Check Call Systems for Lone Workers: A Guide for Security Companies

Lone Working in Security: The Duty of Care You Can’t Ignore

Most security guard shifts involve lone working. A single guard on a construction site overnight. A door supervisor covering a quiet venue. A mobile patrol officer driving between sites alone at 3am. Under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, you have a legal duty of care to these workers — and that means having a system to check they’re safe at regular intervals.

Check calls — sometimes called welfare checks or lone worker checks — are the primary mechanism for fulfilling this duty. Get them right, and you protect both your guards and your business. Get them wrong, and you’re exposed to serious legal and regulatory consequences.

What the Law Actually Requires

The HSE’s guidance on lone working is clear: employers must assess the risks of lone working and implement appropriate measures. For security guards, this typically means:

• Regular contact at predetermined intervals — typically every 30 to 60 minutes for high-risk sites
• A defined escalation procedure if contact isn’t made — what happens if a guard misses their check call?
• Risk assessment that considers the specific hazards of each site
• Documentation that checks were made and responded to

SIA ACS auditors specifically look at lone worker procedures as part of the accreditation assessment. Having a documented, auditable check call system is effectively a requirement for ACS approval.

How Traditional Check Calls Work (And Why They Fail)

The traditional approach is simple: the guard calls the control room at set intervals. The controller logs the call. If a call is missed, the controller tries to call back, then escalates if there’s no response.

This works in theory but fails in practice because:

• Control rooms get busy: During shift changeovers or incident management, check call monitoring drops down the priority list
• Human error: Controllers forget to log calls, or don’t notice a missed check until much later
• No audit trail: A handwritten log provides weak evidence in any investigation
• Scalability: Managing check calls for 30+ guards across multiple sites manually is overwhelming

Automated Check Call Systems

Modern guard management platforms automate the entire check call process:

1. Scheduled prompts: The system sends the guard an automated prompt at set intervals — a notification on their phone asking them to confirm they’re safe
2. One-tap response: The guard taps a button to confirm. Takes two seconds
3. Automatic escalation: If the guard doesn’t respond within a defined window (e.g., 5 minutes), the system automatically alerts the supervisor and operations manager
4. GPS location: Each check call response includes the guard’s GPS coordinates, so you know where they were when they confirmed
5. Full audit trail: Every prompt, response, and escalation is logged with timestamps

Implementing Check Calls Effectively

Whether you use automated tools or manual processes, follow these principles:

• Set intervals based on risk: A guard in a vacant construction site needs more frequent checks than one in a busy retail environment
• Define clear escalation procedures: Who gets notified first? How long before emergency services are called?
• Train guards on the system: They need to understand it’s for their protection, not surveillance
• Test the system regularly: Run drills to ensure escalation procedures actually work
• Document everything: Keep records of check call policies, risk assessments, and all check call logs

TacDesk includes an automated check call system with configurable intervals, one-tap responses, GPS tracking, and automatic escalation notifications. It’s designed specifically for security lone worker scenarios.

Explore check call features: Try the TacDesk demo and see how automated welfare checks work in practice.

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