The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) says that short, frequent breaks are better than less frequent longer breaks. But our survey found that homeworkers are not always taking them.
The HSE recommends taking a 5-10 minute break every hour. However, the Skillcast WFH Insights Survey May 2020 conducted by YouGov found that many British employees are failing to take these required breaks. Even those who have been working from home prior to the Covid-19 outbreak. This could store up problems for them and their employers.
"Every employer shall so plan the activities of users at work in his undertaking that their daily work on display screen equipment is periodically interrupted by such breaks or changes of activity as reducing their workload at that equipment."
Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992
We presented 1,983 employees, confirmed as working from home all or most of the time, with a selection of patterns of taking breaks and asked them to select the one that would be typical of their working day at home during the Coronavirus outbreak.
Nearly a third (32%) reported not taking sufficient breaks, with significant numbers saying that they generally take no breaks (8%), just the lunch breaks (13%) or breaks only when the work permits (10%).
Skillcast is the leading provider of compliance e-learning and staff compliance tools to companies in the UK, ranging from FTSE 100 giants to small and mid-sized businesses.
In May 2020, Skillcast commissioned YouGov to undertake the largest study of its kind in Great Britain, based on responses from 1,983 participants qualified as working from home all or most of the time. Fieldwork took place online between 23rd April and 4th May 2020.
This is just a taster of the full survey results. For further insights by the size of firm, the industry sector, region and demographics, email us at insights@skillcast.com.
To see more primary research results from our surveys, read our Insights blogs.
Working from home presents specific challenges to maintaining regulatory compliance. This is why your senior managers and compliance officers will need a resilient, scalable plan.
Our 3-step compliance training and assessment roadmap will help put your homeworking environment on a much stronger footing.
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