Employers’ group Ibec says it has seen an increase in the number of calls it receives from member companies seeking advice on employment law due to the succession of new pieces of regulation being adopted by Government and the resulting regulation of areas like remote working.
The detail of rules to be put in place for requesting permission to work from home are currently the subject of talks at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) which is to formulate a new code of practice on the issue which became a key industrial relations topic during the pandemic.
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New legislation on statutory sick pay entitlements, protective disclosures and work/life balance including the remote working provisions has been passed in recent months and changes with regard to the minimum wage, pay transparency and collective bargaining are all in the pipeline. The Irish Business and Employers Confederation (Ibec) head of employment law services, Nichola Harkin, said many employers have found it a challenge to stay on top of the number of changes being made.
“Remote work and flexible working have been prompting a lot of interest while the whistle-blowing legislation has prompted a lot of questions. And then, we are seeing, recently, more questions coming in around that EU directive on pay transparency,” she said at Ibec’s employment law conference in Dublin on Thursday.
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Requests for guidance on issues of employment law routinely generates a high volume of inquiries from companies, she said, but the current surge in legislative changes has prompted increased numbers of calls from firms eager to obtain clarity on the nature of the changes being made and their practical implications for their workplaces.
“A lot of the changes have really good aims and we support that idea of work life balance. Many of our largest employers already have policies in place in relation to remote work [and] flexible working. These are things that employers are already doing to a large degree.
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“But, I think, the challenge for employers is the sheer volume of change at the moment, the influx of legislation. It’s just a lot [for] them to get their heads around.
“In an area like the whistleblower legislation, we had legislation on the issue since 2014 but employers now find themselves needing to establish which of their policies need to be updated.”
Asked about the code of practice in relation to remote working, she said the time frame remains unclear but that some consultation with both employers and worker representatives remains to be done.
“I do know that the WRC will be engaging with stakeholders around its preparation and we will feed into that process as well. Our hope is that it will be a kind of a user-friendly document that does recognise the very different situation that different employers find themselves in. What one employer might be able to provide might simply not be possible for another.”
The Irish Congress of Trade Unions has previously suggested the code could be drawn up before the summer.
