The Future of Operational Resilience 

Working from home can provide the perfect work/life balance for both employer and employee – if the home office set up is of a high enough standard.

As we look to the future, taking advantage of the “New Normal”, and as a result of lockdown and social distancing, the production office has moved to the home. With this move of production there is a correlating move of the employer’s Duty of Care.

For many however, the home office is not an ideal work environment. The kitchen table, a sofa or even the bed are fine for a few hours, but not for 40 or more hours a week, every week.

The Institute of Employment Studies April 2020 report, looking at the impact of home working after only 2 weeks of lockdown showed that even at that early stage around 60% of staff were suffering more from neck/back and head aches, leg cramps and fatigue than before.

Enabling employees to work from home does provide a level of operational resilience but also brings with it several challenges, impacting both the employee and employer.

These include:

  • The physical and mental health issues employees can suffer as a result of working in inadequate conditions
  • The risk that employers may fall foul of their Duty of Care and Health and Safety obligations
  • The risk that employers may fall foul of their Security and Data Control standards

It is important to remember also that “As an employer, you have the same health and safety responsibilities for home workers as for any other workers.”

Health and Safety Executive.

Then of course there is the ticking “litigation” time bomb that can’t be ignored – according to the “Homeworker Wellbeing Survey”, carried out by the Institute for Employment Studies April 7th 2020 after just 2 weeks of home working, the following physical health problems were reported:

  • 58% aches/pains in neck
  • 56% aches/pains in shoulder
  • 55% aches/pains in back
  • 55% headache/migraines
  • 37% leg cramps
  • 33% chest pains
  • 60% fatigue
  • 60% not active & vigorous

Based on the evidence that inadequate home-working conditions can cause harm to employees, it is safe to assume that if a positive remedial plan is not put in place, employees will be seeking financial compensation in one form or another, whether it be towards physiotherapy bills and/or for non-conformance to the law.

Adopting a new approach to operational resilience

Employers that understand the challenges associated with home working and put in place solutions that address them can expect many benefits in return, such as:

  • Greater employee satisfaction, mental health and general well-being
  • Improved employee productivity = better business performance
  • Improved chances of attracting top talent
  • Reduced litigation
  • Reduced reputational damage
  • Improved operational resilience
  • Improved returns on their investments in real estate
  • Safe, engaged, and happy employees improve business performance and reduce operational risk.

The future of operational resilience, today.  Introducing the FortressAS Home Pod Solution

The problem with traditional approaches to operational resilience is that they tend to fall into the “all eggs in one basket” scenario, which can create a single point of failure.  A better approach is to disperse the risk away from the centre and to the homes of individual employees, thereby ensuring “each egg has its own basket”.

That’s exactly what the FortressAS Home Pod solution aims to deliver – a dispersed risk, fully installed, equipped, compliant and resilient home working environment that is designed to meet the needs of every home worker and every organisation.

By working with FortressAS, employers can expect to benefit from the following:

  • Improved well-being of home-working employees
  • More productive home-working employees
  • A reduction in real-estate costs, freeing up capital to fuel other investments
  • and most importantly, a more operationally resilient business

The financial benefit associated with this new operating model is also material.  In addition to the health, well-being and reputational benefits outlined above, setting employees up so they are able to effectively and compliantly work from home is financially sound too.

According to the “Lambert Smith Hampton’s Total Office Cost (TOC) Survey 2019”, office workstations for staff (including the space they take up) are very expensive

  • West End Offices = £19k per workstation per annum
  • City Offices = £13k per workstation per annum

Studies have shown that enabling home working can result in a reduction in office working by potentially 40%.  When offices are able to be re-sized to take into account the smaller working numbers, the savings will be material.

To learn how the FortressAS Home solution can help you improve the well-being of your home-workers, reduce your office costs, and improve your operational resilience, download our brochure here. To find out more about the FortressAS Home Solution visit https://fortressas.com/fortressas-home-service/.