OSHA Requirements for a Safe Workplace Now Apply to Remote Workers

Until now, Ontario, unlike other provinces such as B.C. had not required employers to ensure the safety, including ergonomic suitability, of remote workplaces such as employees’ homes and generally excluded remote workers from its workplace safety regime. Effective October 28, 2024, Ontario’s Occupational Health and Safety Act (OSHA) was amended to address remote work arrangements and the digital workplace as follows:

• Expanding the definitions of ‘workplace harassment’ and ‘workplace sexual harassment’ to include virtual harassment.
• Allowing employers to post mandatory information electronically, provided workers know how to access it and it is easily accessible.
• Permitting joint health and safety committee meetings to be held remotely, removing the requirement to meet ‘at the workplace.’
• Expanding OSHA’s application to include ‘telework performed in or about a private residence.’
• Excluding offices in private residences from the definition of an ‘industrial establishment.’

Telework is not defined in OSHA but is clearly intended to cover the wide spread practise of working on-line from home (or other non-employer locations) while connected to the employer’s computer system. Thus, most of the requirements under OSHA (e.g. training, preventing and investigating workplace harassment and the general duty to ensure the safety of workers, including the ergonomic suitability of their workstation) will apply to workers who work remotely from home. OHSA requirements that apply to “industrial establishments”, where more safety sensitive operations take place under more extensive safety regime, will not extend to remote work.

Ontario employers with remote workers (including those working a part time from home “hybrid” regime) must now take steps to ensure the remote workspace and set up used is safe and healthy, as has long been required in B.C. The Ontario Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development has a guide for computer ergonomics, which can be a useful resource for ensuring that remote workers have ergonomic workstation setups at home.

If you want more information on this topic, you can contact us at:

Geoffrey Howard:       ghoward@howardlaw.ca

604 424-9686

Sebastian Chern:         schern@howardlaw.ca

604 424-9688