Home office: How to keep work safe and healthy

For infection control reasons, many companies are currently planning to send employees to the home office, or have already done so. Not everywhere, however, will have permanently established Telecommuting workstations give. If available, the home office with desk and office chair is the best place to work. But even if the kitchen table at home has to serve as a solution, employees can still do their work at home. design safe and relaxed. The German employers' liability insurance associations and accident insurance funds provide the following tips:

• Position the device so that, if possible, no windows or light sources are reflected in it or so that you have to look into the backlight. Daylight comes best from the side.
• The distance to the screen should be 50-70 cm.
• Use a separate keyboard, mouse and, if available, a separate monitor for work on the notebook, as they are a more ergonomic working posture enable
• It is best to look down at the screen from above in a relaxed position, as if reading a book. For optimal viewing, the monitor should be tilted back so that your gaze is perpendicular to the screen. This ensures that the head is slightly lowered when looking at the monitor, which prevents tension.
• Change sitting posture more often and take breaks from movement to Tension in the back prevent.

A Overview graphic on the topic offers the Magazine "Certo" of the VBG.

Background mobile working

If home office is recommended or ordered for a limited period of time, this is considered mobile work from an occupational health and safety perspective. It must be distinguished from the classic form of home office, teleworking. Telecommuting means that the employer sets up a workstation with the appropriate equipment in the employee's private area and regulates work from home in the employment contract or as part of an agreement. The Workplace Ordinance sets out the relevant requirements for this.

Mobile work is defined as activities that take place outside the workplace using stationary or portable computers or other terminal equipment and are not firmly agreed between employer and employee. Such activities also include work scheduled at short notice in the employee's own home. The possibility of working in a home office for a limited period of time during the Corona crisis is therefore - as a rule - not telework within the meaning of the Workplace Ordinance, but mobile work. The general requirements of the Occupational Health and Safety Act and the Working Hours Act apply to mobile work, but there are no special regulations as for teleworking.

In exceptional situations, such as now in the context of the Corona crisis, mobile work can also be carried out over a longer period of time.

Source: German Social Accident Insurance (DGUV)

More information from the SECO on working at home