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Everything changed at the start of 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Businesses shut their offices and told employees to work from home. While some hated working from home and craved those in-office chats, or working in a productive environment, others thrived in this new arrangement. Despite offices opening again, some employers have allowed their employees to keep working from home. Whether it’s a hybrid model, some days at home and some in the office, or a fully remote position; it is important to maintain work-life boundaries.
To start with, below are some things not-to-do when working from home!
Sick Mother
One employee asked if they could work from home to look after their ill mother. The employers allowed it. However, after a year of this arrangement, it became very difficult to contact the employee. He started to only answer a couple of emails a day and would never attend virtual meetings or pick up the phone. HR got involved and started tracking the employee’s device. It turned out the device was operating from India. After some investigation, HR discovered that the original employee hired someone in India to complete their work for half the salary. Not only that, but it meant the employee was also working full time at another job! The employee (understandably) was immediately dismissed.
An Awkward Moment!
One woman was dismissed because she accidentally left herself connected to a client’s VPN. Normally, this would not be a problem but she decided to watch a lot of p***. Of course, the client notified the company… safe to say that would have been an awkward conversation!
Scrambling Mouse
Two employees decided it would be smart to download mouse scrambling software. This basically meant that they would just do whatever they felt like during the day, while still appearing ‘active’ to their employer. This quickly became a dismissal.
While some people clearly took advantage of the COVID-19 lockdowns, there are some serious concerns about employers taking advantage of employees working from home.
Some employers saw their employees working from home as an opportunity for them to be on call 24/7. This is not what working from home should mean. Even if your position is fully remote, you should only be working the hours specified in your contract. For full-time employment, this is generally 38 hours per week.
This new working from home environment may also come with other challenges including maintaining your personal privacy from your employer. Work is now, quite literally, coming home with you. One helpful tip to protect your privacy is ensuring that you are keeping work correspondence and personal correspondence separate. This could be by only using a work email account to answer emails, rather than your personal email account. Where possible, it’s also best to have a work phone and a separate personal phone. This ensures that you will not be receiving work emails or calls after hours. This also ensures that when calling clients, colleagues, or anyone job related, your personal mobile number is protected.
Collecting Personal or Sensitive Information
Some employees may need to work from home for health reasons, whether it’s for a couple of days while you recover from a cold, or a long-term illness. Some employees may be hesitant to disclose their full medical history to their employers for fear of being dismissed or treated differently in the workplace (this is illegal but does happen). The good news is that you don’t necessarily have to disclose some medical information even if it is requested!
Agencies and private sector employers can only collect health information about employees in two situations.
The first is if the employee gives either express or implied consent to its collection. This is easy to avoid. If you do not want to follow an unreasonable request for medical information, you can simply say ‘no’.
The second situation is if the information is reasonably necessary, or directly related, to one of your job’s activities. Of course, if you cannot attend work because you have contracted COVID-19, it is reasonably necessary for your employer to see documentation of this. This could be in the form of a positive Rapid Antigen Test or a confirmation of a positive PCR test. What is not reasonably necessary is if the employer is requesting additional documentation or enquiring about your medical history when you are only trying to take a couple of days off. If it is an isolated incident, and you provide the appropriate general practitioner certificate, then it is not reasonably necessary for your employer to request further information.
Returning to the Office:
While some employers may allow their employees to work from home, others may require their workforce to return to the workplace. Should an employee wish to work from home, then it is within their workplace rights to enquire and request this flexible working situation. However, it is an employer’s right to refuse an employee’s request to work from home.
There are some exceptions to these rules:
- Workplace health and safety issues:
Employees may refuse to return to work out of a reasonable concern for their health and safety, or another legitimate reason. Should an employer not meet all workplace health and safety obligations, this can include having a COVID-19 management plan, then it is likely that this refusal is reasonable. For example, if an employer was unable to ensure safe social distancing between employees, then it is likely that refusing to return to the workplace will be considered reasonable. - Unreasonable refusal:
If an employer has met government mandated safety standards, then it is unlikely for a refusal to return to work to be reasonable. To make concerned employees more comfortable when returning to the office, it is good practice for the employer to make them aware of the safety measures in place for the return to the office. It is also good practice for an employer to allow flexible working arrangements for employees upon request, however, this is not always possible and is within the employer’s right to refuse to do so.
If the employer has followed all required procedures and an employee still refuses to return to the workplace then disciplinary action can be taken against them. This could be in the form of a formal warning or dismissal. Of course, the employer must follow all general protection and unfair dismissal laws as set out by the Fair Work Act if they are to take this disciplinary action. - Adverse Action:
If you do have a reasonable reason to refuse to disclose personal information or to return to the office, then your employer cannot take adverse action against you. For example, if you are immunocompromised and have followed all the required procedures to prove this, your bosses or your colleagues cannot start treating you differently as this would be classified as discrimination. This discrimination could take the form of bullying, harassment, a change in the type of tasks you are expected to complete, a change to your workload, increased criticism of your quality of work (beyond reasonable feedback) or any number of things. Additionally, being placed on probation, a performance improvement plan, receiving unsubstantiated warnings, dismissal or forced resignation can all be considered adverse action.
It is important to be aware of your rights when working from home and returning to the office to ensure that you are being treated fairly by your employer. By recognising what are reasonable requests from yourself or your employer you are protecting yourself from being discriminated against or unfairly dismissed. Should your employer not follow what is required of them by law, then you may have a case for the Fair Work Commission!
