What specific individual needs do you want to be considered?

Your line manager may ask you to complete the remote working agreement form to specify your individual needs and considerations. Alternatively, you may be asked to email requests or fill in a departmental form or questionnaire. The remote working agreement form will help you start to think about the types of things you may be asked, or would like to be considered, so it's worth reading it, even if you don't need to complete it.

Personal circumstances
You may wish to discuss specific personal circumstances that you would like to be taken into account by your manager. This could include:

• equality considerations
• access to an appropriate workspace and equipment within the home/designated remote workspace
• whether suitable privacy is available, if needed
• any caring responsibilities eg childcare or care for a relative
• interruptions to your work that could be challenging
• reservations about returning to campus
• travel
• health, safety and wellbeing concerns (as detailed in the next section of this guidance)

During working hours, all staff members need to be able to focus on work. Whilst remote working means there are inevitable distractions within the working day, these should be minimised as far as possible to ensure the required level of concentration and focus on work can be applied. Where unforeseen circumstances arise and a member of staff is called upon to care for a dependent during the working day, you may want to consider asking for some short term flexibility to help balance your responsibilities for caring with work. Further information can be found in the Leave in Special Circumstances policy.

Health, safety and wellbeing
Your wellbeing is a key consideration. We know some people have found remote working detrimental to their mental health and wellbeing, whilst others have had a more positive experience. You might want to draw from specific recent examples that you have experienced and highlight the impact of these during your discussion.

You may already have appropriate support and understanding from your manager with regards to health and wellbeing. The remote working discussion could also be an opportunity to raise any health, safety and wellbeing matters, including the disclosure of a disability or health condition.

Disclosing a disability is entirely voluntary, however, the University encourages disclosure to ensure that reasonable adjustments can be made to provide support and remove barriers to the workplace. There is a wealth of information, resources and guidance available to both individuals and managers to ensure that appropriate support can be identified and provided. If you are considering disclosing a disability, you may find it helpful to review the webpages on support for disabled staff in preparation.

If you already have reasonable adjustments in place as a result of a disability or health condition, a review may be helpful in realigning the support required, in view of changes to the way of working.

If you use any special equipment you may want to discuss this and what changes to your work location may mean. Consider whether you need special equipment in both your remote workplace and when working on campus. In certain cases, the provision of particular items in both locations may be reasonable and this will be looked at on a case-by-case basis. Where necessary, you and your manager can seek advice from Occupational Health (OH) and Health and Safety colleagues.