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Seven ways to protect travelling employees n response to the recent coronavirus outbreak, IOSH has highlighted key steps that employers can take to manage the health, safety and wellbeing of travelling staff.
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PHOTOG RAPHY: ISTOCK
Ensure robust policies, procedures and controls are in place. And communicate them to all relevant parts of your organisation, providing training as appropriate. Consider if travel is absolutely necessary. Can you achieve the same result with video conferencing and spare the organisation and traveller the risk, time, cost and environmental impact?
If travel is necessary, carry out a travel risk assessment. This should incorporate not only the travel, accommodation and work itself but the traveller’s physical and mental capabilities.
Know where your employees are and where they’re going. Some travel management systems offer tracking and alert functions, while there are products and apps that use GPS to provide live location tracking.
Have a travel assistance scheme. Should an employee become involved in an incident or emergency situation, you need to provide support. Most
schemes and business travel insurance packages offer a 24/7 helpline that triggers assistance with medical treatment, repatriation and lost or stolen money and documents.
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Provide information, instruction and training to travellers. The risk assessment process should establish the type and extent of the relevant guidance that’s needed.
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Keep wellbeing in mind. Frequent international travel has been shown to have negative effects on both physical and mental health, with situations such as disease outbreak causing added concern among travellers. Help staff to stay healthy, balancing work with rest. For real-time updates on coronavirus, go to bit.ly/covid-map
R E S E A RCH ROUND-UP Firefighter study links back pain to insomnia Lower back pain exacerbated by challenging working conditions could be a significant cause of insomnia among firefighters, new research suggests. The study, by researchers at Qazvin University of Medical Sciences in Iran and published by IOSH’s journal Policy and Practice in Health and Safety, examined the prevalence of
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musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) in firefighters and its relationship with severity of insomnia. A total of 118 firefighters were asked to fill in a questionnaire. The study found that MSDs were present in over half of the participants, with lower back pain the most common complaint (30.5%). One in five of the firefighters assessed had
subclinical insomnia too, with 30% of them experiencing moderate to severe insomnia. The findings come as an estimated 498,000 British workers suffered from MSDs caused, or made worse, by their
current or past work in 2018-19, according to the UK Health and Safety Executive. Researcher Dr Zohreh Yazdi said the results highlight ‘the need for preventive activities to better protect the occupational health of this vulnerable group’. View the paper at bit.ly/PPHS-Yazdi and access IOSH resources for MSDs at iosh.com/ MSD-toolkit
MARCH/APRIL 2020 | IOSHMAGAZINE.COM
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