Working From Home – Ensuring Your Team’s Safety & Wellbeing

With more and more people continuing to work from home, it is important that businesses and organisations ensure the wellbeing, health and safety of staff in their home environment.

Are your team are at home now for the long haul, or temporarily due to current restrictions? Either way, it’s essential as a business owner that your staff are in a safe, productive and appropriate environment. As an employer, the following is advised:

• Assess your team’s workstation set-up
• Complete a risk assessment
• Ensure they have the appropriate equipment,
• Implement any health and safety training required
• Have a plan in place should any emergencies occur
• Be open to your team – and mindful that for you and them this is a new way of working and you are open to suggestions and discussions throughout to improve and maintain everyone’s working environment

It’s also key from a social and productivity point of view, to ensure you check in with everyone from time to time. Whether that be a scheduled ‘hang-out’ or a coffee-morning. Having your weekly or bi-weekly meetings through video call. It’s a great social outlet for your team to chat to their colleagues whom they can no longer have lunch with or chat to at coffee break. Even popping their head around the desk to ask a quick question can no longer happen. Those small interactions we took for granted daily, were meaningful, and contributed to your team being what it is today. Nurture this as best you can now in these difficult times!

What can you do? We’re here to help!

With all this in mind, we are now offering Virtual – Work from Home – Workstation Audits. These audits aim to ensure that staff who are working home have an adequate workstation set up and do not go on to suffer from musculoskeletal disorders, repetitive strain injury, visual fatigue or increased stress levels due to an inappropriate workstation set up.

An alternative, and more popular option, are our company health & safety webinars. These are a 90 minute session which can be accessed by up to 30 employees at a time. We cover anatomy and mechanism of injury, back care, workstation set -up and design & laptop use. Plus the importance of nutrition and exercise and workplace wellness. There is a Q&A at the end and it really brings together your team. It’s a fantastic way of boosting morale and showing your employees you care. The 90 minute session is €250 for up to 30 employees, with a discount if purchasing more than one.

For more details or to book an audit or a company webinar, enquire here.

For further information and advice for both employers and employees on working from home safely, visit the HSA or Citizens Information.