With winter well underway, and forecasters predicting some cold weather to hit us, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has published some great Information about how to keep yourself and employees safe in the cold weather.

Is there a minimum temperature a workplace must be?

The HSE say the minimum temperature for an indoor workplace should normally be at least 16°C or 13°C if the work involved rigorous physical effort.

As an employer it is your legal responsibility to protect workers from the cold and you must provide a reasonable indoor temperature in the workplace.

Here are practical steps you can take to keep people as comfortable as possible when working indoors in the cold:

• Provide adequate workplace heating, such as portable heaters, to ensure work areas are warm enough when they are occupied
• Provide rest facilities where necessary, eg for hot work or warm clothing in cold stores
• Provide heating systems which do not give off dangerous or offensive levels of fume into the workplace

When people are too cold

You can take these practical steps to keep people as comfortable as possible when working in the cold:

• Increase heating options if current ones are still insufficient to reach the minimum temperature
• Design processes that minimise exposure to cold areas and cold products
• Provide insulating floor coverings or special footwear when workers have to stand for long periods on cold floors
• Provide appropriate protective clothing for cold environments

You can also change work systems:

• Limit exposure by introducing systems such as flexible working patterns or job rotation
• Provide enough breaks to allow workers to get hot drinks or warm up in heated areas

What your workers think

Even if you think you have everything in place, what do your workers think?  Are they uncomfortable with the working conditions?

Are they still showing signs of discomfort?

This checklist will help you carry out a basic risk assessment of workplace temperatures, and it works for both cold and hot, so you could assess this throughout the year several times on days where extreme temperatures are likely to impact the workplace.

If you answer ‘yes’ to at least two of these questions you should assess the risks and find out how you can protect your workers.

Air temperature

• Does the air feel warm or hot?
• Does the workplace temperature change during a normal working day?
• Does the workplace temperature change a lot during hot or cold weather?

Radiant temperature

• Is there a heat source in the environment, for example machinery?
• Is there any equipment that produces steam?
• Is work being done outdoors?

Humidity

• Are your workers wearing personal protective equipment that allows air to flow through?
• Do your workers complain that the air is too dry?
• Do your workers complain that the air is humid?

Air movement

• Is cold or warm air blowing directly into the workspace?
• Are employees complaining of draughts?

Workers’ metabolic rate

• Is work rate moderate to intensive in warm or hot conditions?
• Are workers mainly seated in cool or cold environments?

Personal protective equipment (PPE)

• Is PPE being worn that protects against harmful toxins, chemicals, asbestos, flames, extreme heat etc?
• Can workers make changes to their clothing in response to high or low temperatures?
• Is respiratory protection being worn?

For the full list of managing temperature in the workplace, please see the full article.

So let’s all enjoy the winter weather as safely and as comfortably as possible.