It was a Tuesday morning. A project manager logged in at 8:47 a.m. Her team saw her status turn green. Her manager assumed she was heads-down on her 9 a.m. calls.
By 2 p.m., she hadn’t joined a single meeting. Her last message sat unread. A colleague called her cell. No answer. A neighbour was contacted. Paramedics were called.
She had suffered a cardiac event hours earlier. She survived — but only because someone eventually noticed. There was no check-in process. No escalation plan. No documentation.
Nobody had thought one was needed. After all, she was just working from home.
Approximately 10,000 cardiac arrests occur in Canadian workplaces every year. For a worker alone at home, the gap between collapse and discovery can be measured in hours.
The Assumption That’s Putting Workers at Risk
Ask most employers whether they have a safety plan for remote workers and you’ll hear some version of: “They’re working from home. What could happen?”
It’s an understandable assumption. And it’s increasingly wrong — legally and practically.
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1 in 5 |
Canadian workers work primarily from home — nearly triple the pre-pandemic rate (Statistics Canada, 2024) |
Nearly 1 in 5 employed Canadians now work primarily from home. In the US, that figure is 22% of the national workforce. That is tens of millions of people spending their working hours alone, without a colleague nearby, without a supervisor who can see them — and in many cases, without any formal process to check whether they are safe.
Two Workers. One Legal Obligation.
Mobile lone workers — field technicians, forestry workers, health care workers on home visits — have traditionally been the focus of safety programs. The risks are visible: falls, equipment failures, remote locations with no cell coverage. Most employers in high-hazard industries already have protocols.
Remote office workers — the analyst in a spare bedroom, the manager on a kitchen table — carry different but equally real risks: a medical emergency with no one nearby, a mental health crisis with no visibility, a fall with no one to respond. And critically: no process in place to know whether help is needed.
The difference between these two workers is the nature of the hazard — not the existence of one. Both can be unreachable. Both are your responsibility.
What the Law Already Says
Most employers don’t know how far occupational health and safety law already extends into the home office.
- In British Columbia, Section 4.21 of the OHSR requires employers to have a written check-in procedure for workers working alone, with documented intervals, a designated contact person, and a clear escalation process if the worker cannot be reached.
- In Ontario, Bill 190 — the Working for Workers Five Act — formally extended OHSA obligations to private residences where telework is performed, effective October 2024.
- In Alberta, the OHS Code requires hazard assessments, safety measures, and regular contact for workers who work alone. Provincial data shows 22% of Alberta’s workplace fatalities involve workers who were alone at the time.
- Federally, the Westray Law (Criminal Code s.217.1) means supervisors and executives can face criminal negligence charges when worker deaths result from preventable failures — including failures that happen in a home office.
The question for employers is no longer whether the law applies to remote workers. It’s whether your processes are ready.
Safety Monitoring Is Not Surveillance
Employees don’t want to be watched at home — and they shouldn’t be. Keystroke logging, screenshots, and activity monitoring are productivity tools, not safety tools. They erode trust and have no place in a genuine wellbeing program.
Remote worker safety is simpler than that: a start-of-day check-in, periodic wellbeing contacts during the day, a way to quickly request help in an emergency, and a documented record that your organization followed a process. The focus is not whether someone is busy. It is whether they are safe.
BC’s Section 4.21 even requires that check-in intervals be developed in consultation with the worker — the legislation itself is built around collaboration, not surveillance.
Closing the Gap
Remote and hybrid work are not going away. For many organizations, the home office is now as much a part of the workplace as any floor of a building. The legal framework is catching up to that reality faster than most employers realize.
A policy statement is not a process. Good intentions are not documentation. An informal check-in is not a compliance record. When something goes wrong, what matters is whether your organization had a plan — and can prove it followed one.
SafetyAware Telework is built for exactly this: start-of-day sign-ins, scheduled wellbeing check-ins, missed-check escalation, SOS support, and a documented response history — aligned with the requirements of BC’s Section 4.21 and the direction of occupational health and safety law across Canada and the United States.