Global warming at work: why you need to protect your employees

The impact of climate change

It’s hard to escape the effects of climate change nowadays, wherever you are in the world. In the last 30 years, average daily temperatures have become 0.9°C warmer In the UK, according to the State of the UK Climate 2020 report, granting us warmer summers and generally wetter weather across the rest of the year.

Photograph: iStock/LightFieldStudios

July 2022 saw the highest temperature ever recorded in the UK, with a high of 40.3°C recorded in Coningsby, Lincolnshire. With average temperatures rising year-on-year, it’s likely that the UK will continue to see summer temperatures in the mid to high 30°Cs, potentially breaking the current record high in the next few years.

While warm weather over the summer is welcomed by many, these high temperatures also bring negative consequences along with them. Not only can they lead to environmental issues such as drought and fire, but they can also have a variety of effects on people’s health. These range from problems such as excessive sweating to genuinely life-threatening conditions such as heat stroke.

Alongside the large-scale environmental impact, emerging problems like rising temperatures and more extreme weather are beginning to create issues in our individual lives, including in the workplace. In 2022, temperatures exceeding 40°C led to a 6.2 per cent increase in deaths compared to the previous five years. The most significant increase in death rates was among over 65s and vulnerable people, but deaths of under-65s, who make up a large portion of the UK workforce, increased dramatically too.

Keeping the workplace safe for employees is a key legal responsibility for employers, and is relatively straightforward to achieve with the correct risk assessments and risk management approach. But when new risks present themselves at work, such as the increasing risk of heat-related accidents or illness in the summer months, what is the best way for employers to respond?

The risk to employees

Many employers will be used to considering and mitigating the potential risks that their employees may face while in the workplace. But when we look at the projected impact of climate change and the predicted high temperatures for summers to come, a new risk emerges that employers need to be ready to face.

Heatwaves are likely to become more frequent over the coming summers, and with them comes the risk of several heat-related medical conditions. Whether your employees have work tasks and responsibilities that mean they have to spend time outdoors, have to travel into the office, or are working from home, heat-related accidents and illnesses could impact them all.

Liz Longman is a health and safety consultant at Virtual College by Netex, and health and safety consultancy director at Terra Firma 360. Photograph: Virtual College by Netex

When our bodies are subjected to high temperatures for a prolonged period of time, it causes our blood vessels to open and our blood pressure to drop, which means the heart has to work harder. We also sweat more when we’re hot, which helps to lower our core body temperature, but also means that we can get dehydrated faster.

High temperatures and overheating can cause a range of symptoms, including:

• Dizziness
• Nausea
• Headaches
• Fatigue

They can also lead to more serious conditions, such as heat stroke and heat exhaustion, which can require serious medical attention and carry a significant risk of serious complications. Certain people are also more vulnerable to health issues in the heat, including the elderly, people with chronic illnesses and people taking medication that makes them more susceptible to hot weather.

If your employees work outdoors even some of the time, there’s a significant risk of heat-related illnesses or accidents in the summer months when the temperature is very high. Equally, if your workplace is not equipped for hot weather, then employees are also at risk of overheating while at work and could become very unwell as a result.

Under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, all employers are legally responsible for their staff’s wellbeing while at work and must take action to reduce or remove the risk of harm. With this in mind, and the growing risk that UK summers are presenting, employers should be aware of how high temperatures could endanger their workers and take action to protect them.

How to manage heat-related risk

The first stage in successfully managing the risk of high temperatures at work is identifying who is at risk and calculating the potential impact on them. The starting point is to consider the work that employees do and the environment they work in. Are they outdoors, or in a building with suitable air conditioning? Do they complete physically strenuous work that might become harder in the heat?

Also consider whether any employees may be more at risk from high temperatures due to factors like medical conditions. If you have employees who travel for work or work from home, do these circumstances put them at greater or lesser risk at any point?

Next, identify the different scenarios where employees are at risk of heat-related illness and accidents. If all of the workforce work in an office space then this is quite a straightforward task, but if employees work remotely, travel for work, work outdoors or work in a laboratory or workshop space, this could be more time-consuming.

The key action for employers is implementing strategies to help mitigate the risks of high temperatures at work. This might involve reducing the kinds of activities that put employees at risk of overheating, but also introducing processes or equipment that help everyone to safely manage and work in high temperatures.

Some of the most effective actions employers can take to keep their employees safe and well at work in hot weather include:

• Install air conditioning in offices and other workspaces
• Ensure that air-conditioning systems have been serviced before the summer arrives
• Provide fans, either on desks or mounted on the ceiling
• Keep windows open to provide ventilation (though they should generally remain closed if the building has air conditioning, to maximise its effectiveness)
• Consider a summer uniform which makes use of thinner fabric and lighter colours to keep employees cool
• Provide facilities for employees to have cold drinks
• Keep employees shaded from direct sunlight with blinds or reflective film on windows, skylights and glass doors
• Place workstations out of direct sunlight and away from heat sources
• Insulate things in the workplace that emit heat, like pipes
• If work has to take place outside, schedule it in the early morning or late afternoon

During periods of hot weather, employers could also:

• Relax formal dress codes to allow employees to suitably dress for warm weather
• Allow employees to work from home so they don’t have to travel in hot conditions
• Provide rest areas for employees undertaking physical activities
• Allow employees to take more frequent breaks to cool down
• Move employees to cooler parts of the workplace, if possible.

Training is an essential part of making sure that the workforce is prepared to safely cope with the heat of the summer months. For instance, it is essential that workplace first aiders have received up-to-date training so that they know how to handle any heat-related illnesses, should an employee become unwell. Employees should also be educated about the steps they should take to stay well in the heat, such as staying hydrated, avoiding the sun during the middle of the day, and keeping cool using fans, cool cloths and breathable clothing.

Summary

Given the cool and wet weather we typically experience in the UK, it might seem like the risk and impact of high temperatures is something employers will very rarely have to deal with. But with heatwaves predicted to increase in frequency and average temperatures gradually rising, employers who fail to prepare for hot weather are putting their employees at risk.

Mitigating this risk is not difficult, but awareness and planning are required to implement a successful risk management approach. Workplace regulations in the UK do not specify an upper working temperature that employees cannot work at, so it is the responsibility of the employer to ensure that their working environment is safe for employees.

Given that an estimated 37 per cent of UK employees are working remotely in 2024, and 30 per cent work on a hybrid basis, it’s equally important that the measures taken by employers to make company workplaces safe and as comfortable as possible during hot weather are shared with employees so that they can take similar action to protect themselves at home in the summertime. Understanding how to maximise the efficiency of air conditioning, working in cool and well-ventilated spaces, and understanding the symptoms of heat stroke are all important.

Liz Longman is a health and safety consultant at Virtual College by Netex, and health and safety consultancy director at Terra Firma 360.

For more information and advice, see:

virtual-college.co.uk/resources/treating-heat-exhaustion-and-heat-stroke

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