An office seems a quiet place, but it has risks too: tripping over cables, fixed postures for hours, eye strain, stress and, if there is a fire, an evacuation. This course complements the basic occupational risk prevention course. The general concepts are not repeated here: they are applied to office work, study work and remote work.
What the law says
Ley 31/1995 on Occupational Risk Prevention (LPRL) is the basic law. Three ideas matter in an office:
- Article 14: you have the right to effective protection of your safety and health. The employer must guarantee it in every aspect related to work.
- Article 14.5: the cost of safety and health measures can never fall on workers.
- Article 15: the employer applies principles such as avoiding risks, assessing those that cannot be avoided and combating them at source. Collective protection comes before individual protection.
The risk assessment
Under article 16, the employer carries out an initial assessment of the risks of every job and updates it when working conditions change. In an office the assessment looks at, for example:
- the screen workstation (chair, desk, monitor, light);
- the premises (space, temperature, tidiness, exits);
- the organisation (pace, breaks, working hours);
- psychosocial factors (mental workload, relationships, switching off).
Information, consultation and training
- Article 18: you have the right to receive information about the risks of your job and to make proposals to improve protection. The employer must consult its staff.
- Article 19: the employer must give you sufficient and adequate theoretical and practical training, focused on your job. It must do so when you are hired and when your duties or equipment change. You never bear its cost.
- Article 22: health surveillance is, as a general rule, voluntary. There are only limited and justified exceptions.
- Article 24: if several companies work in the same building (a shared office block, a coworking space), they must cooperate on prevention. The company that owns or runs the workplace informs the others of its risks and emergency measures.
Your duties
Article 29 also gives you obligations. You must:
- look after your own safety and that of the people who may be affected by your work;
- use correctly the equipment and means you are given;
- not disable safety devices;
- report immediately to your direct superior any situation that, in your judgement, is a risk;
- cooperate with the employer so that work is safe.
Two rules specific to offices
- Real Decreto 488/1997 (a royal decree, an act of the Spanish government) regulates work with display screens. It is covered in lesson 2.
- Real Decreto 486/1997 regulates workplaces. It is covered in lesson 4.
For those who work remotely, Ley 10/2021 on remote work adds rights and rules of its own (lesson 5).
What this course does not do
This course does not replace the article 19 training that your employer must give you for your job, nor the risk assessment, nor the information about the emergency measures of your workplace. It is a general refresher. Your employer decides what training each job needs.