Join TWO of our Annual Review of Employment Law speakers, Seamus McGranaghan of O’Reilly Stewart Solicitors and Stuart Nottingham of Sun Rehabilitation, as they discuss hybrid working and the complexities of working life in the ‘new normal’.

Employment law expert Seamus addresses the legal complexities of a hybrid working policy, how to assess suitability, risk assessment and when and if the law requires an employer to provide equipment for homeworking. He also deals with equality issues around home or hybrid working – what to expect and how to negotiate this minefield.

Registered occupational health-chartered physiotherapist, Stuart, has over 20 years’ experience in the field of occupational health. He is also an NLP Master Practitioner with a keen interest in Ergonomics, active working strategies, and Mindfulness in the workplace. Stuart will share his expertise on homeworking ergonomics and the science behind us all needing to adopt a more active approach to our working lives.

On the agenda:

• The legal complexities of a hybrid working policy
• Equality issues surrounding home or hybrid working
• Homeworking ergonomics and the needing to adopt an active approach to our working lives

Transcript

Christine: Good morning, everybody, and welcome to "Employment Law at 11," our Hybrid Working Special. You're very welcome, and welcome to October as well. The autumn has really started I think.

So first things first, let's introduce our contributors today. So I'm Christine Quinn. I'm one of the L&D officers here at Legal-Island. For those of you who don't know, I'm a qualified employment law solicitor. Spent a lot of my career working over in London, but I've also worked here in Belfast. I'm really interested in discrimination and equality, so I will be shoehorning that in as much as possible today if I possibly can.

We've got our regular contributor, Seamus McGranaghan of O'Reilly Stewart Solicitors. Seamus is an employment law expert, and today, he's going to be looking at the legal complexities of hybrid working policy, how you assess employees for suitability, risk assessment, and also equality questions around hybrid working.

We are really pleased today we're joined by Stuart Nottingham of Sun Rehabilitation. Stuart has 20 years' experience in the field of occupational health. He's going to be sharing his insights today on ergonomics, active working strategies, and just how homeworking is affecting us and what we should be doing to improve our working life really.

Seamus and Stuart are just two of the HR and employment law experts that will be speaking at our Annual Review of Employment Law on 10 and 11 November. Seamus will be discussing long-term absence and the law, and Stuart will be explaining the impact of long COVID on people, their working lives, and what employers and colleagues can do to help employees with long COVID. So we'll be sending through some more information on the Annual Review in the post-webinar email, so please do look out for that.

Poll Results

So first things first, everybody, if we can ask you guys to get involved, we've got a few polls for you today. So the first poll, if we can just get that up there, Katie, please. "Does your organisation currently have a hybrid working policy?" If you could click yes or no to that and give us an insight. Brilliant. That looks like just about everyone has voted. Let's see the results then. So we've got 80% saying no. It looks like we're doing a timely webinar.

Seamus, does that surprise you that people don't have these policies in place just yet?

Seamus: Yeah, I'm thinking well done the 20% that do have them. Look, we're fairly new to hybrid working. I mean, hybrid working has been around, but we do know that the pandemic has really accelerated the use of hybrid working or the working from home and the ability to be able to do that. So I'm not massively surprised there at all that maybe the majority of people haven't yet got a policy in place.

But I would imagine that probably the 20%, either they're very good and they have got their house in order very quickly or they may already have had a hybrid working policy from before the pandemic. Maybe they're IT companies or maybe they are companies that have been forward-thinking and things like that, or organisations. So I think that would be what I would expect to see. No great surprises there.

Christine: Brilliant. Let's have a look at our second question then, Katie, if you could help with that. "Do you carry out workplace assessments with those who work from home?" You could start voting now, please. Okay, it looks like everybody has voted if you want to pause there and bring up the results. So 58% are saying no.

Stuart, what would your take be on that? Does that surprise you from what you're hearing?

Stuart: It does actually. I think that the situation is that it's very clear that if you're homeworking, the company has the same responsibility as if they're in the office. So it's something that would need addressing if it hasn't been addressed already.

Christine: Yeah. Well, hopefully we can change a few habits after this webinar then. Brilliant.

Katie, do you want to move on to the third question there? "Have you given out specific advice on rest breaks/screen time/ergonomics to those who work from home?" I'm wondering whether it's going to be the same percentages as we saw for the second question there. I think everyone has voted there. Let's have a look. Oh, so we've flipped it a little bit. So 56% are giving out that advice.

I presume, Stuart, you'll be quite pleased that the majority of people are doing that.

Stuart: Yes, absolutely. Education is absolutely fundamental to ensuring your homeworking is done safely and the people at home are happy and healthy. It all comes down to education. So yeah, I'm pleased to see that the majority are there, and hopefully, we can add to that base of knowledge to go out in the future.

Christine: Yeah, brilliant. Thanks very much for that.

Let's get into the webinar proper then. Our topic for today is our Hybrid Working Special, as I've said. So hybrid working really is in the headlines at the minute. Every other day we've got a newspaper headline saying, "Homeworking is brilliant. It improves your mental health". The next day it's, "No, homeworking is awful. People's physical health is suffering". Back and forth, back and forth. It's hard to know what really is the answer.

And of course, we had a gentleman last week who's a recruitment business owner over in England got himself into a bit of hot water. He took to LinkedIn to say that only spoilt and entitled people want to work from home. They just want to sit around in their pyjamas, watching "Loose Women", and feeding the squirrels apparently. Maybe he's right. Maybe that is what we're all up to. I don't know.

But one thing is clear: The emergence of hybrid working is allowing organisations to work in different ways. We're reaping the benefit of that. We can now meet again face to face and benefit from connections there, but then our productivity has gone up when we're working at home. So a mixture may be really the way forward. But it's certainly thrown up issues and problems for HR professionals for businesses. We've all been doing this in some form or another for the last 18 months.

The Right to Hybrid Working

Seamus, if we start with you, do employers have to grant hybrid working because it has worked during the pandemic?

Seamus: This is interesting. I suppose the interesting aspect of the question is really looking around if they are currently maybe working on a hybrid basis, is there an automatic entitlement for that to continue? I suppose the best place to start really is to say that we know that hybrid working is this blended working pattern where you'll have the employee working in the office for part of the time and possibly at home or at another location.

We were just speaking in advance and saying that these hubs have popped up now where people maybe find that are comforting in a hub than they do within their home and they'll take themselves out of the office for those few days, but still have that flexibility around remote working.

So we have an understanding of what hybrid working will mean, and most of us have been doing that in some shape or form over the past 18 months, and maybe more so very recently as the government messaging is starting to change in relation to a return to work.

Hybrid working, as I mentioned during one of the polls there, it did exist prior to the pandemic. There are lots of people that you would know that would have worked from home maybe one or two days a week, maybe one day a week, maybe to get paperwork done and focus on matters out of the office rather than the disruptions that we tend to have in the office with the phone and the email and people at the door and things like that.

So it has been there before, but certainly, we're now . . . It might have been viewed as the fortunate upper management that maybe had the opportunity to look at hybrid working. Now, it's come to everybody and it has been brought around really as a result of the pandemic.

Moving forward, in the context of a pandemic, I don't think that just because we've worked from home or we've maybe been working on a hybrid basis for the past 18 months that it creates an automatic right to continue to do so or that it has changed our terms and conditions of employment within the contract of employment.

Now, we do know, and we'll maybe just talk about this a little bit later on, that custom and practice can build up and it can result in a permanent change to the terms and conditions.

But we've been working this way as a result of the pandemic and as a result of guidance from government, and I think that there certainly is . . . And I think I maybe mentioned this at the last webinar. My view would be that I don't see that it conveys an automatic right just because we have been doing it for 18 months in order to give us a right to do it going forward.

But that said, I do think that all employers have been able to see the benefits of hybrid working and the ability to work from home and the benefits that can bring around in relation to productivity.

Look, it's not all good. Very few things in life are all good. There are pros and cons to it, and I think that the longer that the process of working out of the office . . . I think we're starting to identify and see some of the negative aspects of not being in the office. But at the same time, I think the overall view is that employees . . . and the feedback seems to be that it's a positive step for employees to have that flexibility to work from home.

When it comes to an employer receiving an application for hybrid working, they really need to immediately consider whether or not the role itself is a role that is suitable for hybrid working. There are lots of positions that are not suitable for hybrid working, positions that don't depend on technology that are forward-facing, frontline positions. If you're working as a maître d' in a restaurant, you're not going to be able to do that at home. So there does need to be an assessment.

I think it does make things tricky if employers have been able to facilitate that aspect of working from home. I think it makes the argument difficult about not having a hybrid basis, but always it should come back to the needs of the business and the requirements of the business. We can't ignore that. We work because there's a business there and we have to fulfil the need that is there, and that must continue.

But I think it's about weighing up . . . it's about looking at risk assessment and specifically about assessing the specific roles. And it may be that there are roles within the office that are suitable and other roles that are not suitable.

I think the basics of that brings me back to the good old adage of the employment lawyer, "Have a policy in place". Have a hybrid working policy. I know, Christine, that you had looked around some of those policies, and a lot of them probably wouldn't be fit for adoption.

Christine: Yeah. People's tactic at the minute seems to be, "Let's tack a bit onto the end of our current homeworking policy or our current flexible working policy". It's a little bit of a Frankenstein policy from what I can see, so it's not ideal. I will send out some links. They're interesting to see what other people have done anyway.

But I have heard through the grapevine that the LRA are working on something more solid, and I think that's one to watch. They have some guidance in the pipeline, and also I believe that there may be a policy attached to that as well. So I think that that's really something that's going to be good to look out for.

We've just got a few questions, Seamus, on what you were mentioning there. So I've got a great one, which I think is kind of your classic nightmare as an employment solicitor.

"How long does an arrangement have to be in place to be called custom and practice?"

It's one of those lovely answers that we like to give clients of, "Well, how long is a piece of string?" What would you say to that, Seamus?

Seamus: You took the words out of my mouth there, Christine, when you said, "How long is a piece of string?" For my purposes, I do think that we . . . I don't think that an employment tribunal looking at a matter in relation to custom and practice is going to necessarily be satisfied by the fact that that has been on-going for 18 months, because we have to take it in the context that it has been in. It has been a forced position because of the pandemic and because of government guidance.

I do think that moving forward, this is the period now where we're going to see . . . the area gets grey, because employers are okay with things that are going on. Nothing has been formalised. Things are dealt with informally. But as the time moves on, the custom and practice starts to build up.

I think custom and practice itself, you're looking at taking a period of time, and over that period of time, what has been the custom and practice? It could be that if you're saying there has been a pandemic, the custom and practice could potentially . . . the rule of thumb could be that it will be starting at this point and you might want to look at what the position is 6 months or 12 months down the line.

So I do think that you have to contextualise it and look at it from that basis. But certainly, where you have . . . there could be some good markers that are set down if there's been an appraisal or if there has been a review carried out by the employer as to how employees are working. If during your appraisal meeting or your supervision meeting your employer has discussed your working pattern and essentially sanctioned it or told you that it can continue on, those are good indicators that you're starting to stray into clear custom and practice.

So it is circumstantial, but yeah, it's not an easy question and I do think that you would have to look at the specifics around the circumstances to give a clear answer. But hopefully that helps.

Christine: Yeah, I think really the take-home here is we were all rushed out of the office in a panic. The pandemic hit. Then we were out of the office the next day. Now we've got a bit of time to think. So let's do this right. Let's start and look at policies and start to look at what we're doing. It's a time to really think about it and start to get things in concrete because we're not reacting to a situation anymore. So I suppose let's all take a bit of action on it.

I've got another question here, Seamus. They're coming in thick and fast this morning.

So someone has worked the whole period of COVID at home and doesn't want to return to the office at all. Would it be fair for the employer to kind of agree an arrangement part and part?

Seamus: Yeah, I think that if there is a . . . It doesn't sound to me like it's a standoff at this moment in time where the employee is maybe refusing, but really what you'd want to do is meet with the employee, probably virtually given that the employee wants to remain at home, but you'd want to have that contact. The virtual meetings are worthwhile. We know that.

But you'd want to have an open communication. You'd want an understanding from the employee as to why they want to continue with that pattern of working from home. You then need to assess the role that they're doing, and then you need to look at the business need as to whether that could be facilitated or not.

One of the things that we always mention during these webinars is looking at matters from a consistent point of view, and I think that you do need to have consistency. That's where a policy on hybrid working will really assist. What you don't want is someone like the example that we have there, their application being granted and it becoming permanent, and somebody else makes an application and, "No, we can't facilitate that because we don't have enough people at the office any longer because there are people working from home".

You could argue the first-come-first-serve basis, but it does need to be a consistent approach across, or else it starts to look a little bit unfair and the risk then of looking at the reasons as to why one person is getting it over the other and is discriminatory and things like that.

Potential discrimination issues

Christine: Well, I suppose that gets me nicely in the shoehorning my discrimination and equality stuff in there. I think one of the big things for me is, are people who are present in the office under the noses of the bosses going to get preferential treatment?

The concern is working mothers, in particular, are going to . . . As one myself, I know I find working from home particularly attractive. It is much easier for school runs. Is it going to be working moms or perhaps maybe a disabled employee who can't negotiate transport or whatever, or just finds it less stressful not to do that? They're not going to be under the noses of the bosses. So how do we ensure that we're not overlooking people?

Seamus: Again, you need to come back to your policy and procedure, and you need to look at the roles the organisation or the business have decided and made a finding as to whether those roles can be accommodated or not.

I mean, I think that's a really important point. We've touched on that over the past couple of webinars, particularly in relation to visibility in the office and what does visibility mean? Does it mean that you're the person that's in the office, you get the good projects, you get the opportunities, you therefore get the promotions, as opposed to somebody that is at home? And possibly at home due to a number of reasons, but also doing as much work and working as hard, and because the visibility isn't there, maybe not getting the rewards from it as well.

There are also those other aspects and maybe coming down into the negative side of homeworking. It is the team-building aspects, it's the supervision, it's the support and the well-being. And it'll be interesting to hear from Stuart around all those sorts of issues as well.

I mean, I worked from home for a period eight weeks during the pandemic and it drove me crazy. I felt that it was never-ending, and probably because employment lawyers during those early stages were extraordinarily busy because of furlough and because of all of the employment issues that were arising.

But it is that aspect, I think, of making sure that you're clear with people that are remote-working, their welfare, to make sure that they're taking their breaks and that they are not working from morning until night. You can tend to get a little consumed with it. And those sorts of risk elements certainly are things that you need to look at.

Christine: We've got a really interesting question here.

Two employees working the same position. One has really thrived working from home on their own, the other requiring a lot of supervision. What if the request comes in from both of them, "I want to work from home"? How do you negotiate that minefield of, "Well, he can and you can't"?

Seamus: Well, what strikes me about that is that the employee who is not thriving and is requiring supervision, that seems to me that there might be some sort of capability issue there. And it's possible that, as part of that capability, that there might be a performance management element to that. One of the elements of that could be that there needs to be a return to the office in order to properly deal with the performance issues and retraining.

The really key part for all of this, and even in our office what we see here, is our younger members of staff are apprentices and/or newly qualified. They lose so much because they're not in the office. I think that there is an issue there, which potentially is underperformance. It's being in the office, it's picking things up, it's being able to talk to colleagues straightaway whenever there's a problem. Maybe just it's easier to do that than sometimes it is to jump on the laptop and arrange a Teams call with a member of staff to discuss something.

So there is that, but it certainly is one that you need to be careful and cautious with. And again, I think you'd need to have your procedure in place if you're dealing with it as an underperformance, following your policy and procedure and keeping your handwritten notes and any discussions that you've had with the employee in and around that, and being clear with the employee that you're not penalising them. You're not favouring or giving favouritism over another one. This is the reason as to why that's necessary.

Christine: I suppose, like many things in employment law, it's about dealing with the issue quickly and efficiently rather than letting it drift on and it then becomes this huge thing where people can read stuff into it that's maybe not going on.

Communication

Just mindful of the time here, Seamus, from a legal perspective, what should employers be doing now to ensure they have a smooth move to hybrid working?

Seamus: I would imagine that most employees at this point are well settled in relation to being able to work hybridly in terms of the technology. And maybe the issue is in and around . . . and no doubt Stuart can cover this better than I can. But in and around equipment and chairs and desks and the ability to be able to facilitate and do the role.

I mean, I do think the takeaway points on that, Christine, would be do you have a hybrid working policy? Brilliant news if the Labour Relations Agency are releasing some format of that for review and adoption. You do need to assess the roles. You need to do that fairly and consistently across your organisation, and you need to do that on the basis of those roles that can be conducted on a hybrid basis.

Communication with staff is really important. I think consultation with staff and/or the trade union, if they're involved also, that there is an approach taken whereby you're hearing and listening to what the staff have to say about how they view it best to work. That's an important aspect.

And then I think looking at your short- and your long-term strategy. It may be that we've had a short-term run of hybrid working and we're looking to see how it really will phase out. We know that people have been working from home for a long period of time. A lot of companies and organisations are trialling hybrid working. It's difficult at the minute whenever you don't have a full office back in and what it would look like going forward.

But I think those sorts of steps will help you with the transition and smooth it out. I think the review, the last point, is important. It is something that has been reviewed to make sure that it works for the business and that it works for the employee and it works for your colleagues as well.

Christine: And someone's asking …

Would you recommend a change to your contract if a hybrid-working arrangement is agreed between employer and employee?

Seamus: Look, there's a definite difference between somebody making an application for hybrid working and you treating that informally and coming to some informal arrangement with them. I don't think that qualifies as change of terms and conditions, or that you would have to issue a new contract.

But where it does become formal, where there's a flexible working application, and where there is specific agreement . . . On a flexible working application, the change becomes permanent. In the hybrid aspect, it seems to me at the minute certainly we're working through a flexible process with hybrid. It's not, "I'm going to work Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays in the office". It is, "I need to be in the office Monday this week, but next week I only need to be in the office on the Friday because there's an important completion or project that's going to take place".

At the minute, it very much feels for me that we're working through a flexible process to see how we continue on through the rest of this pandemic. But you do have to have a finger on the pulse looking down the line that if it does become custom and practice, there would be that amendment. And it's best to have the amended terms and conditions reflected in writing.

Christine: Yeah. So set up a policy, communicate with your employees that you're kind of looking into "Is this going to work for us?" and then set yourself some review dates. Really, those are the take-home-points, and you need to hit those dates and make sure that you're kind of avoiding the custom and practice argument until such time that you know it's working for the business and the employees.

Great. I have a really good question that came in through email before the webinar, and hopefully, this will bring Stuart in a little bit as well with his expertise. An interesting one.

"We had an employee hurt a finger and go to hospital whilst working from home. If an employee has an accident at home while working, do we still need to complete an accident or injury form for them?"

What would you think, Stuart?

Stuart: Well, my view as an occupational health practitioner is yes, it needs to be reported and recorded. But the biggest question is why? What's happened? How did they hurt their finger? There should be some form of . . . how great an investigation would be relative to the amount of injury. But it's got to be, "Well, how do you avoid this kind of thing happening again?" And is there a risk assessment, or even a SOP, if it's, say, a soldering operation or like that that they need to be working with, and does that need reviewing?

It raises lots of the background questions in my mind rather than the legal question, which I'll back to Seamus's opinion on very much. So yeah, it's all about the why.

Christine: I suppose, Seamus, were they off on a frolic of their own and doing something crazy that is totally non-work-related? Does that matter? What would your opinion be?

Seamus: I think that Stuart is 100% right that it's an extension of the workplace. So if the accident is specifically related to their work, then it should be treated in the same way. A record should be made. And if the organisation has an insurance policy in place in relation to accidents of work, the first thing that they will want to see is, "Well, let's see the injury and the record that's been made". And then they will assess from a liability point of view whether or not the organisation has taken all of the appropriate steps to prevent such an accident from happening.

So I do think that it's a difficult one, because if an accident happens in a workplace, there are probably going to be witnesses to it and there are going to be statements taken. If it happens at home, you're likely you're going to be on your own or another member of your family. The lawyer in me thinks about credibility and all those sorts of issues and all sorts of things.

Christine: What are you saying?

Seamus: It is that aspect of I think where it's work-related . . . If you during your lunch break are try to hang a picture and injure yourself because you're doing that, I don't think that's work-related. But if it happens while you're attending to your work duties in your place of home, I think it does extend to the employer.

Workplace Assessments

Christine: Brilliant. Thanks, both, for that. Stuart, I've been working from home throughout the pandemic and I'd have to say it has definitely had an impact on me. I mean, my step count is seriously reduced. I have a lot of bad habits sitting at my desk, slouching. I did have a workplace assessment when I started at Legal-Island, but I must admit that I just . . . I find I sit for long periods of time. I stare into my computer, back-to-back things, meetings, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. So why is a workplace assessment while people are working from home still so important?

Stuart: Well, first of all, compliance. The Health and Safety Executive last year came very much off the fence and said anybody who is working from home, even temporarily during the pandemic, has the same rights and the same need for protection from the employer as they did if they were in the office. So that's the first one.

The second one is if you get a claim coming down the line in five years' time, and at the moment you haven't got a Scooby Doo what they're doing at home, whether they're working from bed or working from the settee, how are you going to defend it or what can you do? So really, you do need to understand what the person's working circumstances are.

But this leaves a bit of a problem, because if you look at the HSE's own tool for DSE assessments, that was written in 2002. And if you think what computers looked like in 2002, they were deeper than they were wide. And clearly, the regs didn't talk about . . . Well, they kind of touched on smartphones, but they didn't really see smartphones being what they are now. And they certainly didn't see the advent of homeworking.

So you've got to look at . . . If you just put out the questionnaire as free from the Health and Safety Executive, you're kind of missing the point, because it's not totally fit for purpose, and the HSE will be the first ones to agree with that. They're looking at it and going to be reviewing it in 2025. The delay is after that B word, which we can't mention.

So you need to be looking at not only the basic, "Well, what is a desk, chair, and things like that?" But you also need to be looking at the mental health, and you need to be looking at the culture and people's work behaviours at home, because unless they're right, you're really missing the point.

One of the other problems we've got, of course, is what is reasonably practicable. So in other words, if you've got several . . . An example I can think of, a London-based, two-bedroom flat in Canary Wharf, two couples working for the same company. We got asked to get involved because they were all struggling. And they were four of them working around a small bistro table with four chairs, their laptops. It must have been hell. There was no room for anything. So could you put office tables and chairs into that flat? No.

Those people were desperate to get back into the office, which is the counter to what, of course, you were saying, Seamus, with people wanting to stay at home working. There's a good percentage of people out there, according to the surveys, who are desperate to come back to work. They tend to be the younger millennials, of course, who are desperate, the juniors. All the senior managers want to stay at home, and that itself is a problem.

So what we need to be thinking about is what is reasonably practical as an adjustment. Many companies are taking different views on that term in our view. Some are going, "La, la, la. We don't want to know", right through to some are saying, "Whatever you want you can have". That variance is enormous at the moment. And I can't see any standardisation in what is acceptable to be offering and certainly from the equipment perspective how to deal with that.

Christine: And just with regards homework and equipment, is the company required to provide stuff like internet security, a desk, a chair that adjusts, all of that stuff? Does the company have to pay for that?

Stuart: In theory, yes, because the compliance is the same for at home as it is in the office. But the practicality of that situation . . . Go back to the people sitting in that studio flat. You can't do it. It's not reasonably practicable to put four desks and office chairs and computers into that room. So if they want to continue working in that circumstance or . . .

I can think of another case where a lady decided that she had to sit on the settee all day to work. We've come across people who say they've got to work from bed because there's no room to move around in their homes. So is that reasonably practicable?

To my knowledge, there's no case law on this yet. I'll defer to you if you tell me otherwise. There's nothing out there to actually say, "Is that reasonable or isn't it reasonable?"

My view, working from bed or a settee is not reasonable because it's going to lead to poor postures working, which are going to have a cumulative effect, and down the line, you're going to have problems with RSI and potential issues occurring that are defined as work-related issues. They're in the pipeline coming at us in the next few years with people who are working in poor postures day in day out that are working from home.

So I think we're going to try and guard against that and encourage people to work in good postures. But can you make somebody who's working from home or is sat on their settee come into the office? Is that a reason legally enough to say, "No, you can't do it"? That's an interesting new question, and I haven't got the answer.

Christine: Yeah. Seamus, what would your view be on that? Legally speaking, is that a fair enough point to say, "Sorry, we're concerned about your well-being at home. You can't work from home"?

Seamus: I mean, the key thing then is the risk assessment that is done. And absolutely, because we know that the employer has a duty of care and a duty to look after the welfare of their employee. If there are circumstances where the employee can't facilitate a remote working or working from home, or to a point where the employee is going to injure themselves or cause themselves harm, the employer certainly can't condone that. And if the employer did and didn't take any steps in relation to it, the likelihood is that the employee would stand to take an action against the employer and that they may well be successful. So I agree absolutely.

Stuart: Yep.

Christine: Yeah. I suppose it comes down to the communication. Communication, again, seems to be key, doesn't it?

Stuart, what would your top tips be for a healthy working-from-home environment then?

Stuart: Look at the evidence. The evidence is tying down to sedentary working. The UK government are very much keen on this idea of obesity pandemic is the next pandemic we're getting. The best survey I've seen is saying everybody in the UK has put on at least four pounds since the pandemic. As a clinical physiotherapist, you can ask the question to somebody, "How much weight have you put on since the pandemic started?" Because you know the answer is going to be in the affirmative. They have. Virtually 80% I reckon.

It's all about active working. It's all about getting people off their bottoms and moving. You look at the best practice guidelines, the best stuff is coming out of the States by a long way. From Cornell University, probably the biggest hotbed of ergonomics in the world, they talk about for every half an hour of work that you should be getting up and moving around for about 10 minutes of that half an hour. Now, that's a big chunk of time.

Christine: It is, yeah.

Stuart: If you look at Public Health England's guidelines, they talk about getting up and moving around for two hours in an eight-hour sedentary working shift and aiming to be on your feet for four hours. Again, that's a big ask, but that's been there since 2016 as a guideline. It's kind of one of those that sneaked out and nobody took any notice of, but it's very much there on the statute, and there's very strong evidence behind it.

This is the problem, linking back to the government's idea of pandemic, because we know the increase in sedentary working leads to diabetes, heart disease, to strokes. The cost of the public purse of diabetes alone goes into the billions. So it's a case of the whole of the drive is to get a healthier population in the UK.

Homeworking is a massive, fantastic opportunity to get people off their bottoms and stand up and move around. How many people listening to this call actually have stood up so far in this meeting just to move around and just loosen off and get active?

Reality is that's what you should be doing, but it's changing the work culture. So your boss is talking to you, "La, la, la", and you're sitting there dutifully going, "Yes, yes, yes". What's stopping you standing up and just stepping away from the screen for a second and just standing there and listening in standing? What's the cultural barrier that's stopping that? It's just not what we're used to, right?

It's what we've got to get used to if we're going to start reaching the guidelines for active working that have been set for us and are highly evidence-based to say it's the correct thing to do.

So the top tip is to get moving. Get moving. Long work in our culture is we're coming across people working crazy hours and wondering why their back hurts. It's because they're sitting down for 15 hours a day at their desk. Is it acceptable? How much should management be controlling that rather than just accepting and thinking, "I'm getting more pound for my flesh for them working a 15-hour day instead of an 8-hour day"?

The evidence behind lunch breaks is enormous, around productivity. If you go to somewhere like Toyota in Derby, they are very much Kaizen thinking, and part of that is the idea of if you get up and move away at lunchtime from your work, you come back fresh. If you come back fresh, you're actually more productive. And the evidence suggests that you're actually more productive by 5:00 than you would have been if you worked through your lunch.

So taking lunch breaks is . . . It began a bit of a cultural issue. Why do people say, "I'm too busy to take my lunch"? Well, hang on a minute. If you take a break, you come back fresher and you work faster. So you're not achieving anything, and in fact, you're damaging your health.

So taking lunch breaks and getting buddy groups up and actually working with people to actually realise the importance of taking lunch breaks is absolutely essential.

Communication is the last one. It's all about how do you actually get these messages through and how do you change cultures to actually get people to start getting up and moving around, thinking differently about how they work, getting light and air into their rooms, and getting all the other things and all these communications and key messages? How do you do it? Lots of imaginative ways coming through now, but I think the key one is leadership. Actually getting your manager to disseminate it down, "Well, I'm doing this. Why aren't you?" to me, is the most potent and powerful one of the lot.

Christine: And how involved should employers get with helping a worker plan where and how they're going to work from home?

Stuart: Well, that one is "How long is a piece of string?" question, isn't it? It's a case of how much should they be involved. If somebody is working from home, it is their home at the end of the day. You can educate, and if that education is documented, is the duty of care done? In my view, probably. If somebody is working from home doing their own thing, the education process and you've effectively signed off to say, "Yes, this is what they should be doing", that to me is where we should be.

If we go much further, are we ending up in Big Brother? That's kind of where I am. And that's dangerous territory for any society. But where that borderline is between Winston being watched all day and being allowed the freedom and flex and . . . There's a lot of evidence behind if you give people a choice and ability to do things, they are more productive. It's a very fine line between the two, and where that balance is I couldn't tell you precisely.

Christine: Brilliant. Thank you for that. Let's just see if we've got any questions coming in. I think we've covered the questions. Has anyone got any kind of takeaway they'd like to add just before we begin wrapping things up?

Seamus: Maybe just from the legal perspective. On the basis of the poll, definitely I think we need to look at getting a policy in place for hybrid working. And again, I think for me really it is just about organisations doing the assessment, deciding what roles can and can't be worked on a hybrid basis, and being fair and consistent then in relation to their approach.

Obviously, the other thing that was important to mention was just in relation to reasonable adjustments and whether or not if somebody has a disability and they make an application for a reasonable adjustment. That's maybe on of the things that can be considered, would be the hybrid working, just to mention that. But other than that, I'll leave it to Stuart then to . . .

Stuart: So, to me, it's education. It's culture. And if you're going to provide furniture, one of the key things that keeps coming back to us is, "Well, does it fit in with my home?" That keeps coming back, and I kind of get it. It's got to be aesthetically right if it's going to sit in your dining room or your living room where you're going to spend the rest of your life.

My view on this is it's dangerous to say to people, "Hey, here's £500 or whatever. Go and buy your own furniture". Because you've got no control on how good the ergonomics of that furniture is. I think you're better off actually working with a company, any company who's involved in ergonomics and office furniture, and actually agreeing on a set span of equipment that is approved.

Now, the advantage for the employer is the fact that you know what's going into the house, and what is effectively work equipment. The advantage for the employee is, of course, if it's done right as a deal, they'll get very, very strongly commercial rates on pricing because it's highly discounted.

Office furniture is a massively discounted marketed. So if you go and buy one chair, you'll pay RRP. If you go and buy 100 chairs, you'll get a 30%, 40% discount. So it's a case of bulk buying, but actually for individuals. It does work. And I'd encourage people to look at that as option. But it gives the employer control at the end of the day, and that's really important so you know what people are doing and what they are sitting on and is it suitable.

Christine: Brilliant. Thanks very much, both Stuart and Seamus for today. It has been really, really interesting. Thank you very much indeed.

All that really remains to be said . . . Oh, yes, we do have a special deal for attendees of the webinar today. When you're getting people back into the office, there's going to be a certain amount of anxiety attached to that, and Legal-Island has a "Dealing with Anxiety when Returning to Work" eLearning course. For all attendees of today's webinar, there's a 50% discount. So please, do avail of that. It's a really great course and it should be really helpful.

Also, please remember that myself, Seamus, and Stuart are at the Annual Review of Employment Law. So please come along. It's 10 and 11 November. You'd all be very welcome.

And just of note, "Employment Law at 11" is actually on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, so you can listen again on that. You can also catch up with all the ones you may have missed. So please do check it out. It's a great resource. I love a podcast when I'm out walking. So hopefully I'm not the only one.

Our contact details are there on-screen should you wish to drop us email. Seamus and I are always up for hearing what you want us to talk about as well. It's your webinar after all, and we want to talk about the stuff that interests you. So drop us a line if there's anything you want to talk about.

Now, the next webinar is actually . . . There's a free webinar on 15 October, which I'll be presenting. It's exclusively for attendees to the Annual Review. It's with Connor Smyth, Irish dancer turned winner of "SAS: Who Dares Wins". I think that should be a really interesting one to get a slightly different perspective on what exactly real resilience looks like. Very much looking forward to that. If you're signed up to the Annual Review, please check that out.

Thank you all very much for listening, and myself and Seamus will see you next month. Thank you very much, everybody.

Stuart: Thank you. Bye-bye.

Seamus: Bye.