Working safely in your home office/home-based business
Health and safety compliance issues
Both self employed and those employees working away from a standard office for their company are required to comply with the health and safety standards under the Health and Safety in Employment Act (2002) where all possible steps are taken to isolate, minimise or eliminate hazards.
Education in safe use of equipment, including computers, is an important part of this compliance. If you’re working from home, space can be limited or less than ideally suited to healthy working standards without careful planning.
SitRight WorkWell can help you:
- Set up your home office to safe ergonomic standards
- Make effective use of your available space
- Ensure sufficient lighting by measuring light levels and providing you with written recommendations for improvement if necessary
- Prioritise the steps you can take to ensure a healthy workplace on a limited budget
- Good desk space for the work you do, and good storage space around the desk
- Good lighting – home offices can be very challenging, for instance with small rooms, lower domestic lighting and no blinds to eliminate glare
- Setting up your laptop correctly if you are using it for more than 20 minutes at a time, to avoid neck/shoulder pain
- Consideration of intensive tasks such as phone use – could it be worth getting a phone headset?
- Taking breaks – how do you pace out your day to minimise the risk of a build up of muscle tension?
