With an increased number of employees working from home as Covid continues, we look at the employer’s responsibility towards staff members with the added impact of the (surprising!) hot weather in this British Summer.

A Hot Summer ☀

Neil Maidman, Director at HSM says:

“Employers are often surprised that there is no regulatory upper temperature limit for working environments. This also applies for the home-working environment. There is however a minimum regulatory requirement of 16c for sedentary environments, like the office.

An employer has a duty to facilitate a thermal assessment for the place of work. This can be a self-assessment in the situation where the employee is working from home. The home working environment in some cases, perhaps newer builds or those houses with large windows, may be more susceptible to heat changes, and therefore the employer should consider whether cooling equipment is appropriate and offered.”

Increased Break Frequency

In the Summer season employers should also consider the welfare of their staff, a simple measure is to enable and encourage different patterns of breaks.

Encouraging a higher frequency of breaks, perhaps taking shorter breaks more often, will help your employees regulate their temperature. You should also enable computer system around these issues, for example if you have call-handling team on an auto-dial system, you should programme in mandatory breaks, and the ability for the staff member to take a break when they need.

Being Flexible

If the nature of your work allows, you may want to offer the employees the ability to work those hours that are at cooler times in the day, perhaps earlier morning or late evenings. Consider what tasks they actually need to be online for in daytime working hours. Can you be flexible and schedule team meetings for cooler hours, if their is consensus for this?

Family Considerations

Being flexible also extends to understanding the family dynamics. If an employee with children has worked from home during the pandemic, they already will have experienced juggling home education and work. Now, with the school holidays upon us it is worth taking the time to understand if that same employee will be able to work effectively during the 6 weeks of Summer, and if there are alternate arrangements that can be put in place.

Extra Pressure

Summer can also be a stressful time for workers that don’t have a school age family, as they may feel “dumped on” by their co-workers who do have dependent family members. This feeling that they are expected to take the strain, may cause emotional strain in addition to the time pressures. Awareness of these possible stress points and looking at using seasonal staff, or getting management to pitch-in are possible angles to consider, alongside flexibility for those staff members when it’s their wish to take time off.

Other Industries too: Manufacturing

Whilst we’ve focused on home working here. It’s also worth adding a note: that manufacturing organisations should consider enabling a higher frequency of breaks, access to cold drinking water and shower facilities. If your staff work outside, ensuring they have hats that protect them from the heat might be an essential addition.

It’s also worth adding that in addition to the H&S awareness benefits, it’s also more likely to increase staff satisfaction and efficiency.

Work Life With Covid Restrictions Lifting

Whilst in England Covid restrictions such as mask wearing are lifting, as an employer it’s worth remembering your duty of care. We would advise a cautious approach, keep as many precautions in place as necessary, whilst respecting people’s individual freedom. This could mean continuing to make hand sanitiser available, enabling good ventilation and limiting large group gatherings.

If you need competent H&S advice for your business, then of course you can contact us.