ADVICE & OPINION
HOME ELECTRICS
FMJ AIMS TO SUPPORT TECHNICAL EXPERTISE IN THE FM MARKET
Darren Tonge, Sales Director at Hawkesworth on the importance of
ensuring that you don’t overlook electrical equipment testing for
those working at home
As you will be more than aware,
Coronavirus has had a massive
impact on the facilities management
industry, with buildings closing their
doors to the general public and sta
being encouraged to work from home
where they can. The Government
began by encouraging employees to
return to the o ice over the past few
months to kick-start the economy and
encourage city and town centres to
start trading again, but a recent surge
in cases means that advice has been
reversed to asking people to work
from home where they can.
Some organisations are encouraging
sta to continue to work outside of the
o ice environment for the time being;
for example, Royal Bank of Scotland is
allowing its 50,000 sta to work remotely
until the start of 2021.
YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES
For FMs, your responsibilities don’t just
extend to the building you look a er. It
extends to the sta too. Health and safety
requirements apply to all employees
whether they are in the o ice or at home,
in line with The Health and Safety at
Work Act 1974. As the designated duty
holder for the building, the appointed
facilities manager is responsible for the
health, safety and welfare of employees,
regardless of whether they are working
in the o ice or working at home. This
means that if you are a facilities manager
for a building and you have sta working
from home, you need to ensure their
electrical equipment continues to
operate in a safe condition.
Sta working from home may not
be aware of the potential fire risks of
working from home; leaving phones and
laptops charging on beds and sofas as
well as overloading extension sockets
and reels. This is something that would
be closely monitored and controlled in
a building.
Electrical Safety First surveyed 3,000
16 NOVEMBER 2020
people at the start of lockdown and
discovered a third of employees were
unaware of the potential fire risks
of overloading plug sockets, with 44
per cent of those working from home
admitting to ‘daisy-chaining’ extension
leads and adaptors together to extend
reach.
In line with the release of the 5th
edition of The Institution of Engineering
and Technology’s (IET) ‘in-service
inspection and testing of electrical
equipment ’, which was released
in September this year, you should
encourage employees to carry out visual
checks of equipment before they use it.
Visual checks include looking for risks
like frayed and damaged cables, as well
as dented, scratched and scorched plugs
and casing. However, visual checks do
not account for internal damage and
should be complemented by a thorough
internal inspection.
ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT TESTING
AND HOME WORKING
Electrical equipment testing (or PAT
testing) is still far the best way to
ensure printers, monitors, extension
leads and chargers are safe to use
and will not cause a fire risk. Electrical
equipment testing should be carried
out by a ‘competent person’, at a
frequency appropriate to a business’s
needs. The frequency of this used to be
automatically determined, but in line
with the IET’s release of the 5th edition,
it is now decided by a risk assessment.
This risk assessment takes into
consideration factors including working
environment, the type of equipment,
frequency of use and equipment
service life.
If sta are working from home,
there are two ways you can still provide
electrical equipment testing to sta and
ensure compliance. You can carry out
testing at an employee’s home, where
the person responsible for testing carries
out testing there. Home testing can be
more convenient for the employee and
ensures their home setup is safe but can
be expensive.
Alternatively, you can test equipment
when employees attend the o ice, for
example for a performance review or
team meeting. This is a more coste
ective solution but can be hard
to coordinate and requires sta to
bring heavy or cumbersome pieces of
equipment into the workplace.
TESTING IN THE OFFICE – WHAT HAS
CHANGED?
As well as arranging electrical equipment
testing for those working from
home, testing priorities in the o ice
environment may have changed where
buildings have started to reopen. For
example, onsite catering facilities have
now been reduced, meaning sta are
more likely to make their own teas and
co ees, as well as bring food in from
home that needs heating.
Physical distancing has meant having
to use additional extension cables to
ensure sta are adequately spaced out
from one another and can still use their
computers and phones. We are more
reliant on our computers to carry out
Zoom and Microso Team meetings and
coordinate with each other on channels
like Slack and Trello.
These factors mean it is more vital than
ever to ensure this electrical equipment
is working and is safe to use. In the
best-case scenario, you run the risk of
frustrated and angry sta ; in the worstcase
scenario, you run the risk of the
loss of assets, structural damage to your
building and most critically, the potential
loss of life.
The FM sector has had to drastically
change the way it works over the past
year and work hard to keep clients
happy. Even though buildings are now
starting to reopen, things are not quite
back to normal just yet, and with winter
around the corner, there is still the
possibility of a second wave and a return
to working from home.
Sta safety is still imperative, whether
employees are working from home
or have returned to the o ice, and
electrical equipment tests should not be
disregarded just because of a change of
location.
FAST FACTS