The Issues
Flexible working options and the desire to work from home has driven many
employees, and indeed employers, to consider home based work.
Two main issues that this presents are disposing of work related
documents and keeping the area safe for children and pets.
It has also brought up a number of health and safety concerns because all of
the systems in the workplace are often not reflected in the home environment.
Common home based work issues include young children, falls (eg: from ladders), electrical safety,
office equipment (eg: paper shredder risks), poor ergonomics,
ineffective lighting, insufficient breaks, inadequate ventilation, security
concerns, tripping hazards and plenty of others!
For employers, the "workplace" goes well beyond the business
premises. When your employees are working from home and an injury occurs that
is connected with employment then a duty of care still remains.
It is as important in the home environment to ensure that workers are free from
risks to their safety and health.
For employees and others setting up a home office (whether that be a home based
business or simply working from home) the principles of managing risk and being
aware of hazards is still very important, from taking sufficient breaks to
maintaining good housekeeping practices.
Service Description
What Southern OHS Solutions provides is an overall survey of the working
environment, an assessment against safety compliance and inspection of the area
for hazards.
This service is also tax deductible (see below) for those
seeking to set up a home office or who are simply working from home for their
employer.
As with all of our services, we provide flexibility in allowing it to be as
informal or formal as you like.
An overview of the services provided and incorporated include:
- Home Office Safety Tips
- Whether you have dedicated a corner of your dining table or an entire room
as your office space, you can make it safer for other household members
(especially young children) from following a few tips. A checklist and
survey is used to provide tips on managing safety and your sanity in the
work space you have allocated!
- Hazard Inspection
- We work through a worksite inspection process to identify hazards and
assess their risks. We'll provide recommendations and formulate an
action strategy to help you address them.
- Environment Inspection
- We'll assess the set up of your home based office against the general
standards regarding space, lighting, ventilation, electrical safety, fire
hazards, housekeeping etc. In addition to this we'll look at storage
of any hazardous substances (eg: poisons) or equipment that might be hazardous (eg: gives
off fumes).
- Ergonomics
- The functionality of your office set up will be surveyed and we will
comment on the overall lay out of your office environment, the type of
chair, using the phone, keyboard and so forth. We'll run through
some good posture techniques and stretching exercises.
- Manual Handling
- We will provide some coaching and tips on general manual handling
techniques, where to file items, how to retrieve boxes etc to minimise the
likelihood of you injuring yourself working at home.
- Work Practices
- We'll assess your work practices based on your employer's policies and
procedures (if applicable) and coach you on good techniques for taking
regular breaks and ensuring your home based work doesn't interfere with
family life!
- Security Assessment
- An overall security assessment will be undertaken on your office
environment ranging from keeping files confidential to some handy tips that
might prevent break ins. We'll try and look for things that might
become issues with regard to security.
- Emergency and contingency planning
- The very basic need of planning for emergencies still applies to the home
office environment. More usage of electrical equipment could increase
the risk of fire and it is important that these things are thought through well
in advance. You'll also need contingencies for backing up or managing files and
ensuring you don't lose everything!
- Risk assessments
- We can conduct Risk Assessments on plant and equipment, work practices and
access and egress, and provide a report outlining levels of risks and
priorities that may require attention.
- Induction
- As a service to employers we can conduct a full induction package to
employees working from home for the first time.
- Tax deductibility
- We are not a qualified tax adviser but we have taxation experience through
prior employment and can
certainly provide basic advice about what types of things could be tax
deductible (particularly in relation to engaging our services) or where to find the information needed.
