Working From Home Essentials
We understand the interest in working from home was accelerated by the coronavirus and we didn’t all had the luxury of time to plan. However, it looks like homeworking is here to stay.
So, to help you manage your situation, we have prepared a guide outlining the key points you should consider.
Follow these points to help make working from home work for you.
Risk Assessment
Employers have a duty of care to ensure the health and safety and wellbeing of employees including when they are working from home. There is a grey area when the home becomes the work environment so establish clearly the area of the property for which risks will be assessed.
It is good practice to conduct risk assessments that are specific to each homeworker’s work environment, and to involve the homeworker in the process of identifying potential hazards. Businesses that have carried out risk assessments for individual homeworkers have addressed a range of significant hazards in the home working area (e.g. electrical; manual handling; chemicals; ventilation; lone working/isolation), and include potential hazards that would not normally be found in a workplace, such as pets.
Regular reviews of risk assessments should be carried out to ensure that there have been no significant changes.
You can start the process by using our free home worker risk assessment checklist (see below). To continue the process, book one of our home worker risk assessments carried out by our trained and experienced risk assessors.
Call us on 0370 118 8000 to book your assessment.
Security
Are communications between employees and other people secure? For instance, confidential phone calls should be encrypted. Applications like WhatsApp and Instant Messenger may not offer you the level of security suitable for your business. Make sure homeworkers are aware of how to safeguard confidentiality and comply with GDPR.
Ensure staff run virus checks on attachments received by email before opening them.