June 2010 article
Home working health and safety issues
When a call centre operator decides to adopt home working, top of a long list of
concerns raised by the HR department is Health & Safety (H&S).
As the employer of the home worker, you are responsible for the Health & Safety
of your home workers. This is in itself quite a minefield: after all, you become
responsible for a person in their home over which you have little, if no, direct
control. It’s a big responsibility to which, inevitably, you will need to give serious
consideration.
Having employed and managed hundreds of home workers in the UK, we had to get things
right from the start to make sure that our HomeAgents were provided for and could
thrive at serving our clients’ customers. So assuming that you are going down a
home working DIY route and that you will be employing your future home workers,
here are a few tips on how best to cover yourself while taking the best care of
your home workers.
Getting Started
As the employer of your home workers, you will probably be providing a workstation
kit comprising a desk, chair, computer and telephony equipment. Like your staff
in the call centre, you will have to go down a checklist of equipment provided and
make sure that each specific item of equipment is H&S compliant. You will also have
to draw up specific terms and conditions for the home workers, which limit your
responsibility for the agent to the proximity of their workstation. If, for example,
the postman rings the door bell and they fall down the stairs in their rush to answer,
you are not then held responsible. You should also be open to the idea of the agents
providing their own desk and chair, but this should be only done on a case by case
basis.
Checking agent work space
Before recruiting a home worker or deploying them in their home, you should send
a team leader, following the guidelines on personal safety from the Suzie Lamplugh
Trust, to check that the space reserved by the agent for home working is suitable
and fulfils basic H&S criteria: measure the lighting, ensure the space has appropriate
ventilation (minimum 20 cubic metres) and has a safe exit. It is also good practice
to check with the agent that they will not be in the way of the family and vice-versa.
Finally, give some consideration to background noise in the home environment. We
once had to refuse an agent because they had a noisy parrot!
Checking agent work space
Before recruiting a home worker or deploying them in their home, you should send
a team leader, following the guidelines on personal safety from the Suzie Lamplugh
Trust, to check that the space reserved by the agent for home working is suitable
and fulfils basic H&S criteria: measure the lighting, ensure the space has appropriate
ventilation (minimum 20 cubic metres) and has a safe exit. It is also good practice
to check with the agent that they will not be in the way of the family and vice-versa.
Finally, give some consideration to background noise in the home environment. We
once had to refuse an agent because they had a noisy parrot!
Installation
You will then of course have to make sure the equipment is installed properly with
no loose wires, no screen glare and that the set-up is comfortable for your home
worker. The best practice is to have a team leader act as the H&S executive during
this exercise and signs off each installation with an agent signature. Have the
team leader finalise the settings of the screen position, chair height and explain
to the agent H&S best practice on position for long computer-based work. Once everything
is in place, have the team leader confirm with the agent that positioning is optimal
and comfortable.
Do’s and Don’ts
The installation checklist needs to be signed off by the agent and team leader.
On this document, there should be a clear list of do’s and don’ts. For example,
you should advise the agent that if he/she experiences any discomfort, they should
immediately notify their team leader. Also, the agent should never change anything
in the set-up without notifying the appropriate authority.
Self-certification
It will be key to establish a process of H&S self-certification via e-mail or e-forms
to avoid having the H&S executive do regular rounds to the home workers’ premises.
This is a simple form the home worker fills in and signs certifying that nothing
has changed with the set-up, that it is still comfortable for long hours of work
and that the agent is not experiencing any physical strains from performing work
from their workstation.
Reporting issues
In the event a home worker reports any kind of issue, this should be dealt with
swiftly and responsibly just like any other organisational H&S matter.
All things considered, the difficulty with H&S in home working is that each case
has to be given individual consideration as each home and home office is unique.
A standardised approach and process will guarantee that you and your home worker
keep out of harm’s way.
Steve Mosser
Chief Executive Officer
Sensée HomeAgent Network
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