With the likelihood of many employees having to work from home over the coming weeks and months because of Cornavirus, we have decided to look at the importance of DSE, home working & what employers should be doing to protect their employees.
Employers have a duty of care for all their employees, and the requirements of the health and safety legislation apply to home workers. The employer is responsible for carrying out a risk assessment to check whether the proposed home workplace’s ventilation, temperature, lighting, space, chair, desk and computer, or any kind of workstation, and floor are suitable for the tasks the home worker will be carrying out.
The employer is responsible for the equipment it supplies, but it is the employee’s responsibility to rectify any flaws in the home highlighted by the assessment. Once the home workplace has passed the assessment, it is the employee who is responsible for keeping it that way.
This means in the first instance going through some form of risk assessment. If the member of staff has already had a full office-based workstation assessment (which they should have done if they are also contracted to work in the office), in our opinion it is not necessary to go into the same level of detail in terms of providing information and carrying out checks. However, there is still a requirement to check a range of factors and to get staff to confirm compliance on a range of issues.
The more practicable way of going about this is to ask staff to complete a simplified DSE self-assessment & provide them with guidance instructions. This should effectively act as a refresher / reminder to staff about how to set themselves up effectively at home if they haven’t already done so.
Further HSE guidance on this issue can be found HERE: