In March 2020, the Coronavirus pandemic forced a wholesale move to home-based working for office staff whose jobs could be carried out remotely. This forced homeworking was an unexpected success, and now that the Government is encouraging us to get back to the office, many employers are developing hybrid working programmes instead, which involve employees mixing days at home and days in the office. But how well are employers preparing for the related health and safety challenges of new hybrid working arrangements? To answer this question, EcoOnline conducted a major survey and in this briefing we consider the strengths and weaknesses in health and safety provision.

The findings
Some of the key findings of the EcoOnline survey were:

• Almost one in three organisations is moving at least half their workforce to hybrid working.
• Almost half of organisations have provided no training to employees in issues such as home office ergonomics or remote communications and avoiding isolation.
• Three-quarters of employers said one or more employees had reported difficulties with lockdown homeworking, most commonly isolation and musculoskeletal problems.
• Approximately a third of employers carried out no risk assessment for lockdown homeworking.
• The most common topics covered in lockdown homeworking risk assessments were workstation ergonomics, stress, electrical safety and trip hazards.
• Around a fifth of employers provide no equipment for homeworking - apart from laptop computers - as part of their hybrid arrangements.
• The proportion of employers relying solely on employee questionnaires (reviewed by managers) to risk assess homeworking arrangements fell from 74% for lockdown home working to 51% for hybrid working.

Homeworking risk assessment
EcoOnline asked respondents whether they carried out any risk assessment of employees’ homes as part of the move to homeworking during pandemic restrictions. More than two-thirds of those with homeworkers - 68% (292 organisations) - had carried out assessments but 32% (136) had not.

“Home is home, the employer only needs to provide a safe WORKPLACE, they don’t provide employees a HOME,” said one health and safety manager in a medium-sized business, responding to the survey.

“This view seems at odds with the overall duty of care to protect employees wherever they are carrying out work for their employer,” says EcoOnline. Among those who carried out risk assessments, 73% (182) asked employees to define an area of their home as workspace, so they could limit the scope of the assessment. The most common method of assessment was to ask employees to complete a self-assessment form and then have this checked over by a manager or health and safety practitioner.

If an organisation has DSE users, it should assess their workstations to reduce risks and make sure controls are in place - this applies to both office-based employees and home workers.

Mental health assessment
A majority (73% or 310) reported to EcoOnline that homeworkers had experienced difficulties. (This proportion differed little between organisations who had carried out a risk assessment for lockdown homeworking and those who had not.) Separation from the organisation and from colleagues was the problem most commonly reported followed by back pain, neck and upper limb problems as the second most common cause of days lost to sickness in pre-pandemic years.

Says EcoOnline:

“The findings suggest that the rapid switch to homeworking necessitated by the force majeure of the pandemic may have left some companies insufficient time to make the provisions to ensure employee physical and mental health were managed well. There are lessons for the development of post-pandemic hybrid working programmes, even though the risks may be diluted in these arrangements by mixing days at home with ones in the office. It is interesting to note that though isolation was a clear concern, stress conditions among homeworkers more generally were only noted by 2% of our sample. Mental health conditions, including stress and anxiety, have been the fourth greatest cause of sickness absence in the UK in previous years (after minor ailments such as colds, MSDs and 'other' causes such as accidents and diabetes).”

Hybrid working risk assessment
Asked if they were planning new risk assessments for hybrid work arrangements - beyond the assessment they already had for pandemic homeworking - 162 respondents (42% of those with hybrid workers) said no. Notably, 59 employers - 13% of total survey sample, around one in seven - who had transferred at least a proportion of their workers to lockdown homeworking without a risk assessment are planning to transfer some to hybrid working still without an assessment.

EcoOnline quotes the UK HSE guidance on homeworking (including hybrid working), which states that “as an employer, you have the same health and safety responsibilities for people working at home as for any other worker,” and that these responsibilities include carrying out a risk assessment. As well as a potential breach of their duty of care, those that have not risk assessed employees’ home working arrangements risk the costs of higher sickness absence and lower productivity among staff whose home workspace is unsuitable for working even part of the week.

EcoOnline advises:

“Self-assessment by employees of the risks associated with their home workspace will be more robust if they are asked to provide photos or video clips of the space to the manager or health and safety practitioner tasked with checking the risk assessment questionnaire. This allows the manager to spot hazards the employee may have missed. Though a risk assessment will often flag issues that can be easily remedied, some problems identified by proposed home workspace are beyond the remit (or budget) of an employer to fix.”

More than one in six of those with hybrid working programmes (17% or 64 respondents) had restricted individual employees to office working only. Half of these mentioned the unsuitability of employees’ domestic set-ups as the main reason.

Health and safety training
Health and safety training is usually provided to employees to familiarise them with the risks associated with tasks or working conditions. Employees may not need training for living at home - though the annual toll of domestic accidents suggests otherwise - but arguably the requirement to work there, even part of the time, introduces a training requirement for the employer. The HSE’s homeworking pages refer specifically to DSE training: “You must provide workers with training in the use of their workstation and DSE equipment”, suggesting that the requirement to risk assess home workstations also extends to home workspace.

Says EcoOnline:

“Training is an important administrative control for health and safety risks and should be arranged for any employees who are expected to change their work patterns. The absence of supervision in home workspace means the employee will have to be alert to changes in hazard levels. For wellbeing purposes, training is also valuable to make employees conscious of the need to maintain remote communications while they are at home to avoid isolation.”

Work equipment
EcoOnline states that the HSE’s guidance on the subject of work equipment is pragmatic:

“Make sure those working at home can achieve a comfortable, sustainable posture. They may not need office furniture or equipment at home to achieve this. But you should check if their own equipment is suitable.”

More than one in five employers responding to the survey (84) are providing no equipment for homeworking as part of their hybrid arrangements. That total includes six organisations with more than 10,000 employees, three of which are transferring between a quarter and half their workforces to hybrid working and one, an English local authority, which is moving more than three-quarters of its staff to the new pattern. The health and safety manager at the authority says they are “somewhat confident” the authority is ready for the health and safety challenges involved.

Says EcoOnline:

“Since musculoskeletal problems are among the most common work-related health conditions, a suitable DSE set-up is essential for any location where employees will work for extended periods. This includes an adjustable chair and a work surface at the correct height to allow good posture. Supplying employees with furniture or paying for them to buy items that meet these criteria is not only a legal requirement, it is an investment in their continued productivity.”

In conclusion
EcoOnline summarises:

“Managing the mix of home and office working will not come naturally to everyone. Companies who have not readied staff for the change could find themselves dealing with the same issues reported to have arisen from pandemic working, such as musculoskeletal disorders and poor wellbeing due to isolation. Risk assessment is an important precursor to any new working arrangement but it is only part of the necessary preparations. Most of the employers in our survey sample were confident that their organisations were ready for the management of challenges - including health and safety issues - that adopting hybrid working will bring.

“Mandatory homeworking during the pandemic has laid the foundation for a shift in work location but the experience of the past two years only partly prepares workers and organisations for the changes now underway. Those businesses who are most likely to thrive in a hybrid working future will have; assessed the implications of a mixed company site/home model, risk assessed the suitability of individuals’ homes for extended working, provided the right equipment and have prepared staff and management for the change with safety, health and welfare training and guidance.”

Read the full report.