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Hot Tips To Keep Cool
Ah yes, the first swallow of summer… swiftly followed by the gasps for fresh air in a stuffy office and the sneezes and wheezes of the hay fever sufferers.
When you’re at work and the going gets hot, you just have to keep going, right?
True, we can’t control the weather and its whimsical hot and cold spells. But as employers we have a duty of care to our employees to limit temperature stress if we can.
As with our previous advice on cold snaps, the golden ground rules are to risk-assess and plan for contingencies.
For example, the risk of working outdoors in strong sun may not be a major or relevant risk for your staff if you’re a facility manager or general contractor not responsible for external cleaning. But what if the air conditioning in your office – or your client’s workplace – breaks down during a heatwave? This is just one of the risks you should factor into your planning.
It is the responsibility of management to ensure that your company adapts in order to reduce or eliminate risks to your people from dehydration, health exhaustion or sunburn. In some cases that may entail health surveillance or medical screening. For instance, a pregnant employee may be more susceptible to heatstroke, as will people with certain disabilities. So assess the risk and document it.
Of course your staff have responsibilities for their own welfare too, so they should be drinking more fluids during hot weather, dressing
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Better to plan for the hot spells with a cool head – your employees will thank you for it, says James Shaw of insurance broker Darwin Clayton.
appropriately and donning sunblock, if applicable. So educate or remind them, if necessary.
But managers too need to be aware of the symptoms:
• heatstroke: high body temperature; red, hot and dry skin; rapid pulse; throbbing headache; dizziness, nausea, confusion and fainting;
• heat exhaustion: dizziness, headache and nausea; but also abdominal cramps, shallow breathing, cool and clammy skin, muscle tremors and heavy perspiration.
Employees have every right to speak out – to their union rep or line manager – if conditions in the workplace are unacceptably uncomfortable, but it’s far better to be seen to be anticipating their needs and protecting their welfare.
So what can you do? There may be company procedures and ways of working that can be relaxed or changed.
For example, you may be able to offer more flexible hours of working, or the option of home working in the case of office-based staff. Switching from daytime to overnight cleaning may not be easy to arrange at short notice. So it may be sensible to explore the scope for changing staff rosters with your operations manager, and sound out clients, and cleaning staff, in advance. Or consider switching to earlier or later starts to the working day, if that’s feasible.
An office dress code can be relaxed (but again, it’s advisable to let staff
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know what is and isn’t acceptable). If operatives wear a uniform that’s going to add to their discomfort, procure a summer version or allow them to wear appropriate civvies instead (having first gained your client’s approval). Whose fault will it be if that unbuttoned PPE tunic snags a rotary brush or bannister?
Dehydration is a danger that most of us tend to under-estimate. Thirst is not a reliable indicator. Make sure a plentiful supply of cool water (rather than tea, coffee and carbonated drinks) is available. Especially if working hard in hot conditions, a worker should consume around 250ml (half a pint) of water every 30 minutes. If that’s not practicable, advise operatives to drink half a litre before their shift, and a similar volume during rest periods.
Risk management requires a cool head. Even if it’s too late for this summer, don’t wait until next time the mercury is rising.
www.darwinclayton.co.uk
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