Working alone comes up in almost every industry: a lone maintenance technician on a weekend shift, a driver, a cleaner closing a building, a home care worker, a security guard, a survey crew. Employers often ask which regulation covers it and are surprised by the answer. Ontario does not have a standalone working-alone regulation for most workplaces. Instead, the duty comes from the general duty clause of the Occupational Health and Safety Act, which requires an employer to take every precaution reasonable in the circumstances for the protection of a worker. In practice that means you must identify the risks of the task, decide what controls are reasonable, document them, and make sure they are actually followed. Here is what that looks like when it is done properly, and where procedures usually fall apart.
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There is no standalone working-alone regulation for most Ontario workplaces; the duty flows from the OHSA general duty clause, plus any sector-specific rules that apply to your operation
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Start with a working-alone hazard assessment that names the actual tasks, locations, times of day, and communication coverage for each lone-work situation
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Identify the hazards that get worse alone: delayed emergency response, no one to spot or assist, remote or isolated locations, poor cell coverage, and tasks that should never be done solo
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Build a check-in system with a defined frequency, a named monitor, an escalation step, and a documented response when a check-in is missed; a rule with no escalation is not a control
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Decide which tasks are prohibited while alone, such as confined space entry, energized electrical work, and heavy lifting that requires a second person
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Make sure the lone worker can actually call for help: verify coverage at the specific work location, and provide a satellite device, radio, or phone where service is unreliable
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Train supervisors on the escalation step, not just workers on the check-in app, because the supervisor is the person who has to act when a check-in does not arrive
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Review the procedure after any near miss, after a schedule or route change, and at least annually; working-alone risk changes with staffing, not just with the work itself
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