COVID-19 for Workplaces Pack
For the Small Business in the My industry isn't here industry

Depending on the nature of the work involved in your industry, you may only have a limited number of workers, if any, who are able to work from home. However, this advice has been included for your industry as there may be some workers who could undertake their work from home.

Are workers entitled to work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic?

The information below outlines measures which cover all aspects of services offered by the industry – depending on what is permissible in your jurisdiction, some sections may not be currently relevant to your business. You should check any relevant advice from your state or territory regarding working from home in response to COVID-19. 

Whether working from home is reasonably practicable will depend on the specifics of the workplace, the facilities available for workers to work remotely and the ability for workers to do their work safely from home. It will also depend on the level of risk from COVID-19 in your community and how effectively you can manage the risks from COVID-19 in your workplace through other control measures (e.g. through physical distancing).

Whether working from home is reasonably practicable will depend on the specifics of the workplace, the facilities available for workers to work remotely and the ability for workers to do their work safely from home. As a small business employer, it may be more challenging for you to accommodate working from home arrangements for your workers. However, there are practical steps you can take to ensure you meet your WHS duties and the government’s directions in response to COVID-19, consistent with the general WHS advice for small business. In deciding whether working from home is appropriate for your workers, in consultation with workers and their representatives (e.g. a Health and Safety Representative - HSR), you should consider:

• the level of risk from COVID-19 in your workplace including the effectiveness of other control measures
• the individual worker's role
• whether the worker is in a vulnerable person category for contracting the virus (see our information on vulnerable workers)
• suitability of work activities
• workflows and expectations
• workstation set up
• surrounding environment such as ventilation, lighting and noise
• home environment, such as partners, children, vulnerable persons and pets
• communication requirement such as frequency and type
• mental health and wellbeing of the worker
• safe working procedures and training requirements, and
• potential risk of infection on journeys to and from the workplace.

Under the model WHS laws, each employer has a duty of care for the health and safety of their workers and others at the workplace. This duty extends to identifying and managing the risks of exposure to COVID-19 and putting appropriate controls in place in every workplace where the employer engages workers to carry out work or directs or influences workers in carrying out work. 

If work can be completed at home, and the risks that arise from working remotely can be effectively managed, encouraging or directing workers to work from home may be an effective way to minimise the risk of exposure to COVID-19. 

Any existing workplace policies and/or practices on working from home would apply to arrangements implemented as part of the COVID-19 response. You may need to vary your policies and/or practices to reflect the broader requirements of the COVID-19 situation such as the ability to work from home while also caring for children. As with all work health and safety matters, you must consult with your workers and their representatives on working from home arrangements. 

Whether working at the office or at home, a worker has the right to stop or refuse unsafe work when there is a reasonable concern of exposure to a serious risk to health and safety from an immediate or imminent hazard. In some circumstances, this could include exposure to COVID-19. Any concerns about health or safety should first be raised with you or the worker’s representative. A worker may also contact a union for advice. If a worker decides to stop work as it is unsafe, they must notify you as soon as possible and be available to carry out alternative work arrangements. See also our information on workers’ rights and the Fair Work Ombudsman Coronavirus and Australian Workplace Laws webpage.

What must I do when workers are working from home?

The model WHS laws still apply if workers work somewhere other than their usual workplace, for example, from home. You have duties to ensure the health and safety of your workers, even if they are working from home.

What you can do to minimise risks at a worker's home may be different to what you can do at the usual workplace. However, in consultation with workers and their representatives, you should:

• provide guidance on what is a safe home office environment, including what a good workstation set up looks like, why workers should not be sedentary all day and how to avoid this 
• allow workers to borrow any necessary work station equipment from the office to take to their home as agreed 
• require workers to familiarise themselves and comply with good ergonomic practices, consistent with any workplace policies and/or practices, for example requiring workers to complete a workstation self-assessment checklist and provide their responses to you 
• maintain regular communication with workers 
• provide access to information and support for mental health and wellbeing services. Beyondblue has a freely available website or you may have an existing employee assistance program (EAP) you can promote, and
• appoint a contact person in the business who workers can talk to about any concerns related to working from home.

You must also think about, and consult your workers, on how your existing policies and/or practices apply when working from home, including:

• notification of incidents, injuries, hazards and changes in circumstances
• consultation and review of work health and safety processes, and
• attendance, timesheets, leave and other entitlements and arrangements.

If necessary, employers may consult workers for an inspection of the worker’s home work environment to ensure it meets health and safety requirements. This can be achieved through virtual means such as photos or video to avoid the need for a physical inspection. In many cases, given the types of risks associated with the activities to be undertaken, an inspection will not be required. Depending on the complexity of the potential risks involved, you may need to engage the services of a health and safety professional to assess the risks to a worker working from home. 

What are the WHS risks of working from home?

Working from home may change, increase or create work health or safety risks. You must consult with workers before you implement control measures to address these risks. It is also important to review and monitor whatever arrangements are put in place to ensure that these arrangements do not create any additional risks. 

Some key considerations that may affect the WHS risks of workers working from home or remotely include:

• communication frequency and type between the employer and worker
• management of the work program, workload, activities and working hours
• surrounding work environment
• workstation set up, such as desk, chair, monitors, keyboard, mouse and computer
• work practices and physical activity
• pre-existing injuries the worker may have
• mental health and wellbeing of the worker, and
• other responsibilities the worker may have such as facilitating online learning for children or a caring role.

You must do what you reasonably can to manage the risks to a worker who works from home.

However, workers also have health and safety obligations to minimise risks when working from home including:

• following procedures about how work is performed
• using equipment provided by the workplace as per the instructions given and ensuring it is not damaged or misused 
• maintaining a safe work environment, such as designated work area, moving furniture to ensure comfortable access, providing adequate lighting and ventilation, repairing any uneven surfaces or removing trip hazards
• managing their own in-house safety, such as maintaining electrical equipment and installing and maintaining smoke alarms
• notifying the employer about risks or potential risks and hazards, and
• reporting any changes that may affect their health and safety when working from home.

Mental health risks and working from home

The COVID-19 pandemic is a stressful and uncertain time for all Australians. Working from home, particularly for the first time, can create additional risks to mental health.

The WHS duties apply to both physical and psychological (mental) health. This means that employers must, so far as is reasonably practicable, ensure the mental health of their workers and protect their workers from psychosocial risks while they are at work. 

Working from home can have psychosocial risks that are different to the risks in an office or your regular workplace. A psychosocial hazard is anything in the design or management of work that causes stress. Stress in itself is not an injury, but if prolonged or severe it can cause both psychological and physical injuries. Some psychosocial hazards that may impact a worker’s mental health while working from home include:

• being isolated from managers, colleagues and support networks
• less support, for example workers may feel they don’t have the normal support they receive from their supervisor or manager
• changes to work demand, for example the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and a move to working at home may create higher workloads for some workers and reduced workloads for others
• low job control
• not having clear boundaries between home-life and work-life
• fatigue
• poor environmental conditions, for example an ergonomically unsound work station or high noise levels, and
• poor organisational change management, for example workers may feel they haven’t been consulted about the changes to their work.

Working from home may also impact a worker’s mental health in other ways, such as from changed family demands. For example, home schooling school-aged children who are learning from home, relationship strain or family and domestic violence.

Looking after the mental health of workers at home

You must eliminate or minimise psychosocial risks arising from work as far as is reasonably practicable, including when your workers are working from home.

You must consult with workers and their representatives on psychosocial hazards they may face and how to manage them. Workers often know what the issues are and have ideas about how to manage them. You must also review how you’re managing the risks to check your policies and/or processes are effective. 

Good communication with your workers is especially important when they are working from home. It is important that you have regular and clear communication with your workers to set realistic and clear instructions on workloads, roles and tasks, to monitor work levels and to check that work can be successfully completed from home without creating any additional safety risks. Adjust any work tasks and ways of working as appropriate. 

Steps you must take to manage risks to your workers’ mental health where reasonably practicable include:

• maintaining regular communication with your workers and encouraging workers to stay in contact with each other
• making sure workers are effectively disengaging from their work and logging off at the end of the day
• eliminating or minimising physical risks
• providing workers with a point of contact to discuss their concerns and to find workplace information in a central place including any HSRs.
• providing information about mental health and other support services available to your workers (Beyondblue has set up a freely available mental health support website or you may have an existing employee assistance programs you can refer workers to).
• staying informed with information from official sources and sharing relevant information with your workers and their representatives as it becomes available
• offering your workers flexibility, such as with their work hours, where possible
• responding appropriately to signs a worker may be struggling, e.g. changed behaviour
• informing workers about their entitlements if they become unfit for work or have caring responsibilities

For further information the Infographic: Four steps to preventing psychological injury at work shows how the risk management process can be applied to psychosocial risks. 

Detailed guidance is available in Safe Work Australia Guide: Work-related psychological health and safety: A systematic approach to meeting your duties.

Who is responsible for ensuring that my workers have a safe workstation set up to work from home?

Under the model WHS laws, you have a duty of care for the health and safety of your workers and others at the workplace. This includes where your worker is working from home. You must consult with workers and take all reasonable steps to ensure their workstations are correctly setup to reduce potential musculoskeletal injuries.

Workers also have a duty to take care for their own health and safety, which includes while working from home, and must follow any reasonable policies or directions their employer gives them. 

You and you workers share responsibility for ensuring a safe workstation set up. 

To ensure your workers’ workstation set up is safe, you should:

• provide guidance on what is a safe home office environment, including setting up an ergonomic workstation, why workers should not be sedentary all day, and how to avoid this
• require workers to familiarise themselves and comply with good ergonomic practices, for example by requiring workers to complete a workstation self-assessment checklist and provide their responses to you
• provide a health and safety checklist for working from home for workers to use, for example checking for trip hazards in the work space
• consider organising a workstation assessment by a competent person where practicable, allow workers to borrow equipment, such as chairs, monitors, keyboards and mouses, from the office or reimburse them reasonable costs for purchasing any required equipment, and
• have ongoing discussion with your workers regarding their workstation set up.

Workers must follow reasonable policies or directions set by you. This may include completing workstation checklists and following any other reasonable safety policies and directions you give them. As with any other work environment, workers must inform you of any work-related incidents or injuries that occur while working at home and are encouraged to report health and safety concerns to you and their HSR.

What do I need to do about home workstation set ups?

You must eliminate or minimise risks to the health and safety of your workers, so far as is reasonably practicable. While you have less control over a worker’s home, you must still consult with workers and their representatives and take steps to reduce work health and safety risks of workstations as much as possible (with available and suitable solutions).

To minimise the risk of a worker sustaining a musculoskeletal injury while working from home, you could:

• organise a virtual workstation assessment by asking the worker to send a photo or video of their workstation set up to you
• have ongoing discussion with your workers about their workstation set up
• provide a health and safety check list when working from home for your workers to use
• provide a workstation self-assessment checklist and health and safety check list for your workers to follow
• provide your workers with information on setting up an ergonomic workstation, and
• allow workers to borrow equipment, such as chairs, monitors, keyboards and mouses, from the office or reimburse them reasonable costs for purchasing any required equipment, and
• monitor to ensure the workstation set up is not creating additional risks and the need for any additional equipment.

In undertaking safety checks you should ensure workers have access to first aid based on an assessment of their duties and home work environment.
 
Further resources:

• Workplace Health and Safety Queensland — Guide to computer based workstations
• WorkSafe WA — Guide to Setting up your workstation
• Comcare —  Working from home checklist
• WorkSafe Victoria — Minimising the spread of (COVID-19): Working from home

Am I required to provide my workers with equipment to enable them to work safely from home? 

You must identify and manage any risks to workers working from home. Undertaking a risk assessment will assist you to determine what is reasonably required to keep workers safe. It may not be reasonably practicable to conduct a physical inspection of your worker’s home, but there are other ways you can assess the risks, including by requiring workers to complete a workstation and health and safety checklist that you may discuss with them.

You may determine that it is practicable to allow workers to borrow equipment from the office or reimburse reasonable costs. You and your workers must discuss what equipment may be required for the worker to safely carry out their work as early as possible during the workstation set up and continue to monitor their ongoing equipment needs throughout the time they are working from home.

If you are not satisfied that a safe workstation can be created, it may not be reasonably practicable for the worker to work from home. In these circumstances, alternative arrangements may need to be made. This could include setting up a safe office space for the worker in the office and flexible work hours to minimise contact between workers. 

What are my obligations to my workers to ensure that they have suitable breaks and work reasonable hours while working from home?

You must ensure workers continue to access their workplace entitlements, including breaks, standard hours and any agreed to flexible work arrangements. You should consider whether any existing workplace policies and/or practices need to be revisited in light of the COVID pandemic and increased working from home arrangements.

Information on workers’ entitlements, including breaks, standard hours and flexible work arrangements, is available on the Fair Work Ombudsman website. 

I have workers working from home who are also caring for, and educating, their school aged children who are unable to attend school. What are my obligations towards these workers? 

Good communication between you and your workers is especially important when workers are working from home. You should ensure your workers are aware of any working from home and carer policies and/or practices that apply to your workplace. Workers may also wish to discuss their entitlements to carers leave and other relevant forms of leave. Further information on leave entitlements is available on the Fair Work Ombudsman website. 

Workers may wish to share tips on balancing work and caring responsibilities with others. Tool box discussions and team meetings can be a great place to share this information in a friendly environment. This might include tips on how workers have managed to balance their caring arrangements with their partner, where available. 

How can I support my workers who are finding working from home stressful and it is negatively impacting their mental health? 

You must eliminate or minimise psychosocial risk arising from work as far as is reasonably practicable, including when your workers are working from home. 

Good communication with your workers is especially important when they are working from home. You must consult with workers and their representatives on psychosocial hazards they may face and how to manage them. Workers often know what the issues are and have ideas about how to manage them. You must also review how you’re managing the risks to check your policies and/or processes are effective. 

There are a range of resources available to workers to support their mental health. These include:

• SafeWork NSW - COVID-19 and Mental health at work
• Beyond Blue - How to look after your mental health when working from home. You can also contact the Beyond Blue Coronavirus mental wellbeing support service on 1800 512 348 or the Beyondblue website
• Black Dog Institute - Managing your mental health at home
• Family and mental health support — Department of Social Services.
• Heads Up – Healthy workplaces support
• Lifeline
• Australian Psychological Society – Tips for coping with coronavirus anxiety
• Smiling Mind – Supporting yourself and others through Coronavirus
• Safe Work Australia - Mental Health 

There are also a number of practical steps that can help. These include:

• ensuring workers have the contact details for the relevant Employee Assistance Program if you have one in place
• maintaining regular communication 
• supporting flexible work arrangements, where available, and
• ensuring workers effectively disengage from work and log off at the end of the day.

You can also call the National Coronavirus Helpline for information and advice about COVID-19 on 1800 020 080.

One of my workers has contracted COVID-19 while working from home. What should I do? 

If you have a worker who has contracted COVID-19 you will need to follow the health advice provided by your public health authority. 

You should discuss leave arrangements with your worker and determine if the worker has had contact with any other workers while they were infectious.

Workers who have been isolated after having tested positive for COVID-19 can return to work when they have fully recovered and have met the criteria for clearance from isolation. The criteria may vary depending on circumstances of the workplace and states and territories may manage clearance from isolation differently. Clearance may be by the public health authority or the persons treating clinician.  

It is possible that a worker with COVID-19 could potentially work from home, if for example, they have no or minor symptoms. This would be subject to the advice from the relevant treating clinician and discussions with the worker. For example, a doctor may recommend reasonable adjustments, including reduced working hours or changes to a worker’s workload.

Contact your state or territory helpline for further advice.   

When should workers return to the workplace? 

Before workers return to their usual workplace you must ensure your proposed arrangements are consistent with the latest advice from public health authorities. You will also need to undertake a risk assessment and consult with workers and their representatives before workers return to the usual workplace. 

This risk assessment will need to include consideration of current Commonwealth, state and territory government on physical distancing and whether your workplace can support all your workers returning at the same time while meeting those requirements. You may consider options for staging a return to the workplace, to ensure that physical distancing requirements are met in accordance with Government advice. 

As part of your risk assessment you must consider vulnerable workers and ensure that they are not put at risk by a direction to return to the workplace. Pending your risk assessment, it may be that vulnerable workers should remain in a working from home arrangement for a longer duration that those workers who are not vulnerable. 

For more information, go to the Transitioning back to usual workplaces page.

Can I direct my workers back to the usual workplace?

Whether or not you can reasonably direct workers back to the workplace will depend on a number of factors, including public health requirements and the individual circumstances of the worker working from home.

Workers must follow any reasonable policies or directions you put in place in response to COVID-19. You must consult with workers and their representatives prior to decisions being made to return to the workplace. You must also ensure return to work arrangements adhere to relevant Commonwealth, state or territory government advice (e.g. physical distancing requirements). 

Where circumstances change, for example it is no longer safe for a worker to continue working from home due to a change in the worker’s home situation or the ability of the worker to continue working from home effectively, the worker may after appropriate consultation be directed to return to the workplace. 

Before requiring workers to recommence work at their usual workplace you must, in consultation with workers and their representatives, have a plan to ensure the safe return to work for all workers.

Where can employers get more information on working from home?

Comcare

• Coronavirus (COVID-19) – Working remotely
• Coronavirus (COVID-19) – Working from home checklist

New South Wales

• SafeWork NSW - COVID-19
• Remote and isolated work (includes those who work from home)
• Design and layout of work environment
• Get healthy at work has a suite of working from home resources:
  • Being healthy while working from home
  • 10 tips to work well from home
  • Alcohol consumption while working from home – Workers
  • Healthy eating while working from home
  • Quitting smoking while working from home

Queensland

• Health and safety for telecommuters
• Telecommuting checklist
• Office ergonomics
• Setting up work stations

Victoria

• Working from home
• Info sheet for working alone

Australian Capital Territory

• Home based work

Northern Territory

• Isolated work

Western Australia

• Office safety overview
• FAQ on working from home and use of mobile and laptop devices
• How to set up your workstation
• Toolkit and information resources

Family Violence Resources (not COVID-19 specific)

• 1800 Respect
• Men’s Referral Service
• Kids Helpline