Requiring staff to have equipment to WFH

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My work place offers hybrid working. 3 days in the office 2 days at home. Can they require us to have a second monitor at home? I have a proper set up, monitor, laptop, keyboard, mouse and a desk but I know lots of the more junior staff are just using their laptops at their kitchen table or sofas even. What are the rules around this sort of thing- would work have to buy them the equipment? Can they just say "fine come in 5 days a week then" if they can't prove they have the equipment.

They can’t demand a proper set up at home if they aren’t providing it, If the work can be done from laptop and work is happy then it’s ok.I wouldn’t be buying equipment specifically for work.

My partner has a laptop provided by work and often works from the couch as it’s warmer. When i’m home he works from the office.

I think the "can the work be done from a laptop" is the bone of contention. It can but accuracy and productivity is down when people work from home

I have a laptop, 2 monitors, a keyboard, docking station, headset etc all provided by work. You can even request a desk and chair.

I wfh 2 to 3 days a week and don't know how people just work from a laptop. I have a laptop, keyboard, 2 screens and an office chair, all supplied by my employer. I just had to buy a desk

There is no legal requirement to provide office equipment at home unless it is in your contract. A lot of companies haven't changed contracts so most still say the office is your main base. If someone demanded office equipment at home with the above in place, the employer can legally turn round and say well you can work from the office 5 days a week then.

If it were for health reasons, then there may be more of a challenge but the employer can still say for your health reasons the set up at the office is better for you so come in 5 days a week. Most employers are better than that though and have provided equipment at home if required. I do know a lot of companies are getting more and more requests for sit/stand desks, specalist chairs, larger monitors, "quiet" keyboards etc..... for home use and are getting fed up with having to provide the equipment in 2 places.

I doubt it is acceptable to work from the sofa from a health and safety perspective too.

Unless you’re a home worker by contract I would not expect an employer to provide additional equipment to enable you to work from home (unless it’s a reasonable adjustment).

I personally funded my own desk, second monitor, office chair etc because I wanted to be able to work from home and actually feel productive and have everything I need. But I appreciate not everyone is in the position to do this.

They can just say you have to work from the office, we offer hybrid working but it’s down to individual choice. We’ve had people who have asked for equipment for home but it isn’t viable if everyone wanted this.

Do they need a second monitor because they need the visual workspace i.e. lots of detailed spreadsheet work, or would a laptop riser and separate keyboard do? This would be a cheaper alternative.

My former company had an official WFH police from 1999 (large well known corporate).

All WFH equipment was supplied by them such as desk, fully adjustable chair, keyboard, mouse & monitor. Your workspace had to meet DSE regulations and their policy ie lockable desk, no children or animals in the room, adequate childcare.

I can’t believe all these slack setup companies that will allow someone to WFH for 2-3 days on a laptop at the kitchen table. They are setting themselves up for workplace injury claims in the future when Jane’s RSI or Johns back pain mean they need medical retirement.

Ours provides a second monitor, keyboard, mouse, lap top stand and headset if you need them - so if you had all this at home anyway you don't need to ask for it, but if you don't they would supply. We are hybrid. I think some people have got special chairs at home due to medical issues but chairs/desks are not supplied as standard.

I often choose to work in the kitchen as it has good natural light, the kettle is right there so I don't have to leave my desk if I want a cup of tea. But I do have a desk and chair and all the equipment etc.

Surely if they want you to have a second monitor they buy you one? It's not essential for our team but most of us have bought second hand small TV's (£30, PAT tested charity shop) as a second monitor.
I work from a fold up desk in my bedroom. No chair as I sit on my bed, it's incredibly comfy and warm too.

We have a furniture ordering service at work where you can order desks and chairs etc. I work for a massive global company.

Thank you that's the sort of info I was after really but Google wasn't helping!

They need a normal sized monitor really

Where I work we are all on office based contracts but most work from home at least 2 days a week. We are required to follow the DSE guidelines regarding our home set up. So the company supplies second monitors, keyboards,mice, headsets & printers. Also chairs if a specialist one is needed. I deal with a lot of data/ spreadsheets so I invested in another screen, so I work from 2 monitors and my laptop. I couldn't be productive using just my laptop.

Like others have said…My work provide everything I need to work from home.
Laptop, second screen, keyboard, mouse, table and chair.
my workplace insists that we have everything we need from an ergonomic and health and safety perspective.

I applied recently for a wfh job that required you to have all your own functioning equipment (own laptop/microphone/camera...). I would have loved the actual job but did think it was unusual these days!

No way could I just work from a laptop - mine has a 13” screen and I can barely see what’s on it! I am technically office based but we have done hybrid since lockdown. I already had a desk and monitor, keyboard etc from when I was a freelancer but we could buy a decent chair and expense it back. I’m now looking at a sit/stand desk for home but will need to pay for it myself.

At my place if you have an office as your base they don’t provide equipment for home, as you are making a choice to not come in. If your home based then equipment is provided. The managers are meant to dse assess the home set up but I doubt that is happening in reality

If equipment is needed for health reasons, surely any employer who allows home working is under an obligation to provide it. They can't just say 'oh, but you have the option of coming in to the office if you want to'. That would be like saying to an employee who got their arm chopped off in a machine 'oh, but you had the option of using the safety guard.' They are required to look at their employees actual working practices and mitigate the risks they face. So if someone was working with an unsafe computer setup, the employer would either have to require office working or provide the proper equipment.
My employer gives me the choice of home- or office- working but also provides all the equipment needed for making computer-based work safe at home - large monitor, monitor arm, separate keyboard, etc. We also have to complete an annual workstation assessment to report the nature of our home setup

We were provided with everything we needed excluding a desk - monitor, keyboard, mouse, laptop riser, usbs, chair, USB multiport adaptor, headset, laptop, bag for going in and out to the office. Work for local authority.

My workplace provides everything- desks, chairs, monitors - I have two - PC, keyboard, mouse, headsets, etc etc.

In mid-Covid were reimbursed for buying a monitor and chair. Everything else was provided by work. Since remote working became standardised we can now get everything supplied by work - monitor, keyboard, docking station and chair.... DH works for a large bank and gets no extra equipment for working 2 days a week at home - he works from a laptop wherever he fancies. His work pay our internet bill though

if employees are contracted to work from home for some or all of the week, then the employer absolutely needs to provide equipment. If employees are contracted to work from the office, then there is no obligation on the employer to provide equipment but they do still have responsibilities around health and safety. This means that they can put certain conditions in place around wfh and they can require that employees come to the office every day if they're unable to wfh safely - wfh is effectively a privilege that can be withdrawn if those conditions aren't met.

That said, lots of employer do provide extra equipment to facilitate hybrid working - not because they have to, but because they want to attract and retain good staff. It's an additional cost...two sets of everything isn't cheap! But they choose to cover that cost in order to be a "good" employer.

Of course, if hybrid working is required as a reasonable adjustment for a disabled employee, rather than a perk of the job, then the employer would need to cover any associated costs.

Depending on the contract, if it says office/on site working (most haven't been updated since covid) then no they are not under obligation to provide equipment at home. They provide all needed equipment in the contracted place of work and the employee can come into the office every day. In reality some employers do provide equipment for at home working, but there is no legal requirement for them to do so if there contracted place of work is office based. The employee is making the choice to work at home.