Display Screen Equipment - DSE / Visual Display Unit – VDU
Do you have employees working from home or remotely; have you considered your health, safety and welfare duties?
The Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (General Application) Regulations 2007, Chapter 5 of Part 2 outline the requirements that must be adhered to in relation to Display Screen Equipment.
Employers are required to manage all work activities in a safe and healthy manner wherever their employees work, whether in the office, at home or both. This is especially significant with the Right to Request Remote Work Bill 2021 currently under review.
Employees who fall under the DSE regulations are those who must use a DSE:
- as part of their work
- for continuous periods of one hour or more
- on a daily basis
If you have employees in any of these categories, you must:
- Carry out an analysis or risk assessment of the employee workstation
- Provide information to employees in relation to measures which have been implemented
- Provide training to employees in the correct set up and use of workstations before commencing work with display screen equipment and whenever the workstation is changed
- Perform a further analysis or risk assessment where an employee transfers to a new workstation or significant new work equipment, change of equipment or new technology is introduced an individual’s workstation
- Ensure that the provision of an appropriate eye and eyesight test is made available to every employee
Note: It is not sufficient to allow employees to use a software package to assess their own workstations, the employer must be actively engaged in completing a physical risk assessment.
Note: A competent person must carry out the risk assessment of an employee’s workstation. Depending on the situation, this may be an in-house company assessor or it may be external expertise.
The OSS Consultancy Team will be happy to help advise and guide you in the safest ways to manage your remote or home workers.
For more information or health and safety advice please call us Phone: 061 422207 Mobile: 087 616 2564 Email: info@ossltd.ie or complete our Enquiry Form.
Additional information:
We also have an online DSE course on our eLearning Website that employees could complete https://www.odwyersafetyservices.ie/course/online-courses/online-dsevdu
You may want to make employees aware that there is an eWorking or Home working tax relief available for workers: see information from Revenue https://www.revenue.ie/en/employing-people/employee-expenses/e-working-and-home-workers/index.aspx
There is some information on Citizens Information regarding home working. It is aimed at home working during the pandemic however the majority of the information is relevant to home working in general https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employment/employment_rights_and_conditions/health_and_safety/working_at_home.html