HUMAN FACTORS & ERGONOMICS


The causes for these injuries are not always immediately obvious but, if left untreated or unmanaged, they can progress from mild to severe conditions and lead to longer-term physical health problems.


The issues encountered on a regular basis include people using laptops all day without a separate keyboard, mouse and screen raiser, sitting in the classic, and very uncomfortable, ‘vulture neck’ posture, and suffering neck and back pain as a result.


Many people are still using a kitchen or dining table which is the wrong height in relation to their chair and suffering upper back, shoulder and neck problems due to sitting all day with hunched shoulders.


The other really common scenario is people working at dressing tables or ‘desks’ with drawers underneath that prevent any reasonable posture being achieved, regardless of how good the chair is.”


While it’s true that, due to the rapidity of the seismic shift engendered by the pandemic, companies have been playing catch up when it comes to making sure their people are able to work in a healthy and sustainable way at home, that excuse is beginning to wear thin so far down the line.


If companies are opting for blended or hybrid working in perpetuity, they must take action now to stem the tide of potential health problems their workers face.


ASSESSING THE RISKS Risk assessment schedules, like so many other things,


fell by the wayside during the Covid crisis – but that’s not where they should be left.


It has been a case of out of sight, out of mind for a lot of employees. While low quality, poorly designed, or inappropriate furniture and equipment are highly visible to colleagues and managers in an office, they are invisible in the homeworking environment – but no less damaging.


It’s worth remembering that employers are legally required under The Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations to carry out a Display Screen Equipment (DSE) workstation assessment for any member of staff using a screen for an hour or more a day – including PCs, laptops, tablets and smartphones.


An assessment should be done when they start and if their workplace or workstation changes, for example if they shift to homeworking or move from a monitor to a laptop, as so many did during the pandemic.


Professionals with responsibility for looking after the wellbeing of hybrid and remote workers must take stock of where they are, understand the steps towards addressing the issues at hand, and the resources that can help them ensure their personnel are working in a safe way, wherever they’re based.


TAKING ACTION The first step is to carry out a DSE assessment of all


homeworker setups, as the basis for a holistic approach to the needs of homeworkers and to meet the statutory requirement to carry out a risk assessment.


While you can download a straightforward checklist from the Health and Safety Executive website, a better


twitter.com/TomorrowsHS


move is to combine this process with training. If a homeworker just goes through the check list without understanding the context and the repercussions, it isn’t going to be meaningful.


Online software is available to take each employee through the assessment checklist and at the same time provide training which shows people how to identify problems and what to do to optimise their work set-up.


Don’t underestimate this assessment process. If you have more than 100 people in the organisation, I would recommend using software rather than a stack of papers. This will provide you with streamlined reporting that identifies what and where the issues are, the people within your team who need more support and the actions to be taken.


The impact of failing to invest is clear ‒ musculoskeletal disorders are the second most common cause of days lost due to work-related ill health, accounting for 8.9 million sick days in the UK labour market in 2019/20.


If you have a member of staff on £26,000 a year and they take a week off with backache thanks to a rubbish chair, that’s going to cost your business £500 in salary, plus pension, overtime or agency staff to cover, not to mention things being missed in their absence.


Then there is the all-important matter of retention; with the jobs market as it is, it is more important than ever for businesses to take care of and keep hold of experienced and valued people. The cost and trouble of replacing staff is a major consideration.


It is far better to invest upfront in the right equipment than end up paying for it later, both in terms of your business’ productivity and the cost to your employees’ health and wellbeing.


The evidence, and our own experience, shows that if people are healthy, happy and engaged it’s not only good for them, but for their company, because they will be more productive and contribute more.


Osmond Ergonomics provides in-person CPD and training events, webinars, and workshops for health and safety professionals, DSE assessors, and facilities managers, among others, including sessions covering hybrid and homeworking – many free of charge.


https://ergonomics.co.uk/pages/healthy-thinking 33


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