More and more employees were already working from home before the pandemic, but now for many this has become the new normal. As a business what do you have to do and would you be liable for an accident at work if your employee suffered an injury while working from home? Work Accident specialists First4Lawyers have this useful advice for businesses:
Protect your employees’ health and safety
As an employer you have a duty to protect your workers’ health and safety at work. This applies to any kind of work setting from a shop, construction site and even when they are working at home. However, there are caveats when your staff work from home as you do not have control over your employees’ homes.
Carry out a risk assessment
One thing you do have to do is carry out a risk assessment of your employees’ working environments while at home. This is to work out whether the type of tasks they are doing are suitable for working from home. These assessments should be carried out both at the start of any homeworking arrangement and periodically afterwards.
Any assessment would have to take into consideration whether there is enough space and whether there was a chance that your employees could have an accident such as tripping over.
Provide the correct equipment
You have a duty to provide the correct equipment and ensure it is in good working order. It is also incumbent on you to ensure it is maintained.
Would you be liable if your employee has an accident at work while working from home?
Every case needs to be assessed individually but fundamentally you should only be liable if you failed to give the proper training or the equipment provided was not maintained properly. You will only generally be held responsible if the accident that your employee suffered was due to your negligence. As a result, you would have had to have failed to take reasonable care for your employees’ safety. Make sure your staff have the correct tools for the job and maintain that equipment.
Check your insurance
You should check your employer’s liability insurance and make sure it covers employees working from home. Make sure your actions – or indeed any lack of action – don’t invalidate your insurance.
What should your employees do?
Your employees who work from home should also carry out their own risk assessments of their home. They have a duty to take reasonable care of their own health and safety. They also have to report any employment-related hazards to you. Make sure you inform your home workers of your business’ health and safety policies. It is then the responsibility of your employees to make sure those policies are applied correctly.
