Month: September 2020

Keeping employees safe and engaged while working from home

Posted on by Patty Busse

Workspaces have transformed this year as the world has adapted quickly to the changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Amid the frenzied transition for many people to work from home, some important aspects of a healthy workplace may have taken a backseat, such as mental health considerations, communication practices, ergonomic adjustments and general safety preparations.

Now is a good time to make changes that can help any employee stay safe and engaged while working from home.

Support employees’ mental health

Mental health support should be high on the list of resources to provide an employee working from home.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that working from home presents many emotional and mental health challenges including, but not limited to, social isolation, stress, depression and anxiety. They can cause decreased engagement in work, reduced communication with coworkers, and lower productivity.

According to the CDC, addressing mental health issues in the workplace can help employers reduce health care costs for their businesses and employees.

A Deloitte study says employers get a return of five times their investment into mental health resources and support for employees, and that translates into less workforce turnover, absenteeism and presenteeism.

These ideas may help reduce workplace mental health issues:

  • Share mental health self-assessment tools with employees, or offer free or subsidized lifestyle coaching, counseling, or self-management programs.
  • Offer good health insurance that has no or low out-of-pocket costs for mental health-related medications and counseling.
  • Train managers to identify signs and symptoms of stress and depression in team members and inform them about the available resources for support.
  • Encourage employees to set boundaries, such as keeping work to a single room in their home, taking breaks away from that space, and setting work hours to establish a clear beginning and end to the workday.
  • Share ideas for productivity, such as setting a daily routine that is similar to that of going into a physical office. Adding structure, setting deadlines, and creating a hierarchy of work tasks to complete daily can motivate some employees, which in turn may reduce stress levels.
  • Manage expectations by understanding the unique challenges of your employees who are working from home.

Talking to your employees about their needs can help you address them individually.

“It’s important to create dialog with an employee about their needs, ask them questions and then take measures to support them,” said Jody Rogers, SFM Senior VP & Chief Human Resources Officer. Rogers said that simply being aware of and demonstrating a foundation for employees’ needs creates a better culture and work atmosphere, no matter the location of the employee.

Evaluate the ergonomics of your employees’ workspace

Creating an ergonomically sound work set-up can help employees avoid aches and pains.

“It’s worth taking a little time to set up your space in a way that allows you to be safe working from home and have a comfortable work set-up,” said Stacie Goodrich, President and COO, CompRehab, an SFM subsidiary.

Achieve neutral posture

An individual’s feet should comfortably meet the floor or a footrest so their thighs are fully supported by the chair seat. Their hips should sit at an angle between 90-110 degrees, with their knees slightly lower than their hips.

The chair backrest should support the back and ideally the natural curve of the spine. Upper arms should rest comfortably at their sides with elbows at a 90-110 degree angle and wrists straight or flat on the keyboard and mouse.

The individual’s head should be centered over their neck and shoulders.

If an employee does not have these ergonomics in place at their workstation, you can offer up some tips to help them get there.

  • Raise their chair height with pillows
  • Add a foot rest for lower body support
  • Add a rolled up towel for lumbar support
  • Use an ironing board supported by the wall for a stand-up desk

Avoid eye strain

Encourage employees to take a break from their screens and look away every 20 minutes. They should be aware of lighting and position their work area near natural light, if possible. Ask them to adjust their screen accordingly to maintain neutral alignment of their neck and to reduce eye strain.

Reduce neck aches

If an employee uses a phone often when working from home, have them set up a headset or use the speakerphone option to prevent neck strain. They should avoid cradling a phone receiver between their shoulder and head.

Get up and move

Goodrich said the most important ergonomic change someone can make is to increase movement and change posture and position throughout the workday.

Encourage employees to take frequent breaks to change up their posture, stretch and take short walks outside or around their house.

Some easy ways to remember to incorporate movement are:

  • Standing up while on the phone
  • Posting a guide of stretches close by as a reminder
  • Drinking more water and refilling frequently

Assess your employees’ home workspace for safety hazards

In an office setting, communal and desk area safety checks are usually part of the day-to-day business. However, when an employee is working from home, the task of maintaining safety falls to the employer and the employee working remotely.

Telework, the Federal Government’s alternate worksite resource website, provides a safety checklist . Here are a few important takeaways:

  • Ensure all electrical cords, plugs, outlets and panels are in good condition, there is no exposed or damaged wiring, and no extension cords or power strips are daisy chained.
  • Turn off all equipment when not in use.
  • Free your area from clutter and make sure all paper and other flammables are away from heat sources and electrical outlets.
  • Make sure carpets are well secured to the floor and move cords and other trip hazards.
  • Check that walkways and doorways are unobstructed.
  • Ensure you have working smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, and a multi-use fire extinguisher.

Working from home presents both mental health and safety risks. By promoting awareness around the risks and challenges of maintaining a home office and schedule, you can help minimize the negative effects for your employees.

Streamlined phone reporting option available

Posted on by Patty Busse

In response to feedback from employers and workers, we’re offering a new option when you call the SFM Work Injury Hotline to report injuries.

When you call during business hours (7 a.m. to 4 p.m., M-F), you will have a streamlined report-only option for times when your employee would not benefit from speaking with a nurse. This is a good option for cases where the employee is not available for the call, or has already decided whether to get medical treatment.

The option to speak with a nurse will still be available 24/7.

“We’ve learned that many employers prefer to report all injuries by phone, so we hope this is a timesaver in cases where the employee does not need or want a treatment recommendation,” said Meg Kasting, Vice President, Claims. “We want to make it easy for policyholders to report claims immediately through whatever method is most convenient for them.”   

For times when an injured employee is unsure whether to get medical treatment, the option to speak with a nurse is still available. The nurses are specially trained in responding to work injuries. They will provide a treatment recommendation and also report the injury to SFM.

Calls outside of business hours will automatically be taken by a nurse.

For more information on work injury reporting options, visit our report an injury page. 

A legal perspective on injuries while working from home

Posted on by Patty Busse

Tom Davern, Esq.

By Tom Davern, Esq., Senior Defense Counsel with Lynn, Scharfenberg and Hollick

It can be challenging to determine whether an employee’s injury is considered work related, even in the typical work environment. Working from home can present unique workers’ compensation issues due to the inevitable mix of work-related and personal activities.

When an employee sustains an injury while engaged in work activities at home, it is a compensable workers’ compensation injury. The standard rule is that if you’re engaged in work activities at home, this will be considered the same as working at the office for the purposes of workers’ compensation. The standard compensability analysis used for each state applies to the home office pretty much the same as it would in the actual office. In Minnesota, you look to see whether the injury happened in the course and scope of employment (time and place) and whether it arose out of the employment (work-related connection). However, it can be a challenging line to draw in the home office environment when you mix in child care, laundry and leisure throughout the workday.

For example, consider a situation where your employee is injured while shoveling the driveway after getting a foot of snow the night before. If the employee needed to clear the driveway to go out on a sales call, it would likely be considered a work-related injury. However, what about a situation where there is only a half inch of snow in the driveway and the employee still decides to shovel before the sales call?  A defense could be raised that the employee was outside of the course and scope of employment because the driveway did not need to be shoveled to get the vehicle out on the road. The employee elected to complete a personal task that was not required in order to continue or further a work purpose.

Injuries during ‘personal comfort’ breaks

SFM’s core states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota all recognize the personal comfort doctrine in some form and to some degree. This means that injuries that occur on the premises during the workday while the employee is attending to personal needs (taking a break) are potentially compensable workers’ compensation claims. The personal comfort doctrine transfers to the home office. The big question is: “Was the injury truly incidental to an authorized break, or did the employee engage in a personal task that removed them from workers’ compensation protection?” This is one area of the law that justifies the use of the legal cliché “case by case” basis.

In Minnesota, an injury was held to be compensable when an employee fell down the stairs after walking from his home office to his kitchen for coffee. At the same time, there is a line an at-home worker can cross that would take the employee outside of the protection of workers’ compensation. So, while incidental injuries incurred during lunch or a break may be compensable, it is not necessarily a work injury.

Imagine an employee decided to hang shingles on a lunch break and fell off the roof. This would be a denied claim, as the employee went outside of the course and scope of employment by engaging in a dangerous personal activity that had no connection to the employment. Another example of a potential denial would be if an employee came down with carpal tunnel syndrome as a result of playing video games every day during breaks. I would argue that this was personal in nature and not an activity subject to the personal comfort doctrine. The pivotal question is whether the employee was truly engaged in a personal comfort activity or had deviated from the employment to engage in an unrelated household chore or activity with no work connection.

Employers responsible to provide safe work environment, regardless of where

Since the home is seen as an extension of the workplace, this means that an employer could also be held liable for a cumulative injury due to a home office setup that’s not ergonomic. Obviously, employers have less control over employees’ home office environments. I would not be surprised to see an increase in cumulative back injury claims due to employees sitting in bad chairs for eight hours a day. It may be a good idea to be proactive with communication with your employees regarding at home ergonomic issues as it could potentially save a workers’ compensation claim down the road.

Navigating the legal and safety issues surrounding working from home can be challenging. Your SFM account team and the attorneys at Lynn, Scharfenberg and Hollick are here to help.

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