Occupational safety for financial services and fintech

• Financial services & fintech

A hundred identical desks: the workstation estate in financial services

Large estates of identical screen workstations are typical. A setup fault reappears at every desk, and a correction takes effect at every desk too.

The Occupational Health and Safety Act allows for this pattern: where working conditions are the same, assessing one workstation or one activity is sufficient (section 5 (2) ArbSchG). One carefully assessed model workstation per type can therefore replace a great many individual forms. The precondition is that the desks really are the same. A trading desk with four monitors, a corner desk against the glass façade or a desk adapted for an employee with a disability each counts as a type of its own. What applies to accessible workstations is covered in Accessible workplaces under ArbStättV.

DGUV Regulation 25 on robbery prevention names financial services and payment institutions explicitly, but it applies only where employees handle cash, other means of payment or valuables. A bureau de change or a money transfer service that accepts cash falls within it; an asset manager without cash holdings normally does not.

How financial services firms are classified under DGUV Regulation 2

All employees count towards the thresholds, including working students and casual staff. Part-time staff count proportionally towards the threshold of 20: up to 20 hours a week as 0.5, up to 30 hours as 0.75. A fintech with 18 full-time staff and six part-timers on 20 hours each therefore reaches 21 and is above the threshold.

What the risk assessment in financial services has to cover

• Repeated faults across the estate. Identical workstations mean identical faults: the same monitor height, the same viewing distance, the same glare. A sample is enough to find them, but the correction has to reach the whole estate.
• Offered eyesight screening. For screen work, occupational health screening has to be offered. The most common shortcoming is not the absence of the screening but the absence of evidence that it was offered.
• Glare and solar shading. Large window fronts combined with missing or ineffective solar shading are the most common finding at screen workstations in office towers.
• Deadline density and regulation. Reporting and filing obligations create recurring peaks with fixed dates. They are predictable and therefore belong in the assessment under section 5 paragraph 3 ArbSchG.

The simplest evidence that eyesight screening was offered is a dated offer per person, filed with the records. Whether screen work glasses are then needed and who pays for them is covered in Screen work glasses: when the employer pays.

Walkthroughs in financial services: what repeats across the estate

The workstations are usually uniform and well equipped, and that itself produces the typical pattern. The recurring findings are monitor height and viewing distance across the whole estate, glare from window fronts with no effective solar shading, and eyesight screening that exists but was never demonstrably offered.

Safety training for financial services staff

The focus is on employees adjusting their own workstation, because central specifications alone cannot cover individual body dimensions. Add information about whether screening is actually offered, which belongs in the record, and the rules on screen breaks. For reporting peaks, breaks and cover belong in the training.

Many teams work on a hybrid basis, so the setup guidance applies to the desk at home as well. What has to be assessed there differs between telework and mobile working. Risk assessment for remote work and telework explains the difference.

Related

• External occupational safety specialist: Who provides basic support for your estate and how the hours are divided.
• Occupational safety for banks and savings banks: With branch business, cash and robbery prevention.
• Occupational safety for software and tech: For fintechs that work much like a software house day to day.
• Setting up a screen workstation correctly: Dimensions and settings as the basis for the model workstation.
• The occupational physician in the office: When an occupational physician has to be appointed.
• Support-hours calculator: Basic support in hours for your headcount.

Legal basis

• Occupational Health and Safety Act (ArbSchG)
• Workplace Ordinance (ArbStättV)
• DGUV Regulation 2 (occupational physicians and safety specialists)

Frequently asked questions