Home offices are those spaces within residences or combination residential and commercial buildings where work can be done remotely during hybrid and work from home arrangements, or where peoples' businesses are based at home, as might happen where work can be done with the online exchange of information such as in accounting, law, or copywriting. As for 2026, 36% of Australian workers worked some or part of their employment at home. In 2025, the main reason people usually worked from home was to work more flexibly or choose their own hours (23%), followed by those who operate business from home or had home based job (22%), and those who worked from home to catch up on work after hours (21%). In August 2025, 59% of managers and professionals usually worked form home, compared with 21% for all other occupations.
Home offices are spaces within a home that function as an office. Under Work Health and Safety laws, offices fall under the definition of workplaces, whether they are located within a residential building or if they are in an office building or space, where a "workplace" is defined as a place where work is carried out for a business or undertaking and includes any place where a worker goes, or is likely to be, while at work. This is important because while office buildings are designed to meet the needs of working people engaging in occupations in one place for extended periods of time, home offices are not designed in this way. Residential buildings are constructed to different standards and so have different attributes when compared with office buildings.
Additionally, when a worker elects to work from home, they need to harmonise the arrangement, use, and ergonomics of work-related equipment with a home environment. The stereotypical example of this is where a worker is working from a kitchen table with a laptop propped up on phonebooks. The home environment is also less stereotyped and controlled than an office environment is. Contemporarily, some workers have elected to work from home to care for children, which may introduce distractions. If a worker is a housemate of other people, the division of space in which work is done may become an issue. Where equipment is needed, does the worker or the employer provide this equipment? Where additional ergonomic or occupational devices are needed to facilitate the sustainable use of occupational or home office equipment, does the employer or employee pay for this equipment and is it provided based on a rationale or assessment.
Finally, when workers work from home either volitionally or as a consequence of work organisation, the boundaries between work and home become more permeable. Where workers are increasingly exposed to their work, such as through being emailed and contacted outside of hours, where they voluntarily engage with work-related tasks to complete them before due dates, or where workers need to synchronise their hours with foreign timezones when working with international or otherwise distributed teams, the intrusion of work duties into home duties and home stress into the occupational milieu may also introduce stress which needs to be managed.
Each workplace is different, with different demands, methods of business, and is staffed by people whose capacities, needs, and risk profiles are different. Managing ergonomic, environmental, and occupational health and safety challenges requires a business to examine and engage with the ecosystem of factors that give rise to risk, and how that risk may affect people. Each workplace is different and so sometimes the same problem will require different solutions. This applies to workers as well - every person is different and so may require different support, supervision, or resources to perform comfortably and sustainably. Under Work Health and Safety law, consultation with the workforce, the control of risk as far as is reasonably practicable, and the provision of information, training, instruction and support to the worker by the workplace, is essential to meet obligations to provide workers with a workplace that is as free of risk as far is reasonably practicable.
In our capacity as consultants, Atlas Physio will explore and scope the business and its needs, examining how exposures, risks, and processes contribute to the hazard ecosystem, best inform the design and arrangement of procedural, policy-based, and practical risk controls. Our solutions are tailored to the needs of those with whom we work, implemented in a simple, sustainable, and supportive fashion, designed to be robust and resilient, and to support the ongoing life of the business as well as the sustainable wellbeing of the workers who undertake the day to day activities of work.
At Atlas Physio, we provide reporting, structured control, and ongoing management of risk onsite, on the road, and wherever work is done. We are open seven days a week, and are happy to offer a brief complimentary discussion to explore the needs of your business and your workers if you are an employer, and your needs if you are a worker. Reach out today to arrange a discussion and take the first step toward managing risk and working safely, supported by expertise that is practical, reliable, and designed to deliver lasting results.