Home Workers Compensation Board of Manitoba
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If you have not already done so, please contact the other WCB jurisdiction where your workers will be working to confirm that jurisdiction’s requirements. Resources WCB-Alberta works in partnership with health care providers to ensure the timely and appropriate treatment of injured workers. Find resources and reporting requirements related to workers’ compensation, disability and Paid Family Leave insurance coverage. As an employer, you must ensure the health and safety of your workers when they are working from home.
Once you collect the employee’s initial report and file it with your workers’ compensation insurance carrier, the matter goes to their adjuster. This is the person who has the resources and knowledge to decide if a claim is work-related or not, based on their investigation and the law in the state where the injury happened. Fewer injuries means fewer workers’ compensation claims, which is why most organizations build workplace safety programs. From an employer’s perspective, the shift to remote work as a new normal has been challenging in many ways. Some of the main concerns involve the safety of the home environment, mental health and stress, and workers’ compensation insurance. In this article, we will examine workers’ compensation for the remote worker and offer ways you can help your staff work more safely at home both now and in the future.
Air Canada employee who fell on stairs in her home eligible for worker’s compensation: Judge
There are some other factors for you to consider when your workers are working out of province. This information includes details about workers who work away from home for extended periods of time and those who are in the trucking or busing industry travelling between provinces. In certain situations, Alberta workers are covered when they leave the province to work. Occupational Injury Service helps injured workers return to work quickly and safely by giving them access to a doctor with experience in work-related injuries. In March 2020 many employers were caught off guard by the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing lockdown. Businesses scrambled to figure out how to remain operational, many making a quick shift to employees working remotely from home and other temporary arrangements.
However, the courts have found that, even though the employer does not have control over an employee’s home environment, lack of evidence is not a reason to deny claims. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 47 million Americans voluntarily quit their jobs during this time as a result of COVID-19 and the initiation of the Federal Stimulus program. However, since the fall of 2021, workforce participation has been on the incline and by February 2022, 1.87 million workers had rejoined the workforce, which was triple the 621,000 who returned in the three prior months. Workers who telecommute on a permanent or temporary basis may still be covered under workers’ compensation.
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A Quebec labour judge has ruled that an Air Canada call centre employee who hurt herself going down a staircase while working from home suffered a workplace injury and merited worker’s compensation. As long as you have people working remotely, your workplace safety program should emphasize the importance of proper posture, correct furniture placement and other ergonomic best practices. Not every injury that happens at home during work hours may result in a successful workers’ compensation claim, though.
It can be challenging to assess if a home injury is genuinely work-related, so if you have any doubts about reporting a claim, we encourage you to contact your claims representative or consultant. Ask your employee to take photos of the injury (cuts, bruises, swelling, etc.) and the injury site when possible (broken chair, dangling cord, etc.). The more information you can gather for the carrier, the easier it will be to assess compensability. Much has changed in the two-and-a-half years since March 2020, when most of the country went into lockdown due to COVID-19 and most businesses moved to remote work models. As a result of mass layoffs and employee absences due to COVID-19, the Great Resignation was born. We cannot automatically extend coverage as the length of time outside the province is not met under Section 28 of the Workers' Compensation Act.
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“The numbers of employees physically in the workplace will continue to increase as departments phase in their plans and we will assess and adapt regularly,” said Chrisy Matheson, a spokesperson for the province. Kelloway says the pandemic has given many people and organizations the opportunity to “re-think” about whether it’s necessary to make people pile into offices Monday through Friday. Staying connected to work can be a healthy part of the recovery process after an injury. See how our shared resilience, growth and innovation moved the workers' compensation system forward last year. Learn more about the workers' compensation system and what to expect when you have a claim.
Matheson didn’t indicate what was in the cards for the long-term future of working from home for government employees. In a statement, Nova Scotia said approximately 70 per cent of its workplace is back in the office, either on a rotating or full-time basis. Companies working from home has been something that was already available for certain fields of employment, but it’s something that has “increased dramatically” during the pandemic, Kelloway said. Although it has not been without its challenges, shifting most of the WCB workforce to working remotely has been a success. But like many workplaces across the globe, the novel coronavirus pandemic has changed that, with most of the WCB workforce working from home. An arms-length government agency is taking a chance and exploring what it may need to do to get its staff of approximately 400 employees working from home — permanently.
Gentile-Patti’s union representative who defended her throughout the legal proceedings says she is happy with the ruling and that she has since made a fully recovery and is back at work. Gentile-Patti’s fall, which occurred moments after disconnecting from her workstation to go to dinner, is an unforeseen and sudden event that occurs during work. He also determined that the only reason Gentile-Patti was taking the staircase from her office to get lunch at the time was due to fact she was bound to a work schedule imposed by Air Canada. In September 2020, Alexandria Gentile-Patti, an Air Canada customer service agent, was working her regular shift from her home office on the second floor when she disconnected from her computer for her lunch break.
In the scenario of an hourly wage worker who has a fixed hybrid schedule, for example, the Coming and Going Rule can arguably apply since the worker has a fixed time and place for regular commuting. In the case of a salaried employee however, this may be less clear, especially if the employee regularly works from home with the knowledge of their employer. What if the salaried employee goes into the office and comes home to perform more work? Would an accident during the commute be considered within the course and scope of employment? With laptops and flexible work schedules, work can be done anywhere and at any time, complicating the defining line of when work starts and ends.
If coverage isn’t automatic, as noted in the situations above, you may still be eligible to have your workers covered while they're working out of province. If it's determined that you are eligible, you must include the workers' earnings for the time spent outside the province subject to any maximum assessable earnings. If the workers' compensation board in the jurisdiction your workers will be working in requires you to maintain an account, then you do not have to report these earnings to WCB-Alberta. Learn about employer coverage requirements for workers’ compensation, disability and Paid Family Leave, as well as your rights and responsibilities in the claim process. You must contact the workers’ compensation board in the jurisdiction where your workers will be working.
Many of the compensation board’s employees work out of three sites, two of which are in Halifax and one in Sydney. Volunteers or unpaid workers are automatically considered workers under the workers' compensation system if you're a for-profit employer operating in a compulsory industry. If you're a not-for-profit employer in a compulsory industry or in an exempt industry without coverage, then they won't have automatic coverage. When comparing all claims from the pandemic period versus the same months prior to the pandemic period, there was a slight increase in mental disorder claims (1.7% versus 1.6% claims), according to CWCI.
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