Alberta Working Alone and Safety Course: Lessons 2026

Lesson 1: Alberta's safety laws and your duties

Workplace safety in Alberta is set by the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Act, the OHS Regulation and the OHS Code. The Code holds the detailed rules. Two parts matter most for guards who work alone:

• Part 28, Working Alone: section 393 (when the rules apply) and section 394 (precautions required).
• Part 27, Violence and Harassment: prevention plans, training, investigations and support for workers.

Duties under the OHS Act

Alberta's OHS regulator can be reached through the OHS Contact Centre at 1-866-415-8690 (780-415-8690 in Edmonton).

Lesson 2: Alberta's working alone rules

Under Part 28, you are working alone when you work by yourself at a work site where assistance is not readily available if there is an emergency or you are injured or ill. Night guards, mobile patrol officers and concierge staff often fit this description.

What your employer must do

1. Assess the hazards of working alone, and repeat the assessment at reasonable intervals, when work processes change and before big changes to the site.
2. Eliminate or control the hazards found.
3. Provide an effective means of communication: a radio, a phone or another effective electronic device that connects you with the employer or a designate who can respond.
4. Contact you at regular intervals that suit the hazards of the work.

If electronic communication is not practicable at the site, the employer or a designate must visit you, or you must contact them at set intervals that suit the hazards.

Alberta's rules do not set one fixed check-in time for every job. The interval comes from the hazard assessment, so a riskier post should mean more frequent contact.

Extra rules for gas stations and convenience stores

• A worker who works alone at a retail fuelling outlet or convenience store must have a personal emergency transmitter, monitored by the employer or a designate, and wear it at all times while working alone.
• Stores open between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. need a time lock safe that workers cannot open during those hours, and limits on high-value items.
• Customers at fuelling outlets must prepay for fuel.

Lesson 3: Violence and harassment prevention

Alberta's OHS Act defines violence as threatened, attempted or actual conduct that causes or is likely to cause physical or psychological injury or harm. It includes domestic and sexual violence. Harassment is any single incident or repeated incidents of objectionable or unwelcome conduct, comment, bullying or action that the person knows or ought to know will cause offence or humiliation, or that harms a worker's health and safety. Reasonable conduct by an employer or supervisor in managing workers is not harassment.

The prevention plan

Every employer must have a violence and harassment prevention plan. It must include measures to eliminate or control the hazards, how workers will be told about threats, how to report incidents, how complaints will be investigated, and how privacy will be protected.

The plan must be reviewed when an incident shows it is needed, when a change could affect the risk, when the health and safety committee or representative asks, or if there has been no review in 3 years.

After an incident

• The employer must investigate every incident and write a report on what happened and what was done to stop it happening again.
• The report is kept for at least 2 years.
• A worker who reports an injury or symptoms must be told to see a health professional of their choice for treatment or referral.
• A worker treated by a physician during regular work hours for the incident is considered to be at work.

Lesson 4: Your rights and refusing dangerous work

Alberta workers have three basic rights: the right to know about hazards, the right to participate in health and safety discussions, and the right to refuse dangerous work.

Under section 17 of the OHS Act, you may refuse work if you reasonably believe it involves an undue hazard. Alberta describes an undue hazard as a serious and immediate threat to health and safety.

How a refusal works

1. Do not do the work.
2. Tell your employer, supervisor or designated person as soon as possible what you are refusing and why.
3. The employer inspects and acts to remove the danger, and tells the health and safety committee or representative.
4. Until that is done, the employer must not assign another worker to the refused work.
5. You may be given other work you can safely do, at no loss of pay.
6. Unless the danger was fixed right away, the employer writes a report and gives you a copy.
7. If the danger is not fixed, call the OHS Contact Centre. An officer can investigate.

Protection from reprisal

Under section 18, no one may take disciplinary action against you for following the OHS law. If you think you were punished for it, you can file a complaint with an OHS officer within 180 days (section 19).

Lesson 5: Committees and reporting injuries

Health and safety committees and representatives

Serious incidents: call OHS

The employer must call the OHS Contact Centre as soon as possible if a worker dies, a worker is admitted to hospital because of a work injury or illness, an unplanned fire, explosion or flood causes or could cause serious injury, a crane or hoist collapses, or part of a building or structure fails. A visit to an emergency room alone is not a hospital admission.

Injuries: report to WCB-Alberta

• Workers tell their employer and then report to WCB-Alberta as soon as possible.
• Employers must send their report within 72 hours after becoming aware of the injury or illness.
• Health care providers report within 48 hours of treatment.
• Report an injury that needs treatment beyond first aid or causes you to miss work. If you are unsure, report it.

WCB-Alberta can be reached toll free in Alberta at 1-866-922-9221. Alberta OHS and the WCB are separate: a call to one does not replace a report to the other.