Flexible Working and the Risk Management of Staff that are ‘Virtual’ Workers

Virtual working has become the new normal for many businesses and their employees. Although this style of working brings many benefits, it also brings challenges which UK businesses need to properly risk manage.

In the UK, the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) are the Government’s advisory and enforcement authority on health and safety. Health and safety legislation in the UK is broad enough to cover working from home, and as an employer you have the same health and safety responsibilities for home workers as for any other workers. However, because the legislation and associated guidance is broadly worded, businesses often have the challenge of interpreting how to comply with the requirements.

For example, the HSE have issued the following statement:

“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 doing home workstation assessments. However, there is no increased risk from DSE work for those working at home temporarily. So in that situation employers do not need to do home workstation assessments.” (Source: https://www.hse.gov.uk/toolbox/workers/home.htm)

The difficulty UK businesses are finding with this statement is the word “temporarily”. No definition has been provided by the HSE as to what is considered temporary, putting the onus on businesses to decide for themselves. Ultimately, it would be a court (criminal or civil) who would decide whether or not a business had done enough for their home workers.

To ensure compliance with health and safety legislation, and the protection of ‘virtual’ workers, there are a number of risk management factors to consider:

1. Complete a general risk assessment for virtual/home working, to document and assess what you are doing to protect those workers and whether it is enough (legal requirement: Management of Health & Safety at Work Regulations 1999, Regulation 3)
2. Ensure that the risk assessment is not just focused on the workstation. Consider the other risks associated with home working, such as slips, trips and falls; lone working; stress and mental health; fire safety; electrical safety; children/pets coming into contact with work equipment, etc. Even the increase in video calling as a way of working is starting to present its own issues: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200421-why-zoom-video-chats-are-so-exhausting
3. Consider how you will ensure that you are adequately protecting the physical and mental health of virtual workers. UK legislation is equally about health as it is safety.
4. Determine, as part of a virtual/home working policy, your different categories of virtual workers (e.g. permanent/long term, part time, temporary) and what you define as ‘temporary’. The policy will then need to explain how you will manage each of those categories and the health and safety provisions you will put in place to support and protect them.
5. Determine how you will provide staff with information, instruction and training in staying physically and mentally healthy and safe whilst working from home (legal requirement: Health & Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974, section 2[2][C])
6. Determine how you will conduct home workstation assessments and provide virtual workers with the necessary equipment (IT equipment, desk, chair, etc), to ensure compliance with the Health & Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations. (HSE guidance on legal requirements: Working safely with display screen equipment) The assessment should also consider the other hazards outlined above (fire, electricity, etc).
7. Consider how you will consult with your virtual workers on health and safety matters relating to working from home, and ensure two-way feedback is in place. For example, a Virtual Workers / Home Workers Committee, who meet regularly via video call, may be one option.
8. Finally, there is a legal duty in the UK to provide all employees, regardless of where they are based, with access to the company’s Employers’ Liability Insurance Certificate and the HSE’s Health & Safety Law Poster (also available as a PDF leaflet). Therefore, if you have employees who are virtual workers, you will need to post the insurance certificate and H&S Law leaflet online somewhere that is easy for them to find.

Further reading:
http://www.hse.gov.uk/toolbox/workers/home.htm
http://www.shponline.co.uk/lone-working/home-working

Are you considering flexible / virtual working as a more permanent feature of your UK business? Would you like more advice? Email our panel of experts [email protected] with your questions