Why winter cold belongs on the estates risk register
Sophie Alvarez, Manager at MILWAUKEE®
When the temperature drops, the teams that keep an estate running cannot simply stop. Grounds staff, maintenance crews and external contractors are facing the elements throughout the coldest months, and the managers responsible owe them a real duty of care.
As things stand, UK law sets no minimum temperature for outdoor work. With no agreed figure on a thermometer at which work must pause, the risk assessment becomes the employer’s main safeguard. Yet, the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 requires managers to protect staff from foreseeable harm, and seasonal cold is about as foreseeable as it gets. That makes winter a hazard to plan for in writing, well before the first hard frost.
What cold does to an outdoor workforce
It’s often overlooked just how much cold changes how the body works. Below 10 Degrees Celsius, and more sharply below 5°, grip weakens and fine motor control fades. Concentration slips and reaction times lengthen. For a grounds team handling machinery or an operative working at height, that loss of dexterity is a real safety risk. Prolonged exposure to cold also brings musculoskeletal strain and prompts the usual run of winter illnesses, which show up as absence. On a lean maintenance rota, a few people signed off in January can stall essential work across a whole site.
Continuity is the business case
For estates across the NHS, education, defence and social housing, outdoor maintenance is not optional. Drainage, grounds, external repairs and safety checks still have to happen on schedule. When cold slows a team or takes people off the roster, the knock-on reaches service levels, contract obligations and, most worryingly, affects safety compliance across the estate. Protecting the workforce through winter is really about protecting continuity of service.
This is part of a wider pattern. Recent FMB and CIOB research found four in ten smaller building firms lost time to extreme weather in the second half of 2025; the single biggest reported cause of delay across the built environment. Estates teams face the same elements, even where the work looks different.
Specifying warmth that works
No matter who’s responsible for procuring winter workwear, they need to keep a key principle in mind: it needs to keep people warm without slowing them down. The traditional approach of piling on heavy layers traps heat but restricts movement, and a worker who cannot reach or grip properly is neither safe nor efficient. Heated workwear has changed what is possible. Instead of extra bulk, the garment carries heating elements the wearer adjusts as conditions change.
MILWAUKEE®’s M12™ HEXON™ range works this way. HEXON HEAT TECHNOLOGY™ uses carbon nanotube heating elements that reach temperature in under two minutes and spread warmth across far more of the garment than older designs. The range covers a puffer jacket, a hoodie and a vest, with the jacket available in men’s and ladies’ cuts, so teams can be kitted to the task and to the person. Heat runs off the same M12™ battery platform found across MILWAUKEE®’s tools, and levels and zones can be set through a phone app. The jacket runs up to 12 hours on a single charge, comfortably covering a full shift, with the vest and hoodie lasting around 11.
That last point matters for procurement. If M12™ batteries already sit in your stores, heated workwear is a straightforward addition rather than a new system to manage and maintain. It is easy to specify and audit, and a modest layout when viewed against the cost of absences, incident claims or a maintenance contract that slips behind schedule.
The wider winter plan
Workwear is one part of a considered approach. Where schedules allow, plan the most exposed tasks for the warmest, brightest hours. Give teams a heated cabin and make sure they take proper breaks to warm up. Specify battery-powered tools and lighting, which hold up in the cold where petrol equipment can be slow to start and daylight runs short. When set against a stalled programme or an injury claim, none of this is a large outlay, and all of it is simple to build into a winter procurement plan.
Each year, we see the same pattern across the facilities sector. The strongest organisations do not freeze up; they look after their people along with their equipment and infrastructure.
Winter will soon be testing every site. Treat the cold as a line on the risk register, prepare for it properly, and you will protect your workforce, your service and your budget in a single move.
