When Home is the Office: Revisiting Occupational Safety Laws in Remote Work

Abstract

Remote work has rapidly shifted from a temporary arrangement to a sustained employment model, reshaping how work is organised and where occupational risks arise. This development challenges traditional occupational safety and health (OSH) regulation, which has historically been designed around physical workplaces under employer control. In Malaysia, the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1994 (OSHA) establishes general duties for ensuring employee safety. However, its application to home-based work remains legally uncertain due to the absence of explicit statutory recognition of remote work environments as workplaces. This paper examines whether Malaysia’s current OSH framework sufficiently protects remote workers, focusing on the regulatory gaps associated with physical hazards, ergonomic risks, psychosocial harm, enforcement limitations, and employer liability in non-employercontrolled settings. Adopting a doctrinal and comparative legal methodology, the study analyses Malaysia’s legal structure alongside selected approaches from other jurisdictions, with particular reference to the United Kingdom’s broader duty of care framework under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. The analysis is further contextualised using international labour standards, including the International Labour Organization’s Home Work Convention 1996 (No. 177), which articulates principles of equal protection for home-based workers, although Malaysia has not ratified the Convention. The findings indicate that Malaysia’s existing regulatory architecture does not adequately reflect the realities of remote work, leaving both workers and employers without clear guidance on responsibility allocation and compliance. The paper proposes targeted legal and policy reforms, including clarifying statutory definitions, strengthening regulatory guidance on remote OSH, recognising psychosocial hazards as part of OSH protection, and establishing practical mechanisms for enforcement in home-based work arrangements.