By Daniel Grynberg
Victoria’s proposed work-from-home laws are changing, but one thing has not: employers still need to manage the health and safety risks associated with working from home.
There has been another significant development in Victoria’s proposed WFH laws. The state’s new Premier, Ben Carroll, has indicated that the Government intends to proceed with a right for eligible employees to work from home at least two days a week where reasonable.
One part of the original proposal, however, appears set to change: employers would no longer automatically be required to pay for an employee’s home-office setup.
For many employers, that will be welcome news. But it also creates a distinction that can get lost in the headlines:
Not having to automatically buy home-office equipment is not the same as having no responsibility for employees’ health and safety when they work from home.
WFH safety is about more than equipment
For years, workplace ergonomics was often reduced to a few basic questions: Does the employee have a suitable chair? Is the monitor at the right height? Do they need a separate keyboard and mouse?
Those things matter. I have assessed hundreds of people working from home, and poor workstation setup can contribute to neck, shoulder, back, wrist and other musculoskeletal problems.
But a safe and sustainable home-working arrangement involves much more than equipment. Safe Work Australia identifies a broader range of potential hazards, including inadequate lighting or temperature, sedentary work, fatigue, long hours, poor support, unclear roles and other psychosocial hazards.
So the question should not simply be, “Who is paying for the chair?” It should be: “What risks are present, and how are we managing them?”
The workplace extends beyond the office
An employee might work at home two days a week, in the corporate office another day and at a different company location for the rest of the week. For the employee, that is simply their working week. For an employer, it means managing health and safety across a more distributed workplace.
Safe Work Australia makes clear that the duty to manage health and safety risks extends to employees working from home. Employers must manage risks so far as is reasonably practicable and consult workers about health and safety matters that affect them. WorkSafe Victoria also says employers have duties to employees working from home and should consult them, and their health and safety representatives, about risks and controls.
This does not mean an employer needs to inspect every spare bedroom. It does mean having a reasonable way to understand and manage the risks, with a process that works across the organisation.
Assess the risk before buying equipment
One mistake I regularly see is jumping straight from “there is a problem” to “let’s buy some equipment”. Sometimes that is the right response. Sometimes it isn’t.
An employee with neck discomfort may already have a suitable chair. The issue might be that their laptop is on the dining table, forcing them to look down for hours. Another employee may have a sit-stand desk but barely move all day. Someone else might have good equipment but regularly work through lunch, answer emails late at night and feel disconnected from their manager and colleagues.
These are different risks and may need different responses. That is why assessment should come before intervention.
Good ergonomics is not about buying the most expensive chair. It is about matching the work environment, equipment and work practices to the person doing the work.
Consider physical and psychosocial health together
A person working at home with back pain may also be dealing with a high workload, poor support or difficulty switching off. Those factors can interact.
WorkSafe Victoria describes psychosocial hazards as aspects of work design or management that can increase work-related stress and potentially lead to psychological or physical harm. Victoria’s psychological health regulations have also strengthened employers’ requirements to identify and control these risks.
Safe Work Australia identifies poor support, low role clarity, high or low job demands and fatigue among potential WFH hazards.
A WFH assessment should therefore ask more than, “Is your screen at eye level?” It could also consider:
- Do you feel adequately supported when working remotely?
- Are expectations around availability clear?
- Are you regularly working outside normal hours?
- Do you take appropriate breaks?
- Do you feel connected with your manager and team?
- Is anything about your working arrangement making it difficult to do your job safely or effectively?
These questions do not turn an ergonomic assessment into a psychological examination. They are sensible workplace risk questions.
Build a process that works at scale
Managing one person working from home may be straightforward. Managing 300 is different.
Imagine an organisation with 500 employees, 350 of whom work remotely two or three days a week. How does HR or WHS know whether they have received appropriate training, assessed their workstation, understand how to report discomfort or hazards, or need further support?
If the answer involves multiple spreadsheets, forms, email chains and managers remembering to follow up, the system can quickly become difficult to manage.
The next step for hybrid workplace health and safety is moving from individual WFH arrangements to organisational WFH systems.
Employers can start by asking five practical questions:
- Do we know where our people are working? You cannot manage a risk you do not know exists.
- Have employees received practical WFH safety training? An intranet policy is not the same as showing someone how to work safely.
- Has the home workstation been assessed? A structured self-assessment may be enough for many employees, with higher-risk situations referred for professional ergonomic assessment.
- Are we considering psychosocial as well as physical risks? Workload, support, isolation, communication, role clarity, working hours and boundaries all matter.
- Can we show what we have done? Training, assessments, identified risks, recommendations and follow-up should create a useful record.
Whether Victoria’s proposed legislation commences as planned or is amended further, employers do not need to wait to improve their processes.
Make WFH safety manageable
There is understandable concern that more WFH regulation could create extra work for HR, WHS teams and managers. A well-designed system should make the process easier to manage.
Employees should be able to complete appropriate training and assessments independently. Low-risk issues should receive useful guidance without unnecessary manual intervention. Higher-risk issues should be identified and escalated, and managers should be able to see what needs attention.
That is the thinking behind Active Health Partners’ Hybrid Work Hub. The aim is to help organisations identify issues early, provide the right level of support and keep a clear record of how they are managing hybrid work.
The bigger picture
The Victorian WFH debate will continue, with discussion about productivity, CBD activity, flexibility, business costs and the balance of employer and employee responsibilities.
From a health and safety perspective, the principle is straightforward: if work is happening at home, employers need a sensible way to make sure it can be done safely.
That does not mean every employee needs a $1,500 chair or an in-home visit from an ergonomist. It means having a proportionate, practical and repeatable process for training people, identifying risks and responding when support is needed.
As hybrid work becomes a lasting part of Australian employment, that is where employers should focus.
Daniel Grynberg is Director of Active Health Partners and works with Australian organisations to improve hybrid workplace health, safety, ergonomics and employee wellbeing. Active Health Partners provides workplace training, ergonomic assessments and hybrid workplace health and safety solutions for organisations across Australia.
