Health and Safety is About Prevention
The whole purpose of health and safety is built around identifying and managing risk before an incident happens. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) makes it clear that dutyholders are expected to take reasonably practicable steps to protect people from workplace risks. The whole principle is preventative rather than reactive.
This is particularly relevant for lone workers. HSE guidance says businesses should have procedures in place that allow direct contact with lone workers and that emergency arrangements should include clear guidance on how and when they should contact their employer.
If mobile phones form part of those arrangements, then it is important to understand whether there is actually signal in the areas where people are expected to work.
The Lone Working Risk
A warehouse, plant room, stockroom, basement, large retail unit or industrial site can all contain areas where mobile coverage is weaker than expected. The buildings themselves can contribute to this, with steel, reinforced concrete, insulated wall systems, mechanical infrastructure, dense shelving and energy-efficient glass all capable of weakening indoor mobile signal.
The fact that no serious incident has happened does not prove that communication arrangements are sufficient. It may simply mean they have not yet been tested in a situation where they really matter.
Don’t Take Communication For Granted
A recent HSE prosecution demonstrates why communication should not be taken for granted in safety-critical situations. In May 2026, a Glasgow biomass company was fined after an employee suffered life-changing hand injuries while clearing a machinery blockage.
Communication between the employee and the control room was taking place by hand-held radio, but there was no line of sight and the radios were subject to interference. A miscommunication led the employee to believe the machinery had been switched off when it had not.
The incident involved wider failures around machinery safety, so it would be wrong to describe it simply as a communications failure. However, it is a useful example of why businesses need to understand whether the systems they rely on for communication will work properly when the workers need them to.
Identifying Your Weak Spots
The same principle applies to indoor mobile coverage. If staff rely on mobile phones to stay in contact, raise concerns or call for help, businesses should know where that signal is reliable and where it is not.
This is where an indoor connectivity audit can be useful.
The purpose of the audit is not to make assumptions about your health and safety arrangements or to tell you that every weak signal area represents a serious risk. It is simply to give you accurate information about what is happening across your building.
At TrellisWorks, our free Indoor Connectivity Audit identifies where 4G and 5G mobile coverage is strong, weak or unavailable across agreed areas of your premises. The findings are then presented in a simple red, amber and green format, giving you a clearer picture of where there may be gaps.
That information can then be considered alongside the way people actually work across the site. If employees work alone, spend time in isolated areas or rely on mobile communication as part of existing safety procedures, knowing where the weak spots are gives you the opportunity to review them before they become important.
Health and safety should never depend on discovering a problem after somebody has already been hurt.
If you are unsure how reliable mobile signal is across your building, an indoor connectivity audit can help you understand it properly before you need to rely on it.
To find out more and to book in your free audit at a time that suits you, please visit our booking page.
