Cost risk to businesses
As almost half of all UK workers have now spent 100 days working from home, we are warning that businesses must take the health impact of remote working seriously. While guidance continues to be issued for employees returning to the workplace, little support has been offered to those working from home beyond lockdown.
If this continues to be overlooked, the cost to the UK economy - in terms of lost productivity - could hit businesses hard, further down the line.
While COVID-19 restrictions were lifted in England in the middle of May, official figures from the Office for National Statistics indicate that only 2% of the UK workforce returned to their “normal workplace” between June 8 and 21 of this year.
The figures indicate that as many businesses strive to meet physical distancing restrictions and reduce costs, the remote working set-up is likely to stay for the foreseeable future.
To encourage healthy working from home in the longer term, we have produced free guides for employers and employees on ways to optimise the home working environment, as we move out of an emergency situation and into the longer term.
The two guides — one offering crucial advice for employers and another providing practical guidance for employees — have been authored by an expert team of ergonomists and can be downloaded for free at www. fira.co.uk/homeworking.
The guide for employers covers information they should provide for staff working from home, as well as information on workplace assessments and relevant regulations.
Levent Çaglar. Chief Ergonomist, Furniture Industry Research Association.