This changing landscape has created new legal considerations and potential risks of litigation for employers who have transitioned to remote or hybrid working arrangements, including the following:

Discrimination claims: Employers should make sure to carefully craft and implement a procedure for handling remote work in a consistent manner. Employers should also ensure that this procedure includes information regarding requests to work remotely as a reasonable accommodation for a disability. Consistent application of well-reasoned and thoughtful policies is always a best practice in order to mitigate the risk of claims that requests for remote work were denied for allegedly discriminatory reasons.
Reimbursement: Over the past few years, employees who have purchased home-office equipment or office supplies that would normally be provided by the employer at the office have filed lawsuits demanding reimbursement. In order to minimize the risk of litigation, employers should be sure to adopt clear policies that comply with state and federal law that address reimbursing employees for work-related expenses from working from home.
Notification of employee rights: Various state and federal laws require employers to display posters in the workplace notifying employees of their rights. While these laws vary in terms of the sufficiency of electronic postings, the best practice is to continue displaying posters in the workplace, provide electronic postings via email, and make sure the electronic postings are easily accessible to employees at all times. This requires employers to keep careful track of where remote employees are working, as different states and some municipalities require employers to notify employees of their rights under the applicable state and local laws.

Remote and hybrid work models raise many other legal considerations, such as wage-and-hour issues, tax consequences and insurance implications. For employers with a remote or hybrid working arrangement, the first step to managing these legal risks is having a written remote-work policy that defines eligibility and expectations from employees who are authorized to work remotely. In addition, if working remotely requires approval, the policy should lay out a procedure to make such requests and include reference to the procedures to request remote work as an accommodation under the ADA.

Instant Insights /

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