into medical insurance.
While we have mentioned the UK’s close neighbours (the US and the rest of Europe), it’s important to remember that every country is different. Even countries with strong, nationalised healthcare may not be free at point of access for international workers.
British standards for travelling for work
ISO 31030 vs PAS 3001
If you want to meet the highest standards in safety around international travel for work, we can recommend looking into ISO 31030. This is the ISO standard for “Travel Risk Management”.
Previously, the British Standards Institute (BSI) offered “PAS 3001:2016 –Travelling for work. Responsibilities of an organization for health, safety and security”. This has since been withdrawn, with the newer international standard replacing it.
This new standard (released in 2021) covers areas such as:
Policy
Programme development
Threat and hazard identification
Opportunities and strengths
Risk assessment
Prevention and mitigation strategies.
British standard for lone working (BS 8484)
As well as the standards listed above, the BSI has a standard for the “provision of lone worker services”. BS 8484:2022 is the UK’s gold standard for those that provide lone worker services.
It’s not necessary for a business to read up on BS 8484 when their team are working alone but, if you want to invest in professional lone worker protections, look out for companies, like Safepoint, that offer it. They can provide information on protecting your international lone workers when they're travelling and working abroad.
Not only do Safepoint meet all of the BSI’s rigorous standards of lone worker services, but they even provide lone worker protection for the BSI themselves!
Providing lone worker solutions for those working overseas
It is important to provide ample protections and supervision for lone workers on international trips.
Some simple steps can be:
Keeping in regular contact with international lone workers
Keeping record of what transport lone workers are taking and when they should arrive. Checking whether a worker has caught their flight or checked into their hotel are important, so make sure you have that information readily available.
Having a calendar of who’s going where and for how long. Remember, it’s easy to keep track of workers when they’re in the office; less so when they’re on the move.
Having staff travel in teams –where possible, working in a pair or a team can be much safer than working alone.
The benefits of a dedicated lone worker solution for working internationally
After you’ve updated your international travel procedures, you may find that you’re struggling to keep track of your international lone workers. This is natural! When your team are driving, sailing or flying around the world, it can be hard to meet your duty of care.
This is where a dedicated lone worker system like Safepoint can help. Safepoint provides the tools you need to keep track of your worker’s safety, wherever they are.
How Safepoint helps workers who travel abroad
Whether your employees are travelling alone (as lone workers) or part of a team, keeping track of them –and thus meeting your duty of care– can be difficult.
Apps and devices
Safepoint provides dedicated lone worker devices (that can be clipped onto clothes or worn on a lanyard) as well as a modern and easy-to-use app. Lone workers use these when they’re travelling or in higher-risk roles, and it connects them to Safepoint’s lone worker monitoring system.
Depending on which solution you use, Safepoint can detect if a user hasn’t checked in as safe, if they’ve taken a fall, or even if they’ve gone out of a designated “safe zone”. To learn more, check out our Solutions page.
Note: If you’re worried about privacy, you can rest assured. Safepoint only tracks when an emergency alert goes off, or when an app user creates a “task” –a temporary job sharing session.
24/7 monitoring
Most of the time, Safepoint’s customers crack on with their work without any issue. When there is an emergency, however, a “smart alarm” can be triggered manually or automatically.
When an alarm is triggered, Safepoint’s fully accredited, 24/7 safety monitoring team will jump into action. For instance, if a sales representative walks back to their hotel after a long day at a convention, and fails to check in as safe in time, our team will respond.
Or, if an engineer working on a solar farm 3,000 miles away from their home base has an injury, our team will handle it.
Our safety team can use a worker’s location and communication devices, alongside various other safety data, to not only check in on their safety but also to facilitate an emergency response.
In the UK and Ireland, our response team work directly with the emergency services for a targeted response. When a worker travels abroad, however, our team will focus on firstly checking the worker’s wellbeing, and then on working directly with the assigned supervisors to help build a response.
Enlisting Safepoint and our 24/7 lone worker monitoring team can take the worry out of hiring employees in different time zones. You don’t need to worry whether your staff in New York or Tokyo got home okay –because Safepoint’s expert team have it covered. If anything doesn’t look right, our team will look into it and, if there seems to be a real threat, we’ll work with you and your team to organise a response.
Team management
With Safepoint, you can see all active and historical lone working “tasks” and “alerts” via the team management Portal. Accessed via the Safepoint app or any online browser, the Safepoint Portal makes it easy to see who’s working on what job, where they are, and when they’ll be done.
You can even see all live tasks and alerts on an interactive global map. Whether you have one or a thousand lone workers, Safepoint makes it really easy to keep track.
Book a free meeting
If you want to learn how Safepoint’s tools can help you protect and manage your lone workers across the globe, book in a free demo.