"A revolution in technology has at last made the work-from-home dream a reality for millions of British workers" (www.bbc.co.uk: 2004)
This popular trend has been made more possible by the availability of broadband, allowing employees to access the internet, pick up and send emails, interact directly with organisational intranet sites and access work documents all from the comfort of their own home.
There are benefits to both employers and employees when it comes to working from home but amongst the benefits there can be disadvantages, particularly for the employee with regards to the practicality of their health and safety needs.
With appropriate procedures and systems however, a safe working relationship between a home worker and their employer can be achieved and maintained easily. This article aims to highlight the potential areas of concern and provide useful information for organisations that employ staff that work from home or other sites.
The Regulations
Under the Health and Safety at Work Act (HSWA) 1974 employers have the duty to protect the health, safety and welfare of employees whilst at work.
Many employers will be fully aware of their requirement to provide employees working at their premises with health and safety training, Display Screen Equipment (DSE) workstation assessments and other health and safety information relevant to the type of organisation and job specifications. What is often not fully understood and commonly neglected is that they have the same duty of care for workers who are at work but not on their sites.
Home and mobile workers are covered by the same health and safety regulations that apply to office bound employees including safety of electrics, fire safety, Manual Handling, chemical safety as well as seating and workstation set up.
Legislation that applies to home workers
· Health & Safety at Work Act 1974
o Regulations include
§ Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999
§ Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992 (as amended 2002)
§ Manual handling operations regulations 1992
§ Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998
§ Control Of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002
Unlike office bound employees, communication and monitoring of home workers can prove difficult and small problems can often escalate into more serious cases unless adequate and relevant health and safety procedures and monitoring are in place.
Provision of equipment
Many employers will provide their home workers with equipment such as computers/laptops, printers, fax machines and any other necessary equipment needed to do their job efficiently. Employers may also provide home workers with appropriate office furniture such as a desk and chair and in some cases go beyond this to supply first aid kits and smoke detectors.
What do you provide?
Information andtraining
As with office employees, employers have the duty to provide home workers with proper information and training on how to use that equipment.
Communal office notice boards and displays are not readily available to home workers and so any information regarding health and safety policies and other general information or news must be made available to home workers by other means. Often such information can be found on the company intranet which should also be accessible to the home worker.
The home worker should be provided with relevant training such as working with DSE, manual handling, handling of hazardous substances and fire risk.
Some organisations provide a handbook or e-learning for home workers that contains all the information that they may need.
Working with DSE
As with any other employee working with DSE it is important that a suitable risk assessment of the home worker's workstation is conducted. This can be achieved either by sending a competent DSE assessor to the home of the employee or by providing them with the means of carrying out an online self DSE assessment. It must be noted that a self-assessment that is carried out without the individual having completed DSE training before hand may not be suitable or sufficient as the Display Screen Equipment assessment is required to be carried out by a competent person. There is also the issue of how to manage if a problem is identified as to who will sort the problem out.
At an initial level self assessment could be seen as adequate for those individuals that are not Users under the DSE regulations. However if the home worker is potentially a User under the terms of the DSE regulations the assessment must be completed by a competent person.
Summary
Home and mobile workers are owed the same duty of care as office based workers. The challenge
If the risk to the home worker is medium or high then a far more proactive approach will be required with assessments, training to a much higher level. It should also be noted that if the risk is above low then there should be a risk assessment of whether the work should be carried out in a home environment, is it an appropriate place to carry out the process?
Suggested steps
· Provide clear Policy and procedures on home working.
· Identify who is a mobile or home worker?
o Cover in job description and contract.
· How much time they are working in this way?
· Where do they work?
· What are the processes that they are involved with?
o Are they low risk?
· How best to perform the assessments and keep them up to date and keep an audit trail?
· How best to train the users and what level of training is required?
· How to deal with problems that arise?
o What are the communication issues?
o Do they have a point of contact?
Gain advice on all of the above aspects including:
· Assisting in formulating a suitable Policy.
· Providing a DSE e-learning training and Assessment package.
· Providing Face to face home worker assessments.
· Provision of standard contract furniture for Home workers.
· Provision of equipment to assist where problems are identified.
· Specialist assessments.