Your Legal Duty Under HSWA
Working alone is legal and common in New Zealand. Managing the risk that comes with it is the employer's job. The Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 (HSWA) places that duty on the PCBU, the person conducting a business or undertaking, and expects you to identify hazards before they cause harm and put effective controls in place.
What "reasonably practicable" means for lone workers
The test weighs how likely and how severe the harm could be against what's available to reduce it, and what that costs. Isolation raises the stakes: a sprained ankle with a colleague nearby is an inconvenience, the same injury alone in the bush with no signal can become life-threatening. Where satellite and radio safety devices are readily available, leaving a known coverage gap unaddressed is hard to justify.
What the 2026 amendment changes
- Timing: the Health and Safety at Work Amendment Act 2026 received Royal Assent on 9 July 2026. Most provisions come into force on 1 April 2027, so current HSWA duties apply in full until then.
- Critical risks: the amendment introduces "critical risk", those most likely to cause death or serious harm, and refocuses effort there. Isolated work with no means of raising the alarm often sits squarely in that territory.
- Small PCBUs: businesses with fewer than 20 workers get a narrower set of obligations, centred on critical risks and basic welfare facilities. Narrower doesn't mean none.
- Codes of practice: following an approved code of practice will be treated as meeting the duty for that risk. The forestry code already has this "safe harbour" status from 10 July 2026.
For the full employer-side breakdown, including penalties and officer duties, see our duty of care guide for remote workers.
Real-world risks across NZ industries
- Agriculture: a medical event or machinery injury in a back paddock with no mobile reception.
- Healthcare: an aggressive situation during a home visit with no immediate backup.
- Forestry: an injury deep in a block, beyond cellular and sometimes beyond radio range.
In every case, the device and the plan behind it are part of meeting your duty, not optional extras.
How to Run a Lone Worker Risk Assessment
The risk assessment comes before any hardware decision. Get it right and the device choice almost makes itself.
Identify the hazards
- Environmental: isolation, patchy or no coverage, extreme weather, poor lighting.
- Task-based: operating machinery solo, handling cash, long drives on quiet rural roads.
- People-related: existing medical conditions, inexperience, potential for public aggression.
Evaluate and prioritise
For each hazard, ask how likely it is and how bad it would be. A fall from height at a remote site scores high on both, and calls for automatic Man Down detection backed by satellite reach-back.
Map your real black spots
Coverage maps are a starting point, not evidence. Log where connections actually succeed and fail during normal field work. Dead zones also shift: spring growth in the bush and heavy snow loads can both degrade radio and satellite signal in places that worked fine last season.
Satellite vs Radio vs Cellular
Which network should carry the alarm? It depends on terrain, not preference. Cellular coverage from Spark, One NZ and 2degrees is solid in urban centres and along main highways, but valleys, ridges and dense bush cut signal fast.
| Option | Best For | Main Limitation |
|---|---|---|
| Smartphone safety apps | Urban and semi-rural, low-risk roles with consistent coverage | Depends on cell towers and phone battery |
| Dedicated lone worker alarms | Higher-risk roles across mixed environments | Higher upfront cost than an app |
| DMR two-way radio | Site teams needing instant group comms plus Man Down and GPS | Range limited to your radio network without repeaters |
| Satellite messenger | Off-grid work needing two-way check-ins | Needs a reasonably clear view of the sky, subscription applies |
| PLB | Last-resort distress alerting, no ongoing cost | One-way only, no routine check-ins |
Cellular apps
Cost-effective where coverage is genuinely there, using phones your team already carries. Outside that footprint, an app alone isn't enough.
DMR radio
A private network with no per-message airtime cost, and the backbone of site safety in forestry, civil works and large farms. Modern DMR handhelds add GPS and Man Down alerts, turning a talk tool into an automated safety monitor. Browse our two-way radio range.
Satellite
The answer beyond cellular. Iridium's network covers the whole globe, which suits NZ's back country, though any satellite device still needs a reasonably clear view of the sky, so deep gorges and heavy canopy can delay a message. Our satellite phones guide covers the networks and hardware in detail.
Active beats passive
A passive system relies on the worker remembering to call in. An active system automates check-ins, location and alarms, so silence itself triggers the alert. That matters most when the worker can't act, which is exactly when help is needed.
Device Features That Actually Matter
- A physical, guarded SOS button: touchscreens struggle with wet hands and gloves. A guarded button can be found by feel and resists accidental presses.
- Man Down and no-motion detection: Man Down senses a tilt or fall, no-motion triggers when the device stays still too long. They catch different situations, so one doesn't replace the other.
- Accurate GPS with sensible ping rates: more frequent location updates give searchers a tighter area, at some cost to battery. Breadcrumbing stores the route and uploads it when signal returns.
- Two-way messaging: knowing help is coming changes how a worker copes in an emergency, and lets base triage the situation.
- Battery for the real shift: a full day as a minimum, multi-day for remote work. Cold drains lithium cells faster than spec sheets suggest.
- Ruggedness ratings: look for IP67 or IP68 and MIL-STD-810 testing, and intrinsically safe ratings where fuel vapour or combustible dust is present.
- Geofencing: alerts when someone enters or leaves a high-risk zone, so you can check in before an incident rather than after.
For a closer look at automatic fall and impact detection, see our Man Down detection devices guide.
Building Redundancy: The PACE Plan
What happens if the radio battery dies, or the satellite phone is still in the ute when things go wrong? A single device is a single point of failure. A PACE plan, Primary, Alternate, Contingency, Emergency, layers your options so there's always a next step.
| Layer | Role | Example MSL stocks | Price (NZD) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary | Daily team comms with Man Down and GPS | Tait TP9355 DMR handheld | From $1,640 |
| Alternate | Lifts fringe cellular signal in the vehicle | Cel-Fi ROAM R41 | From $1,298.99 |
| Contingency | Two-way satellite contact when radio and cellular both fail | ZOLEO, Garmin inReach Mini or Iridium 9555 | $379 / $829 / $2,595 |
| Emergency | Last-resort distress beacon, no subscription | GME MT610G PLB | $565 |
Prices current at October 2026. Teams sharing one satellite link across several phones can use the Iridium GO ($2,101). Not every team needs all four layers, the risk assessment decides that.
Vehicle plus handheld
A vehicle-mounted radio with a good antenna has more range than any handheld. But workers are most exposed when they walk away from the vehicle, so a handheld or wearable backup goes with them.
Automate the welfare check
Manual check-ins are the first thing to slip on a busy day. Lone worker timers on DMR radios and scheduled satellite check-ins raise the alarm at base automatically when a worker doesn't respond.
Matching the System to Your Industry
Forestry, construction and agriculture
Rugged terrain, machinery and real fall risk. DMR radios with Lone Worker and Man Down are the standard, with satellite messengers for the most remote blocks and stations. Large civil sites benefit from scalable radio systems that grow and shrink with project phases, keeping subcontractors on the same safety network.
Transport and logistics
Long hours through patchy coverage. In-vehicle radios or GPS trackers with duress buttons give a direct line to dispatch, often alongside existing fleet tracking.
Community healthcare and real estate
The risk here is usually people, not terrain. Discretion matters most: a smartphone app or small wearable with a silent alarm and duress codes that signal trouble even while appearing to cancel an alert.
Conservation and field science
Multi-day backcountry work puts weight and battery life first. A lightweight satellite messenger with two-way texting lets teams update status without a voice call.
Alerts can route to in-house monitoring, often fine for smaller teams on standard hours, or to a professional 24/7 monitoring centre for larger or round-the-clock operations.
Your Emergency Response Protocol
The device raises the alarm. People decide what happens next. Match the check-in schedule to the risk: start and end of day for low-risk urban roles, every couple of hours for high-risk work in a no-signal area.
A practical escalation pathway
- Contact attempt: try every available channel for a set period, such as 2 to 5 minutes.
- Supervisor notified: get context, expected location and any known medical conditions.
- Emergency response: if safety can't be confirmed, dispatch your own team or call 111 with the last known location.
If an alert system itself goes quiet or misbehaves, follow our guide to what to do when a Man Down alert fails.
Installation, Training and Testing
Buying the gear is step one. "Set and forget" is how systems fail on the day they're needed.
Installation
For vehicle-based teams, antenna placement makes a real difference to radio and satellite performance in rugged terrain. Our technicians handle on-site fit-outs, antenna tuning and mounting built to cope with off-road vibration.
Training and buy-in
- Explain the why: check-ins and alarms are there to have their back, not to watch their every move.
- Drill realistic scenarios, a fall at a remote site, a threatening situation on a visit.
- Practise triggering and cancelling a duress alarm so people trust it rather than fear false alarms.
- Retrain new starters, and again before busier or higher-risk periods like harvest or storm season.
Test and maintain
- Run a mock alert every few weeks and check who responds, how fast, and whether follow-up happens.
- Do a full technical check at least once a year: battery health, antennas, firmware and subscriptions.
Want to see this in a real deployment? Our Tait campus security case study shows Man Down, Lone Worker and GPS working together on site.
Getting the Right System in Place
Mobile Systems Limited is 100% New Zealand owned and based in Mount Maunganui, with over 25 years supplying and supporting communication equipment for businesses managing lone worker risk. Our technicians install and service across the Bay of Plenty, Coromandel, Rotorua, Taupō and Waikato, and we supply equipment nationwide.
We stock DMR radios, satellite messengers, satellite phones, PLBs and signal boosters, and we'll match them to your risk assessment rather than sell you the longest feature list. See our Worker Safety and Asset Management solutions or the occupational safety and health range.
The right system isn't the most expensive one. It's the one that still works on the worst day.
