Over the past year, during the Covid-19 pandemic, employees were requested by the Government to work from home. Even though restrictions are starting to be lifted and vaccinations are being rolled out, many businesses have found this flexible working to be very successful and are taking the decision to offer a hybrid working system where employees are able to stagger their working days between home and the office during the week.
Previously remote working was something that was negotiated between employer and employee and could be refused. With the national lockdowns requesting people to stay home and therefore imposing on businesses that their employees work from home, remote working has proven in many cases to be successful. For some businesses this means that they will continue this arrangement post-Covid.
What does this mean for keeping employees safe?
Under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 , employers are responsible for the health and safety of homeworkers, as far as is reasonably achievable. As an employer you have the same legal duty of care for an employee who is working from home as you do for your employees working on company premises.
Check your employer’s liability insurance
It is really important that you get in touch with your insurer or insurance broker to check that your employer liability insurance is covering homeworking. They should help you to check the policy terms and review them to ensure that you have the right level of cover. It should include homeworking as part of the cover, if it doesn’t then you can request to have this included, to ensure that the cover that you have is adequate.
If you do not have the relevant insurance cover then your businesses could be exposed if an employee is injured whilst working from home.
If you are concerned about your policy cover and would like someone to check the wording for you, or you need to include homeworking into your policy, please give us a call, 01905 21681 and we will ensure that you have the correct insurance.
