Broadly speaking, the contract of employment between your organisation and your employees will typically define what may be described as the 'legitimate duties' associated with their role.

1. Derek Siewert - A Guide to Employee Insurance
When you move office, there are certain issues you should be aware of relating to your
employee liability insurance and the law.
In what follows, please remember this is not qualified legal advice. Things may vary
significantly depending upon the legal jurisdiction you are operating within at national or
local state level.
The use of employees as removals labour
Broadly speaking, the contract of employment between your organisation and your
employees will typically define what may be described as the 'legitimate duties' associated
with their role.
What this means is that you have no right to require them to do anything significantly
outside of those definitions.
It's worth noting here that even if they do so willingly, you may well be legally exposed if
you are asking them to engage in, for example, manual labour to support an office move.
There are two consequences of this for the typical employer. The first is that you cannot
cajole your employees into acting as casual labour - even subtly. The second is that even if
they do assist, whether willingly or under pressure, you may also have put at risk aspects of
your employee liability insurance.

2. A scenario
To give an illustration of the complexity of the legal and insurance issues here, take a
hopefully hypothetical scenario in which one of your employees is injured.
Somebody who falls in the office when in pursuit of their defined normal duties will typically
be covered by your employee liability insurance and legal definitions of what constitutes a
legitimate employer demand. That's providing you have met all workplace health and safety
laws.
However, that same person falling while they are trying to pack items into a removals
company's boxes or while they are carrying things out to a removals vehicle, might
constitute an entirely different situation. Given that the packing and removal of items into a
waiting vehicle would hardly be considered to be part of their "normal duties", you may find
that your insurance cover is not valid and that you might also be in breach of employment
and health and safety laws.
The solution
Many employers ask, directly and indirectly, their employees to assist in the packing up and
sometimes carrying of office equipment in support of a planned move.
Employers usually do so for one of two reasons:
• They are trying to cut costs and avoid paying for specialist packers
• They wish to try and ensure that the packing is done correctly and with due consideration
for the items concerned.
Neither of these is valid nor would they typically constitute an acceptable position under
law.
The first motivator should never be a deciding factor and the second can be easily achieved
if you select a professional office removals company and ask them to provide specialist
packing services.
It would be highly advisable for all employers to take this matter seriously and to avoid
slipping into casual assumptions about just what can be expected of employees by way of
packing and labour in support of an office move.