When Victoria, Australia, moves to enshrine a legal right for employees to work from home two days a week, it will force a question most U.S. employers have been quietly avoiding: If working from home becomes a protected right, who is responsible for making it safe?
The answer, in Australia and increasingly in the United States, is the employer.
Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan confirmed this month that all businesses, including small operators, will be subject to the incoming policy, which aims to take effect later this year by amending the state’s Equal Opportunity Act.
The decision has sparked pushback. The Council of Small Business Organisations Australia warned the law would create a cost and compliance burden even for sole traders, with chair Matthew Addison telling AAP that small businesses “don’t have a team of lawyers to interpret this.”
OSHA’s work from home gap
The concern is more than administrative. It goes to the heart of who bears liability when something goes wrong in a home workspace. It’s a question HR leaders in the United States may not have fully answered, despite several years of focus on remote work functionality.
For insight here in the U.S., we have to look back. In 2000, OSHA issued a directive stating it would not conduct inspections of home offices. What that directive did not do was absolve employers of responsibility under the General Duty Clause, which requires employers to provide a workplace free from recognized hazards.
Workers’ compensation laws extend employer exposure further, according to reporting in Acquisition International. Coverage is governed by where the employee physically works, not where the company is headquartered, meaning a business based in one state with a remote employee in another state must carry a policy that meets the standards of the state where the employee works. And the coverage itself is broader than most employers realize. The legal test for a compensable remote injury turns on two questions: Did the injury occur during work hours, and was it caused by a risk connected to the job?
The practical result is a compliance gap most hybrid-work policies need to address, according to ADP. Employers approved remote arrangements during the pandemic and moved on. But not all have a formal home workspace assessment process, documented safety standards for remote set-ups or any policy defining when an employee is officially “on the clock” at home, all of which matter the moment a claim is filed.
Read more: The value of workplace location flexibility in 2026
When WFH is an accommodation, not a perk
The stakes rise further when remote work intersects with disability. On Feb. 11, 2026, the EEOC and Office of Personnel Management issued new joint guidance on telework accommodations. Though formally directed at federal agencies under the Rehabilitation Act, the FAQs apply ADA standards and rely on established federal case law, making them directly instructive for private employers.
In fact, HR Executive reported last month that Amazon urged a federal judge to dismiss a proposed class-action lawsuit from employees who say the company mishandled disability accommodations requests.
The guidance reaffirms that working from home may be a required reasonable accommodation under the ADA, but it also gives employers significant clarity on where their obligations end. Telework is required only if it enables an employee to perform essential job functions, not simply to improve quality of life or manage general symptoms without a nexus to functional job limitations.
Employers are not bound to accommodate an employee’s choice, only one that is effective is acceptable. “Reasonable accommodations must relate to the employee’s employment, and need not be provided simply because they might personally benefit an employee,” according to the report.
Critically for HR leaders managing return-to-office policies, the guidance clarifies that pandemic-era flexibility does not permanently redefine essential functions. An employer that allowed remote work during COVID-19 is not automatically required to continue it as a permanent accommodation. Still, reevaluation must remain individualized and evidence-based, not a categorical policy rollback.
Read more: EEOC commissioner on mental health discrimination and RTO
In-office anxiety as a basis for remote work
The guidance also addresses a post-pandemic pressure point head-on: employees claiming office-related anxiety as the basis for a remote work accommodation. The guidance underscores that the ADA does not guarantee employees a workplace free from all stress or discomfort, but instead focuses on whether a disability substantially limits the employee’s ability to work onsite.
According to a bulletin from the law firm Littler, the threshold question is whether the symptoms create a material barrier to working in the office or to equal employment opportunity. If they do, employers must consider reasonable accommodation, but telework is required only if in-office alternatives are demonstrably ineffective.
When remote work does become a required accommodation rather than a voluntary arrangement, employer obligations extend beyond approving the request. The quality and safety of the remote workspace can become part of the accommodations conversation. That is where the OSHA gap and the ADA gap converge.
“Employers retain the ability to reassess telework arrangements granted under pandemic‑era conditions, to seek additional medical information where warranted and to require in‑person presence where it remains an essential function of the job,” according to Littler.
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