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The safety of people occupying premises is an employer’s duty and is not the responsibility of the Fire and Rescue Service. For people who require assistance, the PEEP must provide the necessary information to enable them and anyone providing assistance, to escape from a building to a place of relative safety.

Advice for writing a PEEP

1. Discuss with the employee what help they need (not all disabled people require help) and identify the persons who will provide assistance and make sure everyone knows their part. Ideally, there should be more than one, to cover for absences. Arrange for staff to receive training, if necessary, e.g. use of an evacuation chair or disability escape etiquette training.
2. Write up the plan in conjunction with both parties. If you don’t feel confident the PEEP will always work, then you must make alternative working arrangements, e.g. relocate the disabled employee to the ground floor. Disabled people who have a PEEP should not be left to work alone. Wherever possible, PEEPs should be written for both fast and slow-moving people. However, where the person may need to rest or they feel threatened by people behind them, it may be appropriate to design a plan that allows for this, e.g. resting in refuges provided along the route.
3. Review the PEEP at least annually and when something changes, e.g. the disabled worker moves to another floor or building.
4. It isn’t practical to write a bespoke PEEP for every visitor or casual user of the building, so you should develop standard plans instead. By assessing the difficulty in evacuating the premises and the types of evacuation that can be provided, it will be easier to address needs and a system of standard plans may be used. A standard PEEP can be held at reception and may be advertised and offered to visitors as part of your signing-in procedures.

Where an employer does not make provision for safe evacuation arrangements for disabled people from their premises, this is likely to constitute a failure to comply with the requirements of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (RRO 2005) and may also be considered to be discrimination under the Disability Discrimination Act.

Contact us should you require advice.

Health and safety legislation update: April 2014  

This health and safety legislation update looks at the changes which came into force this month and which are expected in the coming year, as well as providing further information and resources that will help you prepare for these changes.

The timetable of changes includes:

Health and safety law poster
Employers have a legal duty under the Health and Safety Information for Employees Regulations 1989 to display the approved poster in a prominent position. When the new version of the poster was published in 2009, employers were given a five year transition period to transfer to the new poster. Therefore from April 2014, the new (2009) version must be displayed

The Health and Safety (Miscellaneous Repeals and Revocations) Regulations 2014
Amendment to the Factories Act 1961 and Offices, Shops & Railways Premises Act 1963 and the revocation of a further 10 regulations associate with the Acts.

Later in 2014

The Deregulation Act 2014
The Deregulation Bill is currently making its way through parliament and the resultant Deregulation Act 2014 should come into force, later in 2014, possibly in October.

Revision of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations and Approved Code of Practice
A radical overhaul of the CDM regulations is being consulted on with respondents given until 6 June 2014 to comment on the proposals. The planned changes would align the regulations with the minimum requirements of the Temporary & Mobile Construction Sites (TMCS) Directive. Industry specialists will be encouraged to develop sector specific guidance.

If you require advice about any of the regulations, please contact us!

In any business, some members of staff will me more at risk from violence, crime and abuse.

Here are five key questions to determine where the risks lie within your organisation:

• Do your employees carry out any tasks that could put them at risk? For example – Do they deal with cash or carry expensive gadgets?
• Could the location where your employees work put them at risk? For example – Do they work in remote locations or high crime areas? Are they in frontline positions, such as on reception, alone for all or part of the day?
• Does someone in the organisation know where they are and who they are with at all times – and if they don’t return to the office/respond to your calls/arrive at an appointment when expected, does their manager/colleagues know what action to take?
• Have any staff who may have to deal with violence and aggression had sufficient training in how to defuse it or contain it until they can either exit the situation or help can get to them?
• Is there a suitable written personal safety policy in place within the organisation, which specifies identified risks to staff and how they are to be managed? And do the managers and staff know about it?

Contact us if you would like assistance…

You need to establish if stress is a problem in your workplace by carrying out a risk assessment – either collectively or at individual level. Whilst systems should be in place to manage personal differences, you should give priority to collective protection measures over individual ones.

The HSE Management Standards, otherwise known as ‘hazards’, cover the six primary sources of stress at work: demands, control, support, relationships, role and change. The standards incorporate a number of features to help reduce the causes of stress which, if not properly managed, would produce negative outcomes for staff.

Top Tips for Managing Stress in Your Workplace

1. Demands. Ensure there are sufficient resources available for employees to do their job. You can support your staff by helping them prioritise or renegotiate deadlines and adjust their work patterns to cope with peaks.
2. Control. Giving staff some flexibility or control over their own work significantly helps to reduce potential stress. Examples may include the sequence in which your staff carry out their work, their ability to use their own initiative or working creatively with people / tasks. Aim to reduce repetitive duties within workloads and give people the opportunity to participate in meetings.
3. Support. Give support and encouragement, even if things go wrong, and encourage staff to share their concerns about work-related stress at an early stage. Hold regular meetings and one-to-one talks to discuss pressures. Ask your employees how they would like to access your support, such as an ‘open door’ policy or an agreed time to discuss emerging pressures. Often, a combination of internal and external support works best. Charities such as MIND can offer staff free advice.
4. Relationships. Work in partnership with your staff to ensure that bullying and harassment don’t become an issue. Create a culture where members of the team trust each other and encourage them to recognise the individual contributions of other team members.
5. Role. Make sure your staff have a clearly defined role. If your company is going through change, check that everyone understands their new roles and individual tasks.
6. Change. Change itself is not a bad thing. However, it is essential to have a structure in place so employees are informed and consulted, particularly if redundancy is a possibility.

While stress isn’t necessarily an illness in itself, mental or physical illness can develop if stress is prolonged and / or excessive. Stress is a serious workplace matter which has profound legal consequences for employers. Take steps to manage it now to protect your staff and stay legally compliant.

Contact us for advice.

With new technological developments, high building rents, and a growing diversity in workers, increasingly businesses are finding new and innovative approaches to work. These include using your own device at work and flexible working processes such as homeworking.

Bring your own device to work

Bring your own device (BYOD) is a relatively new and increasingly popular workplace practice, where companies offer staff the opportunity to use their own devices at work. These devices include laptops, notebooks, tablets and smartphones.

Employees are often more familiar with their own devices and these are likely to be newer and more technologically advanced than those provided at work. For employers, the main advantage of BYOD is the potential to reduce their capital expenditure on IT equipment. In some of the firms where BYOD is common practice, employees use their own devices and the employer provides software enabling them to work securely from a virtual desktop.

The benefits of establishing a BYOD policy include:

• giving staff the flexibility of when and where they work (eg flexible working, working while commuting)
• motivating employees by giving them a choice over their work equipment
• empowering staff to take ownership of their work equipment (eg organising any warranty/repair agreements when they purchase their BYOD).

Modern devices, such as tablets and smartphones offer increased flexibility, with the ability to access emails and information outside of normal business hours and while away from the office. For employees who travel for work, the flexibility that BYOD offers can help them be more productive.

Like most good ideas, there are downsides to implementing a BYOD policy. The increased flexibility of being able to work outside of normal business hours brings additional health risks (ie increased stress due to not being able to “turn off” work), which senior staff will need to carefully manage.

For many employers, the primary concern is data security. If your organisation is considering BYOD, then you may need to look at where information is saved (eg on servers or devices), if anyone else apart from your employees access the BYOD devices (eg do family members share a tablet or home computer?) and what happens when devices are lost or stolen. Some organisations have implemented software that can remotely wipe records if a device is lost or stolen.

The introduction of new equipment can also present new risks, which employers need to assess and manage. Laptops, notebooks and tablets are all forms of display screen equipment (DSE) and as such, fall under Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992. Under this legislation employers must assess the risks and provide employees with information about any risks. This legal duty applies to any devices used for work; including employees’ own devices.

If your organisation has not yet used some of these new devices (eg tablets, smartphones), then there are a couple of points you may need to take into account.

• Employees who are unfamiliar with new technology may need training.
• Employees will need to be provided with information on the risks of a new way of working (eg “iPad neck”, repetitive actions, poor posture).
• The practicalities of whether BYOD is suitable for your organisation should be checked (eg are the devices easy to transport between meetings and are there enough plug sockets in the office for the new equipment?).
• The organisation’s DSE assessments must be reviewed.
• Procedures for testing electrical equipment (ie PAT testing) should incorporate any new devices that are introduced into the workplace.

Working from home

Home workers are covered by health and safety legislation in the same way as employees in offices. While working from home offers employees and employers many benefits, organisations have a duty of care to look after their staff, even if they are working from the comfort of their own home. These duties include:

• ensuring they have a suitable place to work (eg suitable lighting and furniture)
• ensuring that all work equipment is maintained in a safe condition
• undertaking DSE assessments

DSE assessments can be used to check the suitability of an employee’s home workspace and identify any actions. Where employees only have a sofa or dining room table to work from, a suitable desk and office chair (eg with five caster wheels and adjustable back support) may be required before they can safely work from home. If additional furniture or equipment is required before an employee can safely work from home, then it is important to discuss any actions with the employee to check whether they are practical and suitable.

When discussing home working it is important to consider how any equipment will be provided and maintained. Any electrical equipment (eg laptops, printers) will need to be regularly inspected.

If working from home is feasible, then there are many benefits for both employers and employees. These include:

• saving time and money spent commuting
• giving employees flexibility over their work
• reducing the headcount in the office saving on office overheads

Conclusion

In the modern office it is easy to see how BYOD and working from home could complement each other and offer a range of benefits to employers and employees. However, not all organisations are the same, so the pros and cons of any new approach need to be weighed up. If your organisation is considering any of these modern approaches, then it is important to talk to employees, plan ahead and carefully manage any changes in the workplace. There should also be time allocated to review the impact of these changes to see if lessons can be learned and whether further adjustments need to be made.