How to Record Work-From-Home Injuries on OSHA Logs

A work-from-home injury is work-related if it happens while the employee is doing paid work and is directly related to that work, not to the home environment. Dropping a box of work files on a foot counts; tripping over the family dog on the way to a work call does not.

Remote work cases are not automatically personal, and not automatically work-related.

An injury or illness is work-related if an event or exposure in the work environment caused or contributed to it, or significantly aggravated a pre-existing condition (29 CFR 1904.5). It is presumed for anything that happens in the work environment unless one of nine exceptions applies: the person was there as a member of the public; symptoms surfaced at work but came solely from a non-work event; voluntary wellness, fitness, or recreation; eating or drinking for personal consumption; personal tasks outside assigned working hours; personal grooming, self-medication for a non-work condition, or a self-inflicted injury; a motor vehicle accident in a company parking lot or access road while commuting; the common cold or flu; and mental illness, unless the employee voluntarily provides a qualified professional's opinion that it is work-related.

Ask whether the employee was performing work for pay and whether the injury directly related to the work. Deciding work-relatedness after severity is the most common ordering mistake, and it pushes borderline cases onto the log, or off it, for the wrong reason. The fix is to settle where the employee was, what they were doing, and at whose direction before anyone discusses treatment or severity.

HR safety partners often hear the sensitive details first, so privacy handling and a clear line between HR files and the OSHA log matter most.

Teams often record home environment hazards that OSHA treats differently from work tasks.

Work-relatedness is the first gate: a case that fails it never reaches the recording criteria, the 300A totals, or the rates. A case that passes still needs a recording criterion before it goes on the log.

• A remote employee still needs to be linked to an establishment for recordkeeping purposes.
• The work environment is more than the building: it includes any location where employees work or are present as a condition of employment, and the equipment and materials they use.

A remote claims adjuster develops wrist pain from long days on a company laptop and is prescribed physical therapy: work-related and recordable, on the log of the office the adjuster is linked to. The same adjuster's burn from cooking lunch at home is not work-related.

1. Link the remote employee to an establishment.
2. Collect the task, time, location, and equipment.
3. Decide whether the injury came from the work or the home.
4. Apply the recording criteria.

What to keep in the case file:

• What the employee was doing, where, and at whose direction
• Whether the location is part of the work environment
• Which exception you considered and the facts that support or rule it out
• For aggravation cases, the condition before the event and what changed after it

300log keeps the facts that decide work-relatedness (where the event happened, what the employee was doing just before, and what happened) in each case's 301 fields, right next to the log entry they support.

For a quick answer without an account, use the free recordability checker.

• Work-Relatedness Under OSHA 1904.5: A Practical Decision Path
• Preexisting Conditions and OSHA Recordability: When Work Significantly Aggravates an Injury
• Travel Status Injuries and OSHA Recordkeeping: Hotels, Commutes, and Work Tasks
• Loss of an Eye Reporting to OSHA: The 24-Hour Rule Explained