KEEPING UP TO DATE

Workplace Health and Safety….at Home

As our teams continue to work from home during this most recent Lockdown, now is a good time to look at the ways we are supporting our teams health and safety while they are outside of the office environment. Many of us have WHS Policies which were written back when working from home was a relatively rare event, or meticulously planned well in advance of it starting due to an employee’s request. With many businesses being forced to move to at least some of their teams to working from home with little or no notice and the potential of this hybrid way of working (working part of the time from home) being a long-term side effect of the pandemic, it is important to review your WHS policy to ensure that it’s up-to-date and remains relevant.

A great place to start is to ask yourself these questions:

• Do you have a Remote Working or Work From Home Policy that is documented in place? Many of us have been so busy doing it, we haven’t taken the time to document it.
• Do you do all the things you say you will in your policy?
• Do you ensure the home environment is free from hazards in the same way you did with the office?
• Do you include psychological and psycho-social hazards and injuries in your policy?

The answer to these questions is probably… “sort of”.

What are the next steps?

The good news is there are a number of simple ways you can continue to support the health, safety and well-being of your team as you did when they were all in the office.

1. Ensure you have an up-to-date WHS policy which includes safety information about working from remote environments and psychological hazards
2. Create a safety and well-being checklist for working from home including simple things like not overloading power points and taking regular breaks
3. Create regular virtual check-in opportunities with your teams both one-on-one and in groups
4. Ensure you continue to respect the boundaries of team members including not contacting your team out of hours or on non-working days

Putting a policy in place doesn’t have to be hard. Impact HR is able to provide you with advice and support to implement these measures to ensure your team remain healthy and safe while working at home during this difficult time. Reach out to us today.