Simon

If you scroll back through the Forums this topic has been discussed extensively throughout the course of the pandemic.

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Hi Donners312

We have had a similar situation at my place of work. This last year has proven to us that individuals can work from home and so we're allowing flexibility (agreed via each manager) for staff to have a mix of WFH and office working each week.

Individuals who wish to flex complete a Homeworking Agreement, along with a R/A template (based on HSE guidance for setting up a work station) and this is reviewed every 12 mths or when there's a change to their home-working environment.

In terms of what equipment the co. will provide, we've taken a view that its the individual who wishes to work from home (as opposed to it being a requirement for the role), so the approach is a bit of ownership on both parts. The Agreement document sets out what equipment the co. will provide & maintain (laptop, monitor, keyboard & mouse, office chair and headset). Our viewpoint is that if the individual chooses to request to work from home, they must ensure they have the suitable desk/workspace to do so - This is signposted in the R/A document that they complete and we encourage them to submit photos of their workspace as part of the R/A, which then has to go to their Manager for sign-off.

I appreciate this approach may not work for all businesses, but it seems to work for us.

Originally Posted by: Anneliese1973

In terms of what equipment the co. will provide, we've taken a view that its the individual who wishes to work from home (as opposed to it being a requirement for the role), so the approach is a bit of ownership on both parts. The Agreement document sets out what equipment the co. will provide & maintain (laptop, monitor, keyboard & mouse, office chair and headset). Our viewpoint is that if the individual chooses to request to work from home, they must ensure they have the suitable desk/workspace to do so

This is exactly what we've done - in the new normal anyone working at home is doing so because they want to, so they need to provide certain elements.  In terms of detail, we are are providing all the IT kit (but not router or internet connectivity and not power) but the employee is providing space, all furniture, heat, light, sanitation, welfare, etc).

If an employee cannot provide some necesary element, then they will simply need to work full time in the office, where we will provide it all.

Originally Posted by: donners312

My main concern is costly special ergonomic provisions. I am thinking home becomes primary and colleagues will mainly be in office for meetings and collaboration . Hence time sat at desk in office will be minimal. I guess it's new ground so waiting for a precedent. 

As noted, in our plan, if the employee needs a particular ergonomic chair (or whatever) and can't provide it, we are saying they can work in the office full time.  If they are working in the office full time then that will clearly be their primary location, and the problem goes away.  We are not planning on reducing our office space.

Even people that are working at home in future (even if it's where they work the majority of the time), I don't think we are planning to redefine their contractual 'normal place of work', but that decision is likely driven by HMRC considerations rather than H&S.

I expect that there's some fine tuning to do around disability - if it's an actual disability issue, then there's risk of discrimination if we create rules that make it disproportionately more difficult for someone to work at home than if they were able-bodied.  However, our disabled employees are all outside the standard provision anyway, and we will consider each case-by-case.