COVID-19 - Home working
COVID-19 - Home working, practical considerations
As the Government suggest social distancing and working from home where possible, there are a number all factors to consider:
1. IT
Slightly beyond our expertise is the requirement to ensure your staff can actually work from home. This may mean you have to invest in equipment and systems that will enable home working. You will need to consider the security measures in place, for example, how secure it is for your staff to access your systems remotely, who else might be in their household that could gain access to your systems etc.
Homeworking also bring considerations for GDPR, and you need to consider your obligations and duties here. This is something we are also able to advise on if you have any concerns.
2. H&S
When requiring staff to work from home you need to ensure that their desk and setup is safe and in line with HSE guidance.
The HSE has a checklist that you should complete, but given the requirement to keep social distance, we recommend that, as a minimum, you require your staff to complete the assessment for themselves and make any necessary adjustments to ensure the way in which they are working is not going to negatively impact their health. The checklist can be found here.
Of particular concern will be the vulnerable members of your staff; those who are pregnant, over the age of 70 or who have underlying health conditions. You should also try and establish if any of your staff live in a household with any person who might meet those categories and take appropriate action to try and keep everyone safe.
3. Keep in touch
One important factor is to keep in regular contact with your staff to ensure they are coping with the new arrangements and ways of working.
This can be done by way of regular phone calls or you may be able to engage in video calls and conferences as many people seem to be doing and posting on social media. Microsoft Teams and Zoom offer fairly straightforward facilities for undertaking video conference calls and these are a good way to engage in face to face dialogue with your staff to ensure they are working in the way you want, coping with the changes and keeping well.
4. Productivity
Working from home will inevitably bring additional distraction; especially if there are other members of their family who have also been required to work from home and / or children at home as a result of school closures.
By regularly checking in with staff you can hopefully manage their performance and ensure they are working as productively as possible given the circumstances.
You may need to reconsider how you measure their output and performance where this is not easily achievable based on factual or financial measurements.
If your staff are not being productive or performing in a reasonable way (or how they have been instructed), but are using the opportunity to work less, then you may need to consider formal disciplinary or capability procedures.
5. Discrimination
You may have staff members who suffer from a disability and, for those, you need to make and consider reasonable adjustments to their working environment. Given they may be working from home that may be harder to achieve.
If you know an employee is disabled, you should have discussions with them regarding the changes you are being forced to impose and the impact on them personally. You may have to give them more favourable treatment to enable them to continue working without any detriment.
Equally, there have been stories where staff members of particular ethnic origin are being racially abused as result of the coronavirus, which you must try and ensure does not happen amongst your staff. Anyone found to be discriminating against a work colleague should be subject to disciplinary action and, most likely, dismissed.
6. Contact details
When requiring your staff to work from home it's important to ensure that you have accurate and up to date contact details for them so you can keep them informed of developments at work that are likely to affect them or their return to work.
This can also allow you to keep your staff informed of the ever changing government guidance that is being issued; whether that's to keep social distance, not to attend pubs, cafes or restaurants etc.
QUESTIONS
We know that this piece does not cover every aspect of this changing situation and we would be happy to discuss any further queries you might have. If you have a further question or would like to the discuss the fixed-price support services that we offer which includes unlimited legal advice about Coronavirus and any other employment law issues, please do get in touch here.
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