UK workplaces have two legal requirements during heatwave
As a sweltering heatwave +30°C continues tearing its way through the UK, questions have been raised over workplace rights.
Temperatures yesterday (25 May) annihilated the highest daily minimum recorded for the second day in a row, following a scorching bank holiday Sunday.
The warmth even refused to wear off for the evening, with London locals suffering daytime highs of 34.8°C and lows of 21.3°C throughout the night.
"We rarely see temperatures above 35°C, even in the summer months," Met Office meteorologist Tom Morgan noted. "So, to see temperatures getting close to 35°C in May is, as I say, pretty historic."
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Until today, the blazing sun and blistering heat were considered a happy accompaniment to a three-day weekend.
This morning, however, millions of Brits were forced to return to work, many trekking into their city-centre offices on jam-packed trains, sweaty underground tubes and overcrowded buses.
Making things worse is the fact that many offices built in bustling UK cities were designed to keep the heat in during the cold winter months, and as such, don't permit fresh air to move freely.
You'd also be hard-pressed to locate air conditioning facilities in the vast majority of British workplaces.
If you're lucky enough to work at a company with more liberal rules when it comes to working from home, you might be able to sneak back on your lunch break, get your kit off and cool down. In stricter establishments, however, employees can feel trapped within the confines of stuffy offices.
Unsurprisingly, this tricky situation has unearthed a number of vital questions regarding rights within the workplace.
Let's tackle the bad news first. There's currently no legal maximum working temperature in the UK. There's a minimum workplace temperature of 16°C, or 13°C for physically laborious jobs, but 'no meaningful upper limit'.
This is because some workplaces require warmth for production, like bakeries.
The downside of this is, however, that employees can't legally stop working when temperatures are unexpectedly high.
What they can do, however, is raise concerns with their boss.
Employers have a legal duty of care to ensure the safety of their staff, and as such, they must follow two major legal health and safety regulations.
1) They must keep temperatures at a comfortable level.
2) They must provide clean and fresh air.
In workplaces where the work can't simply stop, the HSE (Health and Safety Executive) recommends the following advice to employers to ensure they're abiding by the two rules mentioned above:
- Provide fans or air conditioning facilities
- Improve ventilation and allowing windows to open
- Use blinds or reflective film to block direct sunlight
- Move workstations away from heat sources
- Supply free cold drinking water
The HSE also suggest employees take their safety into their own hands during unexpected heatwaves like this, possibly by:
- Introducing flexible hours or job rotation
- Moving staff to cooler areas where possible
- Allowing extra breaks
- Relaxing dress codes where safe to do so
Rhianna Benson