The future of working looks different for every organisation. Although some employees are making a return to the office, many will continue to work from home for the foreseeable future. With these changes, there is a greater need to equip employees to work remotely to help manage risk – and that’s where procurement and health and safety plays a big role.
We spoke to Primrose Wilkinson, Procurement Team Leader and Sean Matthews, Head of Facilities at Winc about the importance of ensuring remote workers have access to the equipment they need to work safely and effectively. They outline four benefits for organisations who make the choice to be actively involved in maintaining their employees’ home office.
“With the rapid transition to working from home, procurement needs to support the businesses safety team to ensure employees have a safe work environment. A great benefit of purchasing from a contracted supplier is that you can ensure you have a consistently high standard of quality and uniformity of products for employees that support safe remote working, like ergonomic furniture,” Primrose shares.
Primrose warns that leaving employees to purchase their own equipment from various stores can expose your organisation to the sting of retail prices. “Retaining home office spends with a single source supplier can save your business a lot in the long run. Centralising procurement to cover both home and office needs will support businesses to manage their spend and provide traceability. Now that many people are working from home, it’s easy for them to purchase products individually, which they’ll later expense claim. The problem with this is that those purchases are often harder to trace and employees have no control over rates, so they could be paying a lot more. Then there’s the additional effort required to process the extra paperwork.”
Sean Matthews stresses the importance of responsible procurement for risk management, “managing how employees are set up at home by providing the right equipment is a good way to mitigate safety risks. Adjustable chairs and sit-stand desks are just two ways you can help ensure your employees’ health and safety while they are working from home. This can help prevent strain on the body and injuries in the long run.”
He continues, “the cost of workplace injury during the Coronavirus crisis is set to sky rocket – some are calling it a ticking time bomb! While it is still early days, it is likely that employers will bear the associated financial costs. To protect workers, it is important employers take reasonable steps to ensure employee safety, including making sure an employee’s home area meets workplace health and safety requirements. At a minimum that means completing a risk assessment.”
“If the team can log on and purchase everything they need through a consolidated supplier like Winc, it’s much faster than visiting several different websites and placing multiple orders,” says Primrose.
With a curated Home Office range of products carefully selected to provide an elevated work from home experience, employers can quickly and easily source the products their employees need to get the job done from home, safely and productively.
Primrose adds, “this situation has introduced a lot of change and we know that it will continue to have long-term impacts. The objectives that we work towards in procurement are still largely the same, but the execution from home is very different. To support a productive team, now is the right time to work closely with suppliers to make sure that employees are set up to get their work done, no matter where they’re working.”
Winc’s ergonomically designed Home Office range can provide all the essentials your employees need for a great home office. With Winc Home Delivery, we can also enable your staff to choose what they need and have it delivered to their door. With three different Winc Home Delivery offers including standard, special and bulk, Winc is here to support you to support your remote workforce.
Looking to refresh your employees home office setup? Shop the Winc home office range today. Or for more information on Winc Home Delivery, register your organisations interest here.
