Injuries on Duty in the Home Workplace

Injuries on Duty in the Home Workplace

Reporting an injury on duty incident is an important part of an effective Occupational Health and Safety Program. However, working from home employees may only claim for Injuries on Duty, when it occurs in the area designated for work at home, and has to be proven that the accident occurred in such area and during work hours, before being able to claim for Injury on duty

It helps identify work related health and safety hazards, risks and dangers.Unfortunately, when working from Home it often happens that we only realize that a hazard exists, or that a risk control is inadequate, when an injury on duty incident occurs. Incidents include near misses and situations in which employees coped with the hazard well. When an injury results in lost time or medical costs, workers’ compensation claim forms must be completed.

Injury on duty report forms are legal documents and must be completed thoroughly and objectively. It is essential to investigating incidents in order to be able to identify and address hazards. This requires investigators (a manager and a Health and Safety representative or employee) to be trained for the task. A detailed approach must be used, particularly for long-term incidents or symptoms where underlying causes may be hard to identify.

The purpose is to identify the causes of incidents.

Appropriate controls can then be put in place to prevent further occurrences of such events. In other words and incident investigation is normally performed to find out what happened, why it happened, and to prevent it from happening again.

The same innovative approach is demonstrated through the stipulations of the occupational Health and Safety Act.