If an employee is hurt while working from home, is it a workplace injury?
When “the workplace” can mean anything from the office to the bedroom to the café down the street, how does liability adapt? As hybrid work settles into some kind of permanence, questions of liability, insurance and privacy are continuing to vex workplace managers.
“Liability headaches are heaping up for companies in a range of industries as large numbers of employees work from home,” writes Rita Trichur, in The Globe and Mail. “They involve everything from occupational health and safety issues to privacy and security concerns. If an employee is hurt while working from home, is it a workplace injury? Should businesses provide workers with ergonomic chairs for remote work? Can health benefits be extended to workers residing in far-flung jurisdictions?”
It’s a legal issue that hasn’t yet been fully worked out. A 2021 Quebec case ruled that an Air Canada call centre employee working from home who fell did constitute a workplace injury.
“If I injure myself at home, but it’s because I’m doing laundry or taking the garbage out or something that’s not work-related, well then, that wouldn’t be considered a workplace injury,” said employment lawyer Samara Belitzky. “If [workers] injure themselves at their desk ― they hurt their wrist or they hurt their arm while they’re working ― that would be something that would be considered a workplace injury.”
What many legal and insurance experts recommend is that employers craft a work from home policy as part of the OH&S plans, which are usually required by law.
“Employers must still comply with employment-related legal obligations ― some of which, such as ensuring their health and safety in the home workplace, employers might not expect,” write McInnes Cooper’s Alex Warshick and Michael Murphy. “If these models of work persist, it’s likely employer compliance will be tested as a result of at-home injuries or investigation by OH&S authorities. Employers would do well to get ahead of any occupational health and safety issues in this next normal.”
Content written by Kieran Delamont for Worklife, a partnership between Ahria Consulting and London Inc. To view this content in newsletter form, click here.