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.

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.