Hi,
I am new in my HR role and have not been able to find the documentation supporting office equipment request for remote employees.
We have had a request from a remote employee who mainly travels for a stand up desk for his home office. He states that this is needed due to back and neck pain from improperly looking at devices whilst traveling and not having a proper desk to use. We typically offer stand up desks options for office based employees in our US headquarter office and would in the UK, however, we have not had any requests. In the past, anything needed for the home office including a stand up desk – even if it’s health related, has been the responsibility of the employee.
We have advised him to submit medical support from his GP but no response thus far. What are the policies for providing extra non-IT equipment for UK remote employees?
Thanks in advance,
Katrina
Replies
Hi Katrina
I think I would be minded to make an Occupational Health referral here to get some input into the request, if the back and neck pain is disability related the company has a duty to make reasonable adjustments.
The OH person will provide an objective view based on a disucssion with an employee, you will need to obtain consent etc. from the employee but this would be a sensible first step.
I hope this helps.
Sarah
Hi Sarah,
Thanks for the feedback. We will definitely look into this more as we want to provide the best duty of care. However, the request is not disability related and this particular employee in the past has been known to try to push the boundaries on things like travel bookings and requesting non-essential and non IT policy compliant equipment extras.
We are awaiting feedback from the employee for medical support for the request. From your experience, what is typically done when the employee does not follow up with the requested medical information or if it is non-disability related?
Thanks,
Katrina
I've not had the case where it has been to do with a request for equipment but in long term ill health cases I tell the employee it is their decision in terms of consent but we can only make decisions based on the information we have available. In your case I may still be minded to refer to OH as they can rule out any underlying disabilitiybrelated issues to be belt and braces, but it's a judgement call at the end of the day.
You could also consider a workstation assessment I don't know to much about these but we used to have people come and assess an employee's workstation if they raised concerns that it was causing them issues and then we would act on the recommendations.
Hope this helps
Sarah