During the pandemic, HSE Network covered coronavirus and workplace safety closely, publishing a steady run of articles as the guidance, the rules and the day to day reality kept shifting. We have taken the time to pull that coverage together into a single page.
The crisis has moved on, but a lot of what was written about risk assessment, employee wellbeing, enforcement and the law still holds up, and it can be worth reflecting back on. What follows is a consolidated look at what we reported at the time.
Looking after people
When offices emptied almost overnight, employee mental health quickly became one of the harder problems to manage. People lost the everyday social contact that work provides, and managers and supervisors found themselves fielding far more concerns from anxious teams. The practical answer was to rethink how support and training were offered, moving mental health training online rather than bringing people together in a room, and giving employees clear coping strategies and an obvious route to help if things became overwhelming.
A related shift was the sheer number of people who became lone workers overnight. Lone working was nothing new for delivery drivers, security staff or cleaners, but home workers fell into the same category, often without anyone treating them that way. The advice on looking after lone workers was straightforward: schedule regular video catch-ups, both informal and structured, so people did not feel cut off; keep offering training and development so staff felt invested in; and put the same weight on mental health as on physical safety, ideally backed by a written lone worker policy so everyone knew the procedures and who to turn to.
One of the bleaker themes was the rise in domestic abuse during lockdown. With the separation that going to work normally provides taken away, people in unsafe homes were left with far fewer ways to escape, and helplines reported a surge in calls. Although domestic abuse sits outside the usual remit of workplace safety, employers were encouraged to play a part: training staff to recognise the warning signs, since people often confide in a colleague before anyone else; building a support network across HR, managers and employee assistance programmes; and helping at-risk employees think through a personal safety plan. The key UK contacts are still worth keeping to hand.
Risk assessment and day to day controls
As workplaces began to reopen, the risk assessment did a lot of the heavy lifting. The principle had not changed, but COVID called for a tailored assessment that looked specifically at how the virus could spread in a given setting. We published a downloadable example assessment for an office environment as a starting point, with the firm caveat that every workplace is different and the document needed adapting to each organisation rather than copying wholesale.
For the people actually running workplace safety, the job got considerably harder. Drawing on early findings from a Griffith University study, we set out four challenges safety managers were facing. The first was simply keeping pace with restrictions that changed constantly, then turning them into something practical for frontline staff.
The second was the risk that COVID responses created new problems of their own, from fatigue to the mental strain of long spells away from colleagues, while routine safety work slipped down the list. The third was the lack of time to consult properly with staff and contractors, despite consultation being a legal expectation. The fourth was a sense among safety managers of being disempowered and less effective while working remotely, cut off from the shop floor relationships that good safety depends on. The suggested way through was more frequent and transparent communication, adapting systems of work as conditions changed, and a more relationship-led style of leadership.
Face coverings became part of daily life, and wearing one properly mattered more than people assumed. Drawing on World Health Organisation guidance, the essentials were to clean your hands before putting a mask on and after taking it off, to make sure it covered the nose, mouth and chin with no gaps, to remove it by the straps rather than the front, and to wash a fabric mask daily. The things to avoid were just as important: no loose, damp or damaged masks, nothing worn under the nose, and no sharing. It was also worth being clear that fabric face coverings are not classed as PPE outside a medical setting, since they meet no manufacturing standard and do not protect against dust or spray.
By the time the roadmap out of lockdown arrived, workplace testing had become another tool for getting people back safely. The rationale was that a large share of new infections came from people with no symptoms, so regular testing could pick up cases that would otherwise spread unnoticed and give staff and customers more confidence. Testing was voluntary for employers rather than required, but for organisations whose staff could not work from home it offered a practical way to keep operating.
The legal and reporting questions
A recurring question was whether a confirmed case of COVID in the workplace needed a RIDDOR report. The answer was that it depended on where the infection came from. A case was only reportable if it was down to occupational exposure, broadly in three situations: a worker diagnosed after being exposed at work, a death linked to occupational exposure, or an incident that led to coronavirus being released or escaping in the workplace. If someone caught the virus elsewhere, no report was needed, and it fell to the responsible person to make that judgement. Separately, COVID was made notifiable when diagnosed in a medical setting, and certain groups, including pregnant women and those with underlying conditions, needed their own risk assessments before returning.
As the vaccine rolled out, attention turned to whether employers could require it. Ministers suggested that existing health and safety law, with its duty on workers to protect themselves and others, might protect employers who insisted, and the ‘jab for a job’ tag stuck. It was contentious. Some argued it was justified on public health grounds, while others warned it risked discrimination, particularly given lower take-up in some communities. The Prime Minister’s spokesperson took a different line, stating that vaccination was not mandatory and that forcing it on someone would be discriminatory.
Regulation, guidance and enforcement
Some of the earliest guidance we covered came from the United States, where OSHA published a document to help workplaces prepare in March 2020. It was guidance rather than regulation, but it gave employers an early framework: what the virus was, how an outbreak could affect a workplace, the steps any employer could take to reduce exposure, and a way of classifying jobs by their level of risk.
Closer to home, much of our reporting followed the Health and Safety Executive’s enforcement activity through the pandemic. From late summer 2020 the HSE stepped up spot inspections, first in Oldham and Pendle and then in Bolton and Trafford, as the government encouraged people back to work and local case rates climbed. By late November it was warning that the surge in Christmas retail orders could itself create COVID risk.
The enforcement effort drew criticism as well as scrutiny. In January 2021 the HSE’s chief executive, Sarah Albon, publicly defended its approach after a wave of complaints about unsafe workplaces, pointing to more than 134,000 complaints received, 32,000 site inspections carried out and 192 enforcement notices issued, and stressing that the aim was to get employers to put things right co-operatively before formal action. The following month the regulator came under pressure from Labour, which called for a review into why so few workplaces had been closed despite the risks. By May 2021, with lockdown easing, the message was that spot checks were not winding down and would continue through the year.
Looking further ahead: vaccines and safety culture
Even as the rollout gathered pace, there were early signals that COVID might not be a one-off. Colm Henry, the chief clinical officer of Ireland’s Health Service Executive, noted evidence that immunity could wane after around six months and raised the prospect of annual vaccinations, much like the seasonal flu jab. It chimed with a wider note of caution, including from the UK’s chief medical adviser, that it was too easy to assume the worst was over.
Perhaps the most reflective piece we ran, from Cority, looked at how the pandemic was reshaping safety culture and leadership for the longer term. The argument was that COVID had stripped things back to a simple truth, that health and safety is ultimately about people, and that it had shown a real link between managing safety well and a business surviving. Rather than treating safety as a cost to cut in hard times, the case was for investing in it and using it to demonstrate value, broadening attention back out to the risks that existed before the pandemic, and leaning on better data to spot problems early and build resilience.
Looking back, what stands out is how fast health and safety teams had to adapt. Much of what they leaned on, sound risk assessments, genuine support for employees, clear communication and a readiness to enforce, was good practice all along, brought into sharp focus by the pandemic. If any of this was useful at the time, it is all still here in one place.
