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.

That’s interesting - we were all given laptops with the option of asking for a second monitor etc. However, we all have the option of working in the office some or all of the time.

That does seem unfair, and possibly even discriminatory. If you don’t have space at home (and you say they are more junior members of staff so presumably lower paid), you are required to incur additional costs of commuting and lose the benefit of WFH.

The issue with laptops is the risk of bad posture and RSI from keyboard/touch pad. My employers are OK with us using them with a proper keyboard and mouse. Ideally you also need a riser for the screen too for posture reasons.

Personally I find a laptop screen too small as I need multiple tabs in Chrome plus a stand alone tool for benefit checks.

I guess if you work on spreadsheets or similar the screen can be too small as well.

Purely from a data protection / systems security perspective, I would expect computers or laptops etc to be provided by the employer, and set up with all the right parameters and security measures installed with watertight access passwords and the like.

Keyboards aren’t good enough on laptops. The screen is far too small. We need two large ones. And the position of the keyboard in relation to the screen on a laptop is wrong for ergonomic reasons. Also, for security reasons, we can only work from home with specific software on a named PC with security protocols. A laptop is too portable.

But if you don't have a suitable space to work from, what is your employer meant to do? If you don't have space in your home for a desk and office chair, you risk back, neck, RSI issues if you work from a kitchen table or sofa on a laptop. In that case, expecting you to be in the office is surely the only thing they can do?

My work would say if you want to work from home it's a privilege, get your own kit. We aren't buying it. We kitted out the offices you are welcome to work here.

I did hybrid work in the last 2 offices.

Both companies supplied all equipment, extra screen, a mouse, extra keyboard and we have the same set ups in the office. It’s the laptop that just goes between.

as the company should be supplying it too. If they offer hybrid then why wouldn’t they supply the equipment to work hybrid!

I employ 3 people, 2/3 have significant disabilities which are fully catered for in the office which is available for all of their contracted hours. I can't duplicate what I have here in someone's home. I made physical changes to the environment to meet very specific needs.

None of my 3 employees have ever asked to wfh and they have been with me for ages now, but if they did, I couldn't provide further equipment to facilitate it. Saying that, we are only small, if someone has child care emergencies or an appointment etc, they get the time off. My staff are loyal and hardworking, so if they need a day or a few hours grace, they get it.

2nd hand monitors and keyboards are cheap as chips. I don't know why people wouldn't get them.

Absolutely- laptops are provided

Surely, it iant about set up it is about accuracy and productivity, and is therefore a middle management issue?

The job I went for explicitly said you needed your own laptop etc. I did think it was more usual for soemthing to be provided.

Bring Your Own (BYO) was being explored for phones well over 10 years ago when I was a serving Civil Servant in a small Arm's Length Body. The cost and paperwork of getting an official mobile, I've an idea they were Blackberries, was utterly absurd. With the inevitable result that people used their own, even if they had a 'work' SIM and handset.

I went to a couple of exhibitions where people from outside talked about 'BYO' but it was quite clear that commerce did not have HMG's paranoia about security.

I was also working at the time unencrypted laptops were stolen with the result that everybody had to have an encrypted laptop, two factor authentication, and secure email. NO exceptions.

Getting that sorted for our Chairman, a former Cabinet Minister whose IT had worked perfectly well on a DIY basis with occasional support from his daughter, was a bloody nightmare.

Nowadays where the 'apps' are delivered by the web and data's in the cloud it's probably simpler.

I often work from just my laptop in the office because its hot desking and I cba so often just sit in a breakout or stay in my meeting room

And in ten years time when your hands are in a mess with RSI you'll regret it.

The employer of course should stop it and provide docking stations with keyboard/mice but that's too much ag.

That said, do we still actually see people with keyboard related RSI? I know we had an epidemic of claims in the eighties/nineties but from copy typists using manual typewriters but is it still a thing with modern keyboards? .

Genuinely- why would my laptop give me RSI but a bigger keyboard wouldn't?

We work hybrid. Employees get a laptop and a headset, riser, keyboard, mouse and second screen. Home working environments are DSE assessed. Staff with disabilities get one set of adjusted equipment. Hybrid is a choice because everyone has an allocated desk.

At home I have a desk. In Covid my workplace sent me home an ergonomic chair due to back pain. I had two screens on my work desk - one came home with the chair.

AIUI it's to do with the posture, including support for wrists, which you can adopt with a standard keyboard but not with a laptop.

I did some training as a DSE workstation assessor 12 or 13 years ago and it was dinned into us then. I'm sure there's stuff out there from the UK H&S folks but a quick overview here:

https://www.rsitips.com/laptop-ergonomics/

Why on earth would you assume the problem is due lack of a second screen rather than their newness (or some other factor)? You are just guessing and that guess is resulting in costs for the employee.

If you have any kind of hybrid policy and especially if the office doesn't have capacity for 100% in the office then providing a screen is the bare minimum. My company provides full kit including rising desks if required. All of our clients do provide at least screens, keyboards, risers etc and most provide more.

Nowadays where the 'apps' are delivered by the web and data's in the cloud it's probably simpler.

I started a new techy job today for an area of government, and I can already say, don't bet on it...

My work provides an Amazon list of approved goods that we can get to help us wfh, so extra screens, keyboards, desks and chairs and this is at no cost to the employee

I am relatively certain that the Equality Act makes no mention of "lower paid" or "more junior" or "lack of space at home" as protected characteristics. Therefore, not discriminatory.

Working from home is not a benefit. It is something which some employers permit, and they are entitled to make whatever rules they want around that. If you don't like it you go to the office. That said I have very serious concerns, as others have mentioned, about the way that people ignore the normal rules and good sense around health and safety when working from home - even when provided with the correct equipment and facilities to do so. I can see a future "epidemic" of physiological conditions caused by people working in inappropriate positions over long periods of time.

Can I ask - the 2 screen set up that people have - is that 1 monitor and 1 laptop screen?

I ask because I just couldn't get my laptop to connect to 2 monitors . I think its my laptop being wrong. The IT department at work were useless as its my own laptop.

So I have 1 laptop screen and 1 monitor. But 2 monitors would be ideal.

You need a docking station to run two monitors off your laptop. Once you have that just go to settings to configure the displays.