Whether your staff have returned to the workplace or are continuing to work from home, the bottom line is that the health and safety of workers remains paramount where ever they are working from.
As an employer, you have the same health and safety responsibilities for home workers as for any other workers.
When someone is working from home, permanently or temporarily, as an employer there are various things you should consider, such as How will you keep in touch with them? Do you need to put control measures in place to protect them?
There will always be greater risks for lone workers with no direct supervision or anyone to help them if things go wrong. Ensure you keep in regular contact is vital for those working from home, not just to discuss work but to make sure they are healthy and safe. If contact is poor, workers may feel disconnected, isolated or abandoned which can affect their stress levels and mental health. We discovered quite quickly, as a small business, that working from home wasn’t quite as simple as turn your laptop on and work! From what we have experienced, we would recommend devising a working from home needs assessment so you are prepared again should anything like this happen again in the future. You can read our April Tip of the month feature on homeworking here.
For those people who are working at home on a long-term basis, the risks associated with using display screen equipment (DSE) must be controlled. This includes them doing workstation assessments at home. However, employers should provide workers with advice on completing their own basic assessment at home. This practical workstation checklist (PDF) from the HSE may help them.
A few months ago we shared a helpful post from a customer of ours, GWS Media, on 5 ways to stay productive when working from home. You can review this article here.
We have previously shared s video in conjunction with SG23 Fitness on stretching that can be done at your desk. View the video here
Some workers may need to take equipment home (e.g keyboards, mouse, risers)
The HSE have a very useful article on protecting homeworkers that we recommend you take a look at here
Whatever your health and safety needs, give us a call today 0117 958 2070 or e-mail us and make your health and safety, ‘Hassle Free’
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