I do think there is a bit of an OH&S dilemma when employers agree to let employed staff work from home. There are lots of occasions where that is a good option for the employee (did it a fair bit when I was a salary person – less disturbances for red hot deadlines etc etc). And with facilities like Skype there will be an increasing tendency for that to happen, particularly as worker-employer relationships become more \”mature\”. (Code for employer\’s learning to trust their employees more.)

Where does the employer\’s obligations begin and end there though (i.e. allowing an employee to work from home occasionally)? I have seen some guidance from one of the Australian regulators about this topic. Unfortunately I didn\’t keep a copy and can\’t find it via a Google search now. My recollection was that it talked about the employer considering doing an independent risk assessment of the employee\’s working area before allowing an employee work from home. Personally, I think that\’s silly.

Even if someone considered it legitimate or reasonable for the boss (or a bosses rep) to do a risk assessment of their home, how can anyone be confident that all conditions at the home work station or its surrounds will stay that way? Home spaces are dynamic places.

Clearly, in the context of \”reasonably practicable\” I think, once an employer has agreed to an employee work from home, all that can be expected is the employer is satisfied that the employee understands all the fundamental advice about setting up a workstation sensibly. To expect risk control beyond that is unrealistic.

In fact, it could be argued that an employer, by agreeing to an employer staying home to work has eliminated a risk that is real, but never factored in, due to the way accident compensation legislation tends to be framed, and that is avoiding perhaps one of the highest risk activity an office worker is exposed to: the commute to the office – particularly if the worker uses a car to commute.

An employer who isn\’t providing adequate work spaces at the workplace and encourages home work as way around the problem is one thing. But providing the opportunity to work from home, given that it is a choice the worker has made, should be seen as an opportunity to reduce a perceived source of stress or at very least an option that the worker sees as very desirable.

Another issue is the welfare benefit (an interesting OH&S issue that I don\’t think is dealt with well). A case in point could be a worker who has a sick child that needs to stay home from school. Isn\’t it better to allow a worker to stay home and work, rather than have anxiety creating issues of having to take leave when the worker knows that all that may be needed is for him or her to be at the home to keep an eye on the kid? In effect, the employee has lost a days leave that would ordinarily be used to rest and instead would have been able to continue to deliver a good day\’s work. (The disruption of keeping an eye on a sick child is probably not any different to the ordinary socialising disruption when at the office. Or the disruption from posting on blog sites for that matter!)

All in all, I think once an employer has the trust in a worker to allow that person to work from home, and once it\’s clear that the worker understands important basic principles about having a good safe workstation, then any OH&S obligations on the employer should be seen as being satisfied. Compelling a worker to work from home is a different \”kettle of fish\” but I suspect that\’s a rare thing.