Protect home workers

It’s clear that the Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in an increase in home working and as there are glimmers of life returning to normal, organisations are considering the benefits and sustainability of home working. Of course our home is the one environment that we are most familiar with and consider it to be the safest place to be. But should the employer be risk assessing this working environment in the same way as the office?

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 you should consider:

• How will you keep in touch with them?
• What work activity will they be doing (and for how long)?
• Can it be done safely?
• Do you need to put control measures in place to protect them?

If your employees are homeworking, they are still working under the control of the employer and its duty of care applies in the same way if they were working at the head office. The employer must continue to consider the hazards and risks exposed to its workers for example:

• Lone working
• Working with display screen equipment
• Stress and mental health.

More information is available on the HSE website: Homeworkers (hse.gov.uk)

For information about occupational health and safety management system certification (ISO 45001:2018 and SSIP) please click here.