Remote Office Setup Liability Questions

Posted by backcountry_bytes@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 16 comments

Our department sets up all remote employees' home workstations, which means we have to visit the remote worker's house to install and support the equipment (desktops.) I have recently been thinking about how much liability these onsite visits could generate, both for the employees and the company. Before discussing this with Management, I would like to get some input from the community. First, am I overreacting and making a mountain out of a molehill? If I am not overreacting, what types of liability should we be concerned with? I am aware of the issues regarding property damage, personal injury, and the "man being alone with a woman in her house, occasionally her bedroom, for a few hours." What else am I missing? It would be good to have a comprehensive list before talking with Management.

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16 Comments

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Puzzlehead8675309@reddit

Negative. Do not do. Do not collect $200 or pass GO. Tell your company to go straight to Jail. Provision devices and ship it. My company during the pandemic shipped out 1 monitor with a thin client attached to the back. That thin client had a baked in kiosk mode so when it started up it immediately asked for their work login. No muss no fuss. Plug in 2 power cords and an ethernet if you need it (which we also provided). Plus a mouse and keyboard (provided this too). This way the user received one large device and we included documentation for each plug and how they were plugged in, including pictures of the devices to show what it would look like. If they had problems they could do a zoom call on their phone and show us the setup and we could walk them through it over the phone.

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spazmo_warrior@reddit

OP, also what if WFH employee’s dog bites your tech?

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_SystemEngineer_@reddit

Man reddit has the most shot work stories.

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Proper_Barracuda_495@reddit

That is insane, absolutely not something that should be happening. Ship them laptops and necessary peripherals. If they can't set those up, they ship it back and find a new job.

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GhoastTypist@reddit

> Our department sets up all remote employees' home workstations, which means we have to visit the remote worker's house to install and support the equipment What happens if the employee doesn't want anyone to enter into the home because you know its their **private** residence? Personally I shut this down as much as possible even with remote workers. Some of my techs say "this isn't much an issue, I don't really care about it" but I take a stance where if both parties don't have an issue with it and its fully necessary then yes we'll enter a home and do setup but otherwise its a no-no on our end. There's too many things like health & safety to consider, for one you are no longer in your place of work, you're at someone's private residence and you don't have the same personal protections that you would with a work place. No one wants to enter a home and see alcohol bottles, bongs, guns, or underwear laying around, what if the person is a hoarder and there's risk of tetanus. People come to a work location they don't bring that stuff with them but when its their home, yeah its possible. So 100% I try to stay away from it as much as possible.

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pdp10@reddit

> alcohol bottles, bongs, guns, or underwear [*Shoot, a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff.*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5qqfsQGYus)

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backcountry_bytes@reddit (OP)

>Its not just the employee you have to worry about, its any other residents of the home as well. Maybe a jealous partner thinks you're invading their space, maybe a child/teen who thinks you're an invader. This is an excellent, and sobering, point.

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HerfDog58@reddit

My last gig, I had people request that I come to their house to drop stuff off, or fix problems. "Can't do that; company liability insurance doesn't cover me working at your home so they won't let me. You can meet me at the office, or we do a remote session." One guy DEMANDED I deliver a replacement laptop to his house 2 miles from the office because his dogs were sick and he couldn't leave them alone (they weren't - he used that line with like 6 other people). Just so I wouldn't have to listen to him whine, I did it. I left the laptop on his porch, then sat in my car in his driveway and kept texting him to get it off the porch. I told him I'd give him 5 minutes, and then I was taking the laptop back to the office, and he wouldn't get a replacement even if he came to the office. He immediately came out and took it inside. But going into people's homes nowadays? NOPE. No need with imaging, remote setup, MDM configuration, yadda yadda yadda.

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shadow_chance@reddit

This is absolutely insane. That'd be a hard no from me. All it takes is one allegation and you're in a meeting with HR with no defense.

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_DeathByMisadventure@reddit

There's no way I'd let my self or my team be put in that position. If something happens you would be sued individually and because the company would also be sued, you can't have the company's legal provide your defense. Can you afford your own lawyer? Do you have umbrella insurance personally? What about if you go into their home and see evidence of child abuse, and you're a mandatory reporter. Ask your company's legal representative about that scenario and see their heads explode. That in itself would get that home visit thing shut down entirely.

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backcountry_bytes@reddit (OP)

>What about if you go into their home and see evidence of child abuse, and you're a mandatory reporter This is a good point, and applies to all kinds of criminal activity.

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dialtone1111@reddit

During the onset of the pandemic, leadership very, very briefly floated the idea of us doing in-home service. We shut that conversation down very quickly for all the reasons you mentioned, but also the added health risk of our techs contracting something from a sick resident. Also, what if a tech gets into an accident during the commute, is badly injured or worse, who's responsible for that? (work, obviously) So right from the start we require all employees wanting to work remotely to do the set up themselves. If they can't do that then they don't qualify for remote work and need to come into the office everyday where they receive excellent hands-on tech support. We have not received push back from anyone so far (current or new hires). We provide all the necessary tech and peripherals along with very detailed instructions with pictures on how to hook everything up (which cable of the dock goes to the laptop, the location of the ports on the monitor, etc.). After the physical hookups, we can provide remote assistance for anything else. Staff seem happy with this arrangement.

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ZAFJB@reddit

#WTF? What is this home visit bullshit? Send them home with whatever kit they need, and a PDF that tells them how to get access to the corporate stuff. If they can't plug stuff in then you don't get to WFH. With that threat they suddenly seem manage to do it.

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AppIdentityGuy@reddit

I would consider something like Autopilot and shipping equipment with some well thought and tested instructions rather than getting your self in that lava pit. I’m assuming you are in the US.

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Ifuqaround@reddit

Never where I worked. Luckily I don't deal with this anymore. It was laptop + charger, dock + charger, monitor (or 2), mouse. That's it. If they cannot hook up a few wires at home my god....

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progenyofeniac@reddit

Good golly, of all the remote work arrangements I've heard of, I've never heard of IT going to homes to set stuff up. Not saying there can't be unique situations, but this isn't normal. How do you think big, nationwide companies are handling remote work? They're sure not going to employees' homes to set stuff up. I'd sooner focus on making the setup process as easy as possible and letting users do it themselves if they want to work from home.