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What can I do to make sure my home-working people are doing so safely?

  1. Keep in touch. If contact is poor, workers can feel disconnected, isolated or abandoned. This can adversely affect stress levels and mental health – especially in the current crisis when everyone is feeling more anxious.
  2. Think about the use of laptops/devices (DSE) at home. Provide a basic form of risk assessment for self-completion.
  3. Remind workers of simple steps to reduce the risks from display screen work:
    • take regular breaks (at least 5 minutes every hour) or change activity
    • avoid awkward, static postures by regularly changing position
    • get up and move or do stretching exercises
    • avoid eye fatigue by changing focus or blinking from time to time

Related FAQs

What does the guidance suggest?

The guidance asks parties to act responsibly and fairly in performing and enforcing contracts. They are encouraged to act in a spirit of cooperation to achieve practical, just and equitable outcomes. In essence, rather than sticking strictly to the contract as agreed, they are encouraged to give each other leeway to deliver performance differently than they are required to do under the contract.

How is the Pensions Regulator reacting to the crisis?
  • The Pensions Regulator has published regularly-updated guidance for employers.
  • It will take “a proportionate and risk-based approach towards enforcement decisions … with the aim of supporting both employers and savers”. In other words, the law remains the same, but the Regulator will show restraint in enforcement against breaches.
Can we require employees to have their temperatures taken on the way in to work, and is this something we should be doing?

If such testing is regarded as a “reasonably practicable step” which has been identified as an appropriate control following a risk assessment then it is something you can do.

Although you can’t physically force someone to have something intrusive done, this is very likely to be a reasonable management instruction and therefore if someone refuses to have this done as a condition of entry into the work place then disciplinary action may follow.

Where this is something that is required of employees, employers should be letting their staff know that this is one of a number of measures that are being introduced into the workplace for their own safety. If the employer can explain, in advance of the return, why temperature checks need to be taken, what the consequences of the results will be- i.e. will they be sent home if over a certain temperature, whether this data will be stored (and if the sole purpose is to determine whether or not they are fit to attend work on a particular day then why are they being stored), and the fact that temperature checks are a requirement of entry to company premises for everyone, then there shouldn’t be significant resistance to this measure.

Large scale temperature checks have in some businesses become part of the “new normal” working environment.

What is the NICE guidance around clinical decision-making?
  • Be alert to the fact that guidance on treating Covid-19 may change with emerging knowledge/scientific data and this may require subsequent modifications to treatment.
  • Critical care staff should support healthcare professionals who do not routinely work in critical care but need to do so.
How do I make arrangements for end point assessments for apprentices?

Arrangements for end point assessments can be modified or rescheduled. End point assessment organisations should engage with External Quality Assurance Providers to agree arrangements for the end point assessments where face-to-face assessments are being modified. Where rescheduling is required due to Covid-19 issues and there is a specified time limit for the ESA post gateway, a further pause of 12 weeks is allowable. This should be recorded by the training provider in the ILR.