Victorian work from home laws - what employers need to know ahead of September

The Victorian Government introduced its proposed work from home (WFH) laws to Parliament yesterday.[1] If passed, the laws will commence on 1 September for most businesses, and 1 July 2027 for small businesses.

The new WFH laws have created a lot of uncertainty and questions for employers. Given the short lead time before the laws are predicted to commence, employers should start preparing now – even before the laws are passed.

In particular, employers will likely require new or updated WFH policies for their Victorian employees to ensure compliance with the new laws. This is particularly important given the very technical criteria for assessing who is an eligible employee, and if so, whether it is reasonable for them to work from home.

Employers should also prioritise having individual discussions with employees about WFH arrangements and set expectations on how work will be performed remotely. Clear expectations on the inherent requirements of roles and whether WFH is reasonable must also be discussed with new employees.

Although the laws are yet to be passed, and will likely be subject to debate and potential legal challenge, our initial observations about the proposed laws include:

It will have broad application. ‘Eligible employee’ includes anyone who can reasonably work from home. Employees who are expressly excluded include:

1. Employees on probation.
2. Apprentices, Trainees, Interns, Graduates, and those in work experience programs.
3. Regulated workers and Independent contractors (such as gig workers).
4. Non-regular casual employees.

The laws also seek to carve out people who already have an entitlement to request a flexible working arrangement under the Fair Work Act – such as parents, carers, people with disabilities, persons over 55, persons experiencing family or domestic violence, or a person who is pregnant. This carve out is likely to create practical issues, meaning workers who may require flexible work arrangements the most will not be eligible for the more favourable right under the proposed Victorian laws, effectively creating two cohorts of employees in Victoria.

 

The criteria for assessing ‘reasonableness’ is a complex list of factors. The proposed laws include the only factors that can be considered by an employer in determining whether it is reasonable for an employee to work from home. The factors include the inherent requirements of the role and the impacts of working from home on the employer including any impacts on productivity, safety, supervision, customer service, the ability to build relationships with clients, confidentiality and data protection, or where it would impose excessive financial costs, require impractical changes to working arrangements or necessitate impractical new hirings.

In total, the Bill requires employers to consider at least 13 separate factors and to provide a response within 21 days that complies with detailed statutory requirements. While employers could refuse a request if it would have a significant impact on safety, productivity or client facing work, the reasonableness test creates a grey area that will likely lead to disputation. Therefore, this complex list of factors will need to be carefully assessed and incorporated into WFH policies.

Employees have considerable control over the request. Employees can nominate the days, times and location from which they wish to work from home. Importantly, where it is not practicable to do so, workers may not need to specify the days or times they propose to work remotely at all. The explanatory memorandum provides an example of where it may not be practicable for an eligible employee to notify their employer of the days where the employee's working days may change, and it may only be practicable to notify a ‘proportion of the week’ in which the employee intends to work from home.  

There will be challenges to the laws themselves and to individual refusals by employers. The carve out of people who can make a flexible working arrangement application under the Fair Work Act is presumably an attempt to get around the likely constitutional challenges these laws will likely face. However, these challenges will likely still come.

Employees themselves can bring disputes on the WFH right to the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission and / or VCAT. Given the complexity of the provisions, we expect there will be many challenges by unhappy employees. Unlike under the Fair Work Act flexible work arrangement jurisdiction, Victorian employees could seek that VCAT make orders for the payment of compensation for unreasonable refusals of WFH requests.

There will be a cost to employers. Employers are required to pay the ‘reasonable costs’ associated with employees working from home, including by providing hardware/software and to ‘secure access to the employer’s information systems’. It is unclear how far this will extend. For example, does the requirement to pay costs to ‘secure access to the employer’s information systems’ include paying for a portion of the employee’s home internet connection? There is no guidance on the scope of this in the Explanatory Memorandum and this will likely create further issues and disputes over what is considered a ‘reasonable’ cost.

There will be paperwork and new systems required for employers. Eligible employees who wish to exercise their right to WFH must lodge a ‘work from home notice’ to request. Employers must then respond to the notice within 21 days. P&C and internal legal teams need to start familiarising themselves with the criteria that can be relied on to refuse any request to WFH. Employers who don’t currently permit employees to WFH, will need to consider if that position will be sustainable once the laws commence on 1 September.

What about occupational health and safety under the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004? Employers already have a duty to, so far as is reasonably practicable, provide a working environment for employees that is safe and without risks to health. This has always included the home office environment. However, with more workers WFH, employers will need to ensure they are identifying any hazards and controlling risks, so far as is reasonably practicable, which arise from workers who are working from home. Employers must also ensure they are consulting with workers and health and safety representatives. Employees also have a duty to take reasonable care for their own health and safety, and must cooperate with an employer taking steps to ensure they are safe while working from home. Where employers are paying the costs associated with new hardware for a person to work from home, arguably these duties will expand even further.  

Because of this, employers may be required to review their current systems on assessing hazards and risk arising from workers working from home.

Note: The Government has also indicated that it will publish guidance material ahead of the proposed laws being enacted to assist with pro-rata calculations of the WFH right for part-time and regular casual employees (which will be prescribed by the regulations).

[1]     Equal Opportunity Amendment (Work from Home) Bill 2026 (Vic).