Is it safe to remove read, write, and execute permissions for 'others' recursively on home directory?
That depends on what is running on the server. If you have a web server running and serving other user's content from their home directories than the web server would not be able to read those files. 

When making this decision the group that the users belong to is also important. If all users are members of the staff group for example and if the home directories have read and execute permission for that group than other users will still be able to access those directories.

However in general it should be safe and probably even the preferred method.