The health and wellbeing of remote mobile workers

With over 1 million people in the UK employed but not having a fixed permanent work site, including sales reps and repair workers, IOM funded by the British Occupational Health Research Foundation undertook a project in 2010 to examine the effects remote and mobile working has on the health and wellbeing of those individuals.

The research highlighted key issues that included psychological distress and musculoskeletal pain reported by the workers. A number of factors including long working hours, high mileage, and lack of contact with work colleagues were linked to these problems.

As a result, IOM created guidance to help better manage remote and mobile worker’s health and wellbeing.