If a company has Sales and Service employees who visit customer sites either selling or servicing the customer's equipment the majority of their working day, athough they are provided a laptop or IPad to do their administive work either at the customer site or at their home and spend anything from 1/2 hour to 1 hour a day or maybe a day a week doing admin work on their laptop.  They don't have office facilities to complete their admin work.   - Would you classify them as a DSE user?  We live in a technological world so there is more reliance to use display screens in most jobs.    Secondly, can anyone assist with with the law on a company's responsibility with providing DSE accessaries and especially furniture (chair & desk) for this group of employees if classified as a DSE user?  I don't see it reasonable practical to provide a desk & chair for their home although I can't sight the legal requirements.  I've read the HSE's DSE regulation guidance document although it doesn't really stipulate.  The regulation starts of by saying a user is a habitually user, then goes onto say where less continous or frequent.... an hour or more at a time.  Confusing!  

Assistance would be appreciated.

You need to start with their contract of employment - this determines where they are officially based.

If they are classed as being based from home then you will need to provide a desk and chair or financial contribution towards such equipment which has nothing to do with being a DSE user purely being a home worker.

If they are home based they would not appreciate being told to commute to the office to work at a hot desk for their administration day as this would be private travel at their cost.

Home workers are mentioned in the HSE DSE guidance https://www.hse.gov.uk/msd/dse/

Now if they are officially office based you make admin a site activity and they can work on hot desks.

There is guidance from CIEHF  for mobile workers

https://www.ergonomics.org.uk/Public/Resources/Publications/Mobile_Working.aspx

Not really confusing just not the answer you are hoping for.

Whilst they may have no "fixed" place of employment they will be assigned a location for tax purposes and in particular business mileage - No doubt you have already considered journey starting points and times as part of your business travel and expenses policies.

I would beware of assuming they only spend short durations with the screen - you will find duration creep particularly where the employee has logged on at home.

Three of my previous roles were field service - one office based where my patch allowed use of a hot desk for admin, the others were home based sat in my company supplied chair at the company supplied desk.

Me, I think the DSE regs don't even come close to recognising the iWorld most people live in. Think about the typical peripatetic manager, like me for example. I have a Surface device for remote working (my own, after all I work for a Charity), my own mobile, my work mobile and a screen in my car which runs Android auto while it tells me where to go. The DSE regs say that all equipment provided for DSE use (whether for users or not) must meet the requirements of Annexe 1 to the regs. My driver's seat (car supplied by my employer) does not have 5 points of contact with the ground and it is not on its own wheels, though it is adjustable.

To try and fit the regs to mobile workers is in my view nonesensical, except for some straightfoward risk assessment on driving distraction, avoiding RSI and so on.

I think the DSE regs need a complete overhaul, HSE have never really got to grips with  Planet-i, new regs might make them do so,

John

Edited by user 23 December 2019 11:31:48(UTC)  | Reason: With all that kit you think I'd learn to type properly...

When the DSE regs were conceived, there was an assumption that “managers” and the like would not be intensive computer users this: was for data entry people and secretaries who would be writing letters to clients etc having taken dictation from senior staff.  That world has long gone and I see people hunched over tiny laptops on the daily commute composing long emails etc to whoever that are dealing with.  The DSE regs imply that these people might not be real users but they are. I know of one organisation that has people going round and about fixing things and they have installed, what is in effect, a mini workstation in each van where they can write up their reports in reasonable comfort. I tend to ignore the details of the regs and focus on what people actually do and what risk the work poses to them. Yes the regs need a thorough overhaul.