Posted By Michael Carr
Hi all

I'll keep it short and sweet....

does a company have to provide a home worker with DSE equipment?

Posted By Michael Carr
Yes...seems to be a bit of a grey area.

The old chestnut of providing suitable equipment for the job keeps poping up though!

Posted By Michael Carr
Fair comment but the question was are we required to provided DSE equipment not a needle, thread and an OK magazine!

Posted By Rachael Palmer
If the employee is a User as defined by the regs then you need to supply appropriate equipment and carry out an assessment if they are working at home. You could argue that it is not necessary if the employee is not a designated user and only works from home for an hour a day checking emails but you will find that the hour soon stretches to 2 or 3 and hey presto you suddenly have a User on you hands.

We have recently introduced flexible working for staff, this includes the option to work at home. All designated homeworkers are provided with laptop, riser, separate keyboard & mouse (with decent bag / backpack to carry the kit in). We also pay for broadband access. Staff are required to complete workstation checklist and a DSE assessor will carry out a home visit to ensure work station is set up correctly (usually one of the IT staff as they will also ensure the internet connection is secure). We also take a photo of the workstation once it's been correctly set up. The question of provision of desks & chairs is still being thrashed out but it looks like an allowance will be paid to cover any additional expences inccurred by the employee such as heating, lighting and purchase of appropriate furniture. Employees are given guidelines as to what type of furniture would be acceptable allowing some freedom of choice.