Home Workers – Health and Safety Docs

This month Simply Docs has created some new documents for those employers whose staff work from their home.

The requirement to safeguard your employees' health, safety and welfare is the same as if they were in the office. There will be obvious differences between the two workplaces, and while you cannot control what goes on in their employee’s home, you are still required to make sure that certain aspects of the working environment have been considered.

As the employer it is your responsibility to carry out a risk assessment to check whether the proposed home workplace’s ventilation, lighting, working space, and the chair and desk (or any other kind of work station) and possibly even the computer are suitable for the tasks the homeworker will be asked to do.

We have written a new Health and Safety policy and Risk Assessment form for you to ensure that your homeworking staff member is looked after as well as if he/she was in your offices.

The Home Worker Health and Safety Policy outlines the obligations that are to be complied with by both the employer and the employee.

As an employer, you are obliged to: - Identify any potential hazards;
- Assess who may be harmed by them;
- Review potential risks and consider how to prevent them;
- Keep up to date records;
- Implement any actions that arise from your risk assessment; and
- Review and update your risk assessment at regular intervals.

Small businesses can conduct the risk assessment themselves; however larger businesses may want to seek the advice of a health and safety expert.