Issues to consider if you’ll need to work from home
WITH the prospect of coronavirus meaning many people may be required to work from home, employers and employees need to be prepared. Most employees usually only work from home for ad hoc short periods, such as childcare cover.
But with the prospect of having a longer duration of home working as a result of the coronavirus, both employers and employees need to be aware of their legal obligations when working from home for prolonged periods.
David Sheppard, a senior associate in Capital Law’s employment team, summarises the main issues to consider.
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Employers should check to see if their employees are contracted for a minimum number of working hours per week, and are fulfilling those working hours at home and are available to be contacted. For this purpose, they will need to devise ways and means of monitoring employees’ working hours and that productivity remains as close as it would in an office environment.
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Employers should also stress and remind employees of their data protection policies and the need to uphold these standards at home.
There are several measures they can put in place to avoid security and data breaches.
These include ensuring that employees use private and secure wifi connections, that any personal and other confidential information stored on a device is encrypted, that paper documentation is stored securely in a locked cabinet when not in use, and that business telephone or video calls are taken in a quiet room or home office, away from other family members or residents.
Employers also need to consider if business meetings at home are appropriate and practicable, or if they should be undertaken via video link or telephone conference instead.
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Employers owe a duty of care to ensure their employees’ health, safety and welfare “so far as is reasonably practical”. Most home working is usually lowrisk office-type jobs. Nevertheless, employers should ensure that appropriate risk assessments are conducted at the start of a homeworking arrangement and periodically thereafter.
Where possible, any company electrical hardware should be safety tested before being provided for use at home.
Employers should also provide a simple first aid kit, where office-type activities will take place at home.
Any accidents taking place at home when undertaking home working need to be reported to the employer.
Employers will be liable for the safety of their employees insofar as their work is concerned.
The use of a homeworker’s own domestic electric appliances and supply remains the responsibility of that employee, and in arranging homeworking the employer should remind them of their personal responsibility to ensure the health and safety of themselves and others when working at home. As with working in the office, employers might have to provide equipment as part of reasonable adjustments for employees with a disability when working at home.
Likewise, employers should also consider obtaining an employee’s consent to enter their home to install specialist equipment, or to ensure that the homeworker’s facilities are enough to ensure the efficient and secure execution of their duties.
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Employers will have compulsory employee liability insurance, protecting them from workplace accidents. They need to check these policies, to consider whether any extends to accidents occurring in the course of work undertaken at home and using equipment supplied to the employee.
If there is any gap in their insurance cover, employers should consider extending it, or request the employee to make their own home insurance arrangements to cover such risks and agree to meet any additional premium as an expense which can be reimbursed by the employer.
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