Standard Workplace Health and Safety practices and laws apply to workers who are working somewhere other than their standard place of work, particularly working from home during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Employers need to ensure that an employees’ workplace at home meets the usual standards of the business and apply guidance on what is a safe home office environment. Standard practices should include;
- Workstation set-up
- The work environment is ergonomically sound
- Maintain daily contact with employees with open communication
- Ensure physical and psychological risks are managed reasonably
With many businesses deploying staff to work from home during this crisis, it is important that staff complete a checklist to mitigate any risk around safe work practices. For further information and checklist go to Safe Work Australia.
What about working with your kids at home?
Self-isolation, social-distancing, working from home, and kids at home do not read as a great combination. Busy homes bring many a distraction and the risk of declining productivity amongst the chaos is a real possibility.
With impromptu offices popping up in daily living spaces, managing video calls and meetings in quiet and private moments creates in itself a challenge. How do you help your primary school child understand what that ‘do not disturb’ sign actually means or stop your grumpy teenager from walking in with the quintessential “what’s for dinner?” at the most inopportune moment.
To help avoid those awkward moments and create some quiet(er) time for those meetings and phone calls, we have put together a list of websites that children can access to keep them entertained. Whether it be live webcams in zoos to exploring the moon, science and maths activities through to yoga and workouts. This list has got music sites, art and craft sites, reading, writing and colouring sites. Or you could have a celebrity read your child a book. Best of all, most of these sites are free with many having waived subscription fees during the COVID-19 period.
We hope this helps with scheduling activities around meetings, phone calls and your productivity levels.
Check out the full list here : Kids Checklist