Over the past few years, working from home has gone from being somewhat unusual to completely normal. Already a growing trend before the pandemic, it has been embraced by a wide range of employers operating in diverse areas.
While it can be easy to forget about the environment home workers operate in, as an employer, you’ll often have just as much responsibility for your employers as you would if they were still working on your physical premises. An often-overlooked element of many businesses, here we look at some ways of ensuring home worker safety.
For additional advice in regards to home worker safety, take a look at the ANT Telecom website.
Risk assessments
A significant part of ensuring home worker safety lies in carrying out risk assessments. The risk assessment will need to be nuanced, and will need to account for a wide variety of working conditions.
Home environments can be incredibly varied, and it’s likely that workers who operate at home will also operate in public environments, such as cafes and other suitable remote working environments.
Travel between different locations will be something that requires consideration, as will the equipment they work with, their mental wellbeing, and fire hazards.
Ensuring an appropriate work environment
While it’s important to respect the privacy of home workers, if they’re working from their house it’s important that they have an appropriate environment to do so. If the employee in question regularly works from home, it’s often best if they can dedicate a single room as a work environment.
This means that you can analyse the space with minimal intrusion into their private life, and if the room can be locked when not in use, you can hope for a certain level of security around any sensitive work-related materials, whether data or equipment.
Maintaining equipment
Employers will need to consider how they will carry out maintenance on work-related equipment.
Part of ensuring your home worker’s safety consists of making sure that the equipment they work with is safe to use, especially with regards to electrical fire hazards. In an office setting, it’s easy to carry out these checks and report any problems with equipment. In a home setting, there are some complications. You need to ensure that it’s easy for workers to set up maintenance visits, and that they have a helpline they can call at any time.
Travel
Often, the most dangerous task your employee will undertake will be travelling between locations. The most dangerous means of transport, by far, is driving – where possible, encourage employees to travel by train or plane. If an employee must drive, it’s important to ensure that they are competent drivers and that their vehicle is fit for purpose.
Make sure that their license is checked regularly, and ensure that their vehicle has emergency breakdown cover, safety equipment and appropriate insurance.
Ensure that your employees are absolutely clear on your driving policies; a common example of company policy is allowing no drinking at all before driving, not even allowing quantities that are below the legal limit.
Conclusion
Ensuring home worker safety is a top priority for any modern business. Ensure that your home worker safety protocols are where they need to be, or seek expert guidance if you need to implement the necessary actions covered in this guide.
