Lone security guards: how to protect them

• Violence or threat: from an intruder or aggressive person, with no colleague to help or raise the alarm.
• Accident: a fall on stairs, in a dark corner or on a slippery floor during a patrol.
• Sudden illness: a medical problem nobody sees.
• Fatigue and isolation: long nights without contact wear down alertness.

• General duty: the employer ensures workers’ health and safety in every aspect of the work (art. 533 §1).
• Written assessment: the employer assesses the risks, and the assessment is in writing (art. 533 §8(α); art. 534 §1(α)).
• Violence and harassment: the employer assesses psychosocial risks, including violence and harassment, and takes preventive measures (art. 533 §6(θ)).
• The right person: when assigning tasks, the employer takes the worker’s capabilities into account (art. 533 §8(β)).

In practice, for a lone post the assessment answers: how quickly help can arrive, which spots are dark or isolated, who may turn up at night, and what happens if the guard cannot call. The measures below follow from those answers.

1. Fixed interval: tighter at night and on higher-risk posts.
2. Who monitors: the supervisor or operations desk, named for every shift.
3. Missed check-in: call the guard at once; if no answer, try again and alert the supervisor.
4. Still no answer: the supervisor sends someone to the post or calls emergency services, as the post orders say.
5. Record: every check-in and every delay is logged.

Patrol checkpoints also show the guard is moving — see checkpoint patrols with NFC/QR. At OVIT, patrols, incidents and reports show live on the Guardly platform, and a real person answers the operations desk.

• Panic button: for when the guard can raise an alert but cannot speak.
• No-motion or fall detection: an alert when the device records no movement for a set time.
• Missed check-in: time without contact is itself a signal.
• Escalation: who receives the alarm, how fast they call, when they send someone, when they call 112.
• Testing: devices and the escalation chain are tested regularly, not only on installation day.

An alarm nobody watches is worse than none, because it gives a false sense of safety. Design the response to the alarm before choosing the device.

• Lit routes: patrols without dark spots; faults are reported and fixed.
• The post itself: a lockable door, a view of the entrance, a phone that works.
• Access: the guard does not open up to strangers without confirmation; the procedure is in the post orders.
• Signal coverage: checked along the whole route; dead spots are recorded.

• Informed about risks: the employer informs workers of the occupational risks of their work (art. 533 §6(δ)) and facilitates their training (§6(ζ)).
• Hands-on training: a walk-through of the post, a man-down test, drills for “threat” and “injury”. See also how to write an incident report.
• Nights: normal working time for night workers may not exceed 8 hours per 24 hours on average over a one-week period (art. 176 §1).
• Breaks: over 4 continuous hours, a break of 15 to 30 minutes (art. 172 §1). On a one-guard post, the roster sets out how it is covered.

More on hours limits in security guard shifts and working hours. If you have a one-guard post and want to review it with us, ask for a proposal.