As an employer, it's your responsibility to consider your employees' health and safety when working, whether they're:

• in an office
• on site
• at home, or
• on the road

On this page you'll find a range of resources to promote physical and mental health and wellbeing in your workplace.

Prevent injury in the workplace

Inspect your workplace

Use the WorkSafe step-by-step guide to help you:

• find hazards in your workplace
• assess the risk
• fix the problem

Get a free safety consultation

Through WorkSafe's OHS Essentials program, you can get a free and independent consultation with an OHS expert on how to manage safety in your workplace. The expert can come to your workplace, help identify safety issues and advise you on ways to resolve the issues.

Visit WorkSafe to apply for your free OHS consultation.

Get WorkCover insurance

WorkCover insurance covers you if your employees are injured or become ill in the course of their work. It's required for most employers.

Visit WorkSafe Victoria to:

• learn about your insurance responsibilities as an employer
• find out what insurance you need
• get WorkCover insurance

WorkCover and contractors

If a contractor is considered a 'worker', you'll need to make sure they're covered by your WorkCover insurance policy.

Find out when a contractor is considered a worker on WorkSafe.

Safety when working from home

Working from home as part of flexible working arrangements is becoming more popular for employees looking to manage work and personal commitments.

But as an employer, your OHS obligations don't end just because your employees are working away from your premises. You and your business can still be held responsible for injuries that happen in the home while carrying out work-related duties.

Auditing a home workspace

Just as you audit your workplace for OHS issues, you must audit any home workspace used by you or your employees.

To ensure these workspaces comply with your OHS standards, audit home workspaces:

• before you or your employees start working from home
• periodically (for example, annually) while working from home

Creating OHS guidelines for home workspaces

In most instances employees can do their own home OHS checks to to make sure their workspace complies with the guidelines you set.

Your guidelines might include areas such as:

• reason for working from home – is there a valid reason to work from home and is the nature of work is suited to a working from home arrangement?
• work environment – is there a dedicated work area and appropriate environmental conditions, such as adequate lighting and a non-smoking environment? Are electrical outlets and appliances safe?
• workstation setup – is the work surface, chair, desk, keyboard, mouse, monitor and laptop (if applicable) OHS-compliant and and adjusted appropriately for the user?
• nature of tasks – do the physical demands of tasks apply to the home-based work the same as they do in your regular workplace?
• emergency procedures, incidents and regular check-in – does the home workspace have emergency and incident plans and first aid supplies? Do you have procedures in place to check in with employees working from home so you know they're safe and well?
• remote access – does your employee have remote access to your IT systems or access to necessary cloud-based services?
• plan of the home-based office – keep photographs or plans of the home-based workspace for your records

Once the home workspace check is complete, make a list of any items that don't meet requirements. It's reasonable to expect that an employee will pay for items such as a desk or chair, but you might want to supply and take responsibility for items like job-specific hardware.

Our checklist can help you and your employees assess your home workspaces: