Home Working Risk Assessment - What Duties Do Employers Have?

8 May 2020

At OHSS Safety Consultants, we are experts in workplace health and safety and can advise on all matters relating to occupational hygiene, workplace risk management and safety regulations. However, today, we look at home workplace risk assessments and how they apply in the current state of lockdown we all find ourselves in.

Specifically, we look at employer responsibility with regards to work risk assessments in the home-working setting under the Safety, Health & Welfare Act. Employers have a specific set of guidelines to follow to ensure workplace safety for their employees. Let’s take a closer look.

Regardless of the fact the work is being done in the home setting, employers are obliged to:

• Provide safe set of organised, planned and maintained working procedures 

• Provide safe working equipment including PPE where necessary

• Provide Health & Safety instruction and training to all employees

• Assess risk and then implement necessary control measures

• Ensure that all work carried out is, as far as is reasonably practical, conducted in a way that does not threaten the health and safety of employees

• Have plans in place in case an emergency occurs

Of course, the specifics of each case will depend largely on the work being carried out and the home in question, but these general rules need to be adhered to by all employees. In reality, most often this will lead to little or no action being taken by the person working from home, but should a situation arise where any of these rules come into play, they then need to be followed to the letter.

It just goes to show that whilst we may not be AT work as such, the same rules apply, as no one should be asked to work in an unsafe environment. 

Talk to The Experts Today
Social distancing has created issues that none of us could have envisaged even just a few months ago and it’s the occupational hygiene and workplace safety issues that companies are having to contend with during these unprecedented times.

If you find yourself in this very position as either an employee or employer and you’ll like to know more about safety in the workplace, we recommend you take a look around our website www.ohss.ie. There you’ll find lots of interesting information about safety in the workplace. However, if you’d like to speak to us directly about any issues about health and occupational safety, give us a call on (01) 6905907 and we’ll do our utmost to help you in any way we can. 

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