People have been working from home for many years but what is new are the sorts of ways people are looking to do it. Then there are the issues it raises for employers regarding IT, harassment, accountability and possible duties of care, including personal injury and health and safety.

In a recent report backed by Eric Pickles, the Local Government Secretary, he suggests that the Treasury could save £15bn a year in office rent by increasing the number of public sector workers on ‘flexitime’ or working from home. Working from home is very much the holy grail of most but is it all good?

It of course saves travel time, lowers the carbon footprint, can stop wasted time chatting in the office and does lower the organisation’s overheads in terms of office space.

Home working can increase productivity via reduced interruptions and fosters a better work life balance for most doing it but that assumes the individual is self-motivated and can work as productively alone and can separate work life from home life.

It can lead to feelings of isolation for those working at home. The office chatter creates a team spirit and is often a great knowledge-sharing tool. Without that knowledge sharing and interaction, are your employees keeping as up to date on relevant issues as they should or is this opening employers up to possible negligence claims?

Could those feelings of isolation lead to claims for stress or other mental health issues for which the employer may be responsible if they knew and did nothing?

 

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Home working is seen as a modern day panacea for work stress, but is it not just creating a different set of stresses? Is the employee fostering a good work life balance or are they never switching off from work? How many times have we seen people in restaurants, etc, constantly on their Blackberry or smartphone?

The feelings of isolation a home worker can feel are a genuine issue which is why many serviced offices are opening up large spaces to a hot desk system where home workers can go into an office closer to their home and recreate that team atmosphere.

It sounds like an ideal solution but what about confidentiality? Also, how do you deal with productivity issues remotely if you can’t see what it is the employee is doing with their time? How does supervision work and knowledge sharing?

Employers owe their employees a duty of care both in terms of their health and wellbeing and also health and safety. But if an employee is not working in the premises, how do they monitor that?

Some roles lend themselves much better to home working than others, yet it is often something sought by all. Care must be taken in requests for home working so as not to fall foul of the Equality Act 2010 if for example your homeworkers are female and a male makes a request but is denied it.

There are also practical issues such as headed paper, postage and faxes perhaps. Risk assessments need to be done regularly at the home worker’s place of work and so there needs to be a clause in the contract allowing access. Also, how will access work with serviced offices if permission is refused?

If the employee is in a serviced office and is being bullied how will that impact? At present we still have the third party harassment provisions in the Equality Act 2010 making it the employer’s liability for such acts of third parties.

The Government is looking to remove this but what happens in the meantime if an employee is being subjected to such treatment? Even if it is removed, the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 and the possibility of the employee bringing various claims such as constructive dismissal and negligence will remain.

Remote working can cause issues and by its very nature feelings of seclusion.

Also, as home working is predominantly IT-based, are there clear and comprehensive policies covering e-mail, Internet access etc?

Is there a central IT system and what happens if the employee leaves — will the information still be on their home computer and have you reserved the right to get copies and for them to destroy all work items from their systems?

Will anyone else such as other family members, friends or others sharing an office have access to the computer or see paperwork creating a confidentiality breach or data protection issue?

That is not to say home working is not a good thing — it just requires some thought and provisions in place to manage it properly to both protect the organisation and the employee from feelings of lone working, organisational isolation and breach of duties of care.

With home working rising and set to further increase, the obligations on employers will no doubt also rise.