Are you ready to let your employees work from home?

Are you ready to let your employees work from home?

With an increased focus on a healthy work-life balance, more and more employees now prefer to work from home on a part-time or full-time basis, benefiting from the increased flexibility this brings to their lives. Even though these numbers are increasing, some employers are still wondering whether it’s right for their business and if so – how do they minimise their operational risks?

Is a work from home arrangement right for your business? 

There are various reasons why an individual may wish to work from home, including but not limited to; employees caring for a parent or young child, disabilities, victim of domestic violence, or an employee generally looking to work remotely.  Ensure you consult with the Fair Work Arrangements what an employees rights are to work at home.  You will then understand if your business has reasonable grounds for any refusal.  

Assessing work from home arrangements for specific employees 

Does your employee need to be supervised in their role and how often?  How will this effect on any potential teamwork?  

If teamwork is important to the role or if they supervise other employees, then working from home might not be practical.   Also consider how this arrangement will affect workflow and communications between employees.  Not forgetting the costs of setting up a safe work environment in your employee’s home (employers bear the same responsibility for health and safety even if their employees work from home).  

Assessing insurance considerations for work from home employees

If your employee meets with customers at their home, what happens if the customer injures themselves on their property? What happens if your employee injures themselves at home during their worktime or all their business equipment is stolen, or files hacked?  All questions that should be risk assessed before agreeing to an employee working from home.

Below are some considerations that you should discuss with an adviser to ensure your insurances safeguard your business, employees and customers.

  • Workers Compensation covers any psychological or physical injuries sustained by your employees when they are working at home.
  • Public Liability Insurance  to cover any injuries to customers on your employee’s premises. 
  • General Property Insurance cover for loss of equipment, even in your employee’s home. 

To decide whether you have the right insurances in place for work at home employees, talk to one of our insurance specialist’s today.

General Advice Warning
The information provided is to be regarded as general advice. Whilst we may have collected risk information, your personal objectives, needs or financial situations were not taken into account when preparing this information. We recommend that you consider the suitability of this general advice, in respect of your objectives, financial situation and needs before acting on it. You should obtain and consider the relevant product disclosure statement before making any decision to purchase this financial product.

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