It's a very good idea to provide manual handling training to all employees, regardless of location, for two big reasons.

The first is that manual handling isn't just something we do at work. We do it all the time, when we move crockery from the dishwasher to the cupboard, when we pick up a child, when we rearrange our furniture... Musculoskeletal injuries are a major contributor to workplace absence and lost productivity. Providing manual handling training is one way to make employees better informed and to change behaviours to reduce lost productivity as well as pain and injury to employees through bad practice.

The second is that it's often an expectation of insurance policies that employers take reasonable steps to reduce injuries likely to lead to a claim and that includes delivering regular training. Not being covered against claims could potentially be a great deal more expensive than adding a manual handling module to your training programme.

But regardless, you should be offering decent mandatory induction and routine H&S training to all of your employees if you an organization large enough to afford its own organic H&S team. There are plenty of service providers of varying degrees of quality, but who will all offer comprehensive H&S (and often other, like Data Protection, Anti-Bribery and Cybercrime Awareness) courses which will include manual handling as a core component. The big advantage with a web-based platform, of course, is that it's easy to deliver to remote workers.

In reply to Robey:

Robey
I've never heard of anyone having time off due to lifting crockery at home. Perhaps some people have heavier crockery than we do?. :-)
Nor have I heard of anyone suing their employer because whilst working from home they had their coffee break and in doing so damaged their back getting a coffee cup out of the dishwasher. :-)

In reply to David Perry:

Pens can be heavy as well, David.

In reply to Robert James Munro:

Careless Walks Cost Lives

In reply to David Perry:

I did read a case (albeit in Germany I think) where a homeworker sued his company and won because he tripped and injured himself going from his bedroom to his home office.

In reply to David Perry:

I've never heard of anyone having time off due to lifting crockery at home.

Would *you* admit it, if it happened to you, David?

It's not impossible that that example came to my mind for a reason...

In reply to Robey:

If it makes you feel any better, Robey, I slipped a disc by sneezing too hard.

In reply to Jacqueline:

To return to a serious note. People underestimate the risks.
Big boxes of paper, new printers etc. moving/assembling the desk, not to mention picking up my chair and getting it to my office. I am sure others can add to the serious category

In reply to Peter Stanway:

Why stop at insisting they undergo manual handling training ?

- ensure eg that their all their electric kettles and desk lamps etc are PAT tested before they’re ever permitted to use them whilst working from home…. etc etc

In reply to David:

My last employer had a section in the Working Flexibly policy about doing a visual check of electrical leads regularly etc. We still have the same duty of care towards employees, no matter where they are.

In reply to Jacqueline:

Duty of care for working at home might sensibly advise employees themselves regularly to check condition of electrical equipment connected there, etc - merely advocating keeping perceived risks etc in proportion

In reply to David:

Thanks for the thread/comments. I think I'll challenge and recommend a review of the Homeworking Agreement, and also sending our a leaflet or some kind of information when people receive their laptops to home. Thanks again