Occupational safety inspections of home working conditions are now available online!

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced employers to take many drastic measures in corporate management. The proven and effective way to prevent the spread of the pandemic has been to significantly reduce human contact. Workplaces where large numbers of employees were present in large, open-plan workspaces and offices were practically emptied in order to maintain safe operations. Only a few employees continued to work at their original workplaces at any one time, maintaining the necessary safety distance, and even they did so on a rotational basis.

Working from home

The vast majority of employees performed their tasks from home using the IT tools available to them. Employers recognized that one positive outcome of the pandemic was that teleworking could bring both economic and corporate management benefits. As further waves of the pandemic are expected, several smaller and larger employers have already decided to make working from home, which was initially a necessity, a permanent feature. However, there are clear and consistent rules for this from an occupational safety perspective.

Legal authorization for working from home

According to the Occupational Safety Act, before allowing remote work, the employer must conduct a risk assessment to ensure that the workplace set up in the employee's home meets the requirements for safe work. The legislation in force allows for the risk assessment to be carried out online, provided that the person carrying out the assessment has the necessary qualifications for the professional activity.

Home working monitoring solution

Due to the sudden increase in demand, we designed and developed our new software, which fully complies with occupational safety regulations. Using the online interface, home workplace assessments can be carried out quickly, economically, and on a large scale, avoiding personal contact. With the help of the software, employers can provide their employees with secure access to an online interface for self-assessment of their home workplaces. Employees accessing this interface answer questions about their home workplaces by selecting yes or no. They take photos of their workplaces and easily upload them to the program.

The software also requires employees to read e-learning training materials on the rules for working from home. The software checks that the training material has been learned by asking employees to complete a series of tests. The completed test, accompanied by photographs, is then saved and submitted with a single click. The data obtained in this way is analyzed and evaluated by our colleagues authorized to perform professional activities, who then provide their opinion using the software. At the end of the process, the software also generates a PDF file containing all the data relevant to occupational safety for compliance with the rules of teleworking. The PDF file is sent to the employer after evaluation. This allows the employer to fulfill their occupational safety obligations as required by law, and the employee to perform their tasks from home within the proper framework.

Featured image source: Pixabay