Your health and safety duties don't stop at the office door
When your workers work from home or split their time between home and the office, your health and safety duties still apply. Under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, a PCBU's primary duty of care follows the work, not the location — and when someone works from home, that home becomes a workplace for the work they do. You can't control a home like an office, so what is required is shaped by what is reasonably practicable: sensible attention to the workstation, equipment, and the often-overlooked mental health side of remote work.
Yes — the duty follows the work.
Most HSWA duties relate to the conduct of work and how it affects people, not to a particular building. So when a worker carries out work from home, the PCBU still owes them the primary duty of care, and the home becomes a workplace for that work. The worker also has their own duties — to take reasonable care of their own health and safety and to follow reasonable instructions and policies. It is a shared effort, but the business cannot simply opt out because the work happens off-site.
You are not expected to control a home like a factory — but you are expected to do what is sensible.
You can't inspect and re-engineer someone's house, and the law doesn't ask you to. “Reasonably practicable” recognises that. In practice it means giving clear guidance and information, helping workers set up a safe workstation, providing or advising on suitable equipment, checking in on how things are going, and managing the work itself — workload, hours and connection — so the arrangement doesn't quietly create harm. The focus shifts from controlling the environment to supporting the worker and designing the work well.
Home and hybrid work concentrate two kinds of risk.
| Risk area | What to manage |
|---|---|
| Physical / ergonomic | Workstation set-up, chair and screen position, posture, breaks and movement, lighting, and safe equipment and cabling. Poor set-ups lead to musculoskeletal strain over time. |
| Psychosocial / mental health | Isolation and reduced support, blurred boundaries between work and home, long or irregular hours, workload, and staying connected to the team. |
WorkSafe NZ publishes specific guidance on both the postural/physical and the mental-health risks of working from home. Source: WorkSafe NZ.
A light-touch but genuine approach works best.
General information, not legal advice. Home and hybrid arrangements vary widely. Check current WorkSafe NZ guidance and seek advice for your specific situation.
Splitting time between locations needs joined-up management.
Hybrid work — some days at home, some in the office — means a worker moves between two workplaces, so your system has to cover both consistently. Keep one clear set of expectations across locations, make sure ergonomic and wellbeing support applies wherever the person is working, and watch for the connection and boundary issues that hybrid patterns can create. The goal is a single, coherent approach rather than two disconnected ones.
Get a system that manages home and hybrid work as part of your everyday health and safety. Book a demo and we'll show you how it works — free 30-day trial included.
Yes. Under HSWA, a PCBU's primary duty of care follows the work rather than the location, and when a worker works from home, the home becomes a workplace for that work. The worker also has duties to take reasonable care and follow reasonable policies.
No. What is required is what is reasonably practicable. Rather than inspecting and controlling a home like an office, you provide guidance and equipment, help with safe workstation set-up, manage the work itself, and stay in touch — supporting the worker rather than policing their house.
Two areas stand out: physical and ergonomic risks (poor workstation set-up leading to musculoskeletal strain) and psychosocial risks (isolation, blurred work-home boundaries, long hours and workload). WorkSafe NZ has guidance on both.
Hybrid workers move between two workplaces, so you need one consistent set of expectations and support that applies wherever they are working. Pay particular attention to connection and to the work-home boundary issues that hybrid patterns can create.
