In recent times, the impact of implementing teleworking across all sectors and economic activities has been increasing. For this reason, in this article we will address the relationship between teleworking and the two areas that directly affect us: health and safety and construction. To discuss health and safety and teleworking in construction, it is first necessary to address the concept of teleworking. We will then relate both concepts and raise some of the issues that, at GespreObra, we consider of interest.
What is teleworking?
Although Spanish legislation makes explicit references to remote work, such as in Article 13 of the Workers’ Statute, there is no legal concept of teleworking as such.
There is, however, a commonly accepted concept of teleworking that aligns with the definition the ILO provides for “home work”. Thus, teleworking can be said to be work that meets the following requirements:
- It is carried out in the worker’s home or in other places of their choosing, different from the employer’s premises
- In exchange for remuneration
- For the purpose of producing a product or providing a service in accordance with the employer’s specifications, regardless of who provides the equipment, materials, or other elements used to do so.
In short, teleworking can be any provision of services performed outside an employer’s or client’s premises, using information technologies.
Teleworking in construction
It is clear that applying the aforementioned criteria in the construction sector may be difficult for on-site works execution. Nevertheless, there are many ancillary tasks which, as of today, would not require a physical presence on site. In practice, many technical and administrative tasks are already carried out away from the workplace. Why not from home?
In fact, these changes have been taking place progressively over time, almost without us noticing, with certain tasks that, until not so long ago, would have been unthinkable to perform remotely. Examples include everything from the cash-in-hand wages that used to be paid weekly in cash, to the document management of occupational risk prevention documentation arising from Royal Decree 171/2004. These are tasks that have been replaced as naturally as new technologies have been incorporated into work.
Teleworking and health and safety
In the business world, and specifically in construction, it is not common to associate the terms health and safety and teleworking. Traditionally, health and safety management has been associated with physical presence at workplaces and construction sites. Perhaps this phenomenon is influenced by the fact that, for a long time, occupational risk prevention was limited to monitoring tasks, at best.
As preventive culture has gradually been integrated into our society and into companies, that perception of work in the area of health and safety has broadened.
In carrying out work related to health and safety in construction, physical presence is indispensable on certain occasions. It is true that, to have a good understanding of the preventive reality, it is necessary to experience the site day by day. However, the division of work and new communication technologies have made it possible for certain management tasks to be carried out remotely. If this were not the case, health and safety management would be unfeasible.
In this regard, we have already mentioned the management of the requirements established in Article 24 of the LPRL, which nowadays can be carried out through platforms (clouds) and other online methods of document exchange. There are also certain site supervision tasks that can be performed via webcams connected to computers or mobile devices. These make access faster and, ultimately, improve site efficiency.
Health and safety and teleworking after Coronavirus
Rarely in history have situations as out of the ordinary arisen as those experienced during the Coronavirus period. We would have to go back to the so-called Spanish flu of more than a hundred years ago to find a pandemic with a similar rate of spread.
In a globalised world such as the one we live in, COVID-19 spread worldwide in just a few months. The measures adopted in virtually all affected countries included, to a greater or lesser extent, social isolation and the consequent confinement of the population. In Spain, many companies in sectors considered non-essential have had to stop their activity. Others, on the contrary, have had to remain operational during the state of alarm and have had to implement teleworking hastily.
Tools such as video conferences had been used for some time, but many companies have rediscovered their usefulness in these difficult times as a means of avoiding unnecessary contact and reducing the likelihood of infection.
Conclusions related to health and safety at work in construction
A company is not sustainable in the long term without an efficient health and safety system. Therefore, a preventive culture and the integration of health and safety at all hierarchical levels of an organisation are fundamental to the organisation’s survival.
On the other hand, the society we live in makes the implementation of new technologies essential in how work is carried out. Companies that have not been able to adapt to new technologies will not be competitive. Teleworking is one of those new ways of working associated with the times we live in (though not so new anymore) that makes a company more competitive for the reasons we have already seen.
Therefore, health and safety and teleworking are concepts that must go hand in hand. Clearly, this creates various challenges that will need to be addressed in each situation. However, if a company has a preventive culture and is flexible enough to adapt to new situations, it should have no problem adapting its health and safety management system—basically because that health and safety system is a fundamental part of the organisation.
