Coping with extreme heat should be a burning issue for employers
The issue of temperatures in the workplace is not going to go away any time soon, writes Kevin Clancy
The UK’s summers are getting hotter, as many were all too well aware of as they sweltered in last week’s heatwave. Met Office records show that all of the UK’s ten warmest years since 1884 occurred in the last two decades, and in 2022, a temperature of over 40 degrees was recorded for the first time.
While conditions like these might be welcomed by some of those fortunate enough to have the opportunity to hit the beach or find sanctuary in a cooler location, it is a very different story for anyone who has to work in such temperatures.
This creates a real challenge for employers, who have legal duties in this area. The law as it relates to heat in the workplace has many elements, but the most fundamental is the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974’s requirement that employers must ensure the health, safety and welfare of their staff and others present in the workplace. They should therefore undertake suitable assessments of health and safety risks to employees, and thereafter put appropriate controls in place. Clearly, temperature in the workplace would be one of many potential hazards to be considered.
There is no law, regulation or guidance that sets a maximum allowable temperature for workplaces. Changing this has been suggested several times, and surely will be again, but for now the nearest we have is The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992, which stipulate that the temperature in all workplaces inside buildings shall be ‘reasonable’. So what practical steps should employers take?
One is to ensure that people at work can determine the temperature at any particular point inside a building, if that is required. This means providing a sufficient number of thermometers – located close to workstations, at working height, and away from windows.
During periods of extreme heat, employers may also consider staggering shift patterns or relaxing formal dress codes. For people who are required to wear personal protective equipment that may trap body heat, mitigating controls should be considered, such as allowing longer recovery times or scheduling work for cooler times of the day.
Particular care should be taken when dealing with employees who find working in the heat more difficult than others because of a disability, and employers should consider what temporary reasonable adjustments may be appropriate in these circumstances. Employees who are pregnant are also more susceptible to heat exhaustion, and employers should be prepared to take any necessary additional measures in special cases such as these.
The rise of homeworking creates additional options. During periods of extreme heat, employers may want to offer people the opportunity to work from home more than they usually do. This may in turn require providing any additional support that those people need in order to do that effectively, such as IT hardware or collaborative working software.
Clearly, different workplaces will require different mixes of measures in order to meet employers’ core duties. The big picture, though, is that the issue of workplace temperature will not go away soon. Indeed, it may well become significantly more challenging.
Kevin Clancy is a Partner in the Workplace Risk and Regulation team, Shepherd and Wedderburn