Are you meeting your safety obligations for work from home employees?

When an employee works from home, you are still responsible for managing work related health and safety risks. Their home in some respects becomes an additional work site.

To add more complexity, the rules that apply vary according to the state in which the employee works, rather than where the business is based. This may mean employees working from home across state borders create additional obligations for you as the employer.

What are employer safety obligations for employees working from home?

Like at a company work site, an employer has a range of responsibilities so far as are reasonably practicable.

1. Identifying hazards and assessing risks

• Ergonomics and workstation setup
• Electrical equipment and cords
• Isolation and lack of communication
• Lighting, ventilation
• Manual handling
• Psychological health and psycho-social hazards
• Slips, trips and falls
• Working hours, fatigue and workload

2. Ensuring appropriate controls are in place

As the employer, you may need to provide equipment such as an appropriate chair, monitor, keyboard, mouse or other equipment necessary to perform the work safely. WorkSafe Victoria for example, specifically identifies a suitable desk/table, supportive chair and appropriate computer equipment as important elements of a home workstation. However, this will differ state to state.

3. Consultation with employees

Employers must consult employees, so far as reasonably practicable, about health and safety issues that directly affect them. This includes identifying hazards and deciding how risks associated with home working will be controlled.

This should not be a once off consultation. It is important to discuss key aspects of health and safety on a regularly basis.

4. Check in regularly, monitoring wellbeing and working conditions.

Employers should maintain regular communication, monitor workload, make sure employees have adequate support and ensure work can reasonably be performed safely from home. This is not just essential from a psychosocial perspective. Check in to make sure nothing has changed and directly ask if any assistance is required to maintain a safe work environment.

An agenda item in a regular performance meeting or one-on-one can help generate discussion and identify any potential issues.  

5. Manage psychological health

This is particularly important. Working from home can create risks associated with isolation, excessive workload, inadequate support, poor work/life boundaries and lack of social interaction. Training for managers, along with robust processes to identify and manage potential risks, are important steps in keeping employees safe.

6. Have a process for reporting injuries and hazards

Employees should know how to report an injury or hazard. There needs to be a dedicated contact person and procedure for this.

7. Ensure that the employee notifies you to any change in their working environment.

The employee physically moving house will require a new assessment. Existing equipment should be reviewed to ensure it is suitable in the new working environment.

8. Does the employer have to inspect the employee's home?

Not necessarily. WorkSafe in Victoria, for example, says an employer should inspect a home working environment, but this doesn't necessarily require a physical visit. A home-office assessment or employee-completed checklist can be used to identify hazards and controls.

You cannot outsource health and safety responsibility just because you do not control the physical workspace, so it’s crucial to be diligent. Photographs of the workspace help to provide a visual, or alternatively joint assessments can be conducted via video call. Both options allow you to physically see where your employee is working.

What about injuries at home?

This can be a grey area. Whether or not an injury is covered by workers' compensation depends on the state and the circumstances giving rise to the injury.

The injury will most likely need to be related to a work activity in order for there to be compensation payable. It is recommended you check with your insurer when you are reviewing your policy annually, to get a better understanding.

Employee safety responsibilities when working from home

The employee’s safety responsibilities don’t change simply because they’re working from home. If anything, they increase. For example, being diligent in relation to tripping hazards, or walking up and down stairs become even more important without others to share that responsibilities, or signage to remind staff.

Psycho-social hazards still need to be addressed in the same way as if offending interactions occurred "face-to-face". While remote work creates a physical barrier between staff, this does not mean that a barrier is said to exist in cases of bullying, harassment or other psycho-social issues. A WFH induction is recommended to set expectations in relation to responsibilities and behaviours.

While this article focuses specifically on WFH in relation to workplace health and safety risk, it is also essential that you have your employment risk covered. We answer work from home policy FAQs here.

If you are considering a request from an employee to work from home, get in touch with an expert first. Call Dean Sherriff on 0458 026 609.