Hybrid and remote working remain popular in Ireland. A recent survey from Eurostat found that the proportion of employees in Ireland who said they sometimes or usually work from home jumped from 19.89 per cent in 2019 to 36.2 per cent last year, the biggest increase of any EU country in percentage terms. According to a survey from AmCham, 98 per cent of its members are offering remote working to their non-manufacturing employees.
“This has been a profound change for the way many organisations do business,” says Anne Kelleher, director and head of Reward Services with Deloitte. “But it has opened up new talent pools for many companies including US multinationals here in Ireland.”
However, as things settle down in the wake of the pandemic many employers are asking people to return to the office. “A lot of companies are saying the people need to be in the workplace for things like collaboration and the transfer of knowledge and skills,” she says. “At the same time they want to give people the flexibility to manage their work and personal lives, but flexible and hybrid working are not the same things. Companies are offering flexibility around things like starting and finishing times, but they need to be clear with employees what hybrid and flexible working mean; they need to define them.”
A clearer picture is beginning to emerge of what the future workplace will look like, according to Eversheds Sutherland, managing partner Alan Connell. “2023 has provided a more comprehensive view of what the working environment will be in the future as companies work out the hybrid environment that works for them. For us there has been a great shift in the way we work as a business, and we can also see this shift in our clients’ businesses.”
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For those employers who continue to offer remote and hybrid working there are some potential downsides to be aware of. Not least of them is the fact that home working extends the employer’s health and safety and other obligations and responsibilities beyond the office to the area of their home where the employee works.
According to Catherine O’Flynn, partner and head of employment and benefits with William Fry, employers need to carry out a risk assessment of employees’ remote workspaces in line with the Health and Safety Authority’s remote working checklist.
“Recent decisions of the European courts should put employers on notice of the potential of employees bringing claims against their employer for an accident which has taken place while working remotely,” she adds. “In a case before the German courts in 2022, an employee managed to claim on the workplace insurance for a slip which occurred at home. The German courts held that this was considered a workplace accident, with the employee deemed to be ‘commuting’ when moving around the home. With this in mind, employers and employees alike should consult their insurance providers when remote working requests are granted.
“Employers must provide a safe work environment and in doing so assess the risks and ensure appropriate controls are in place to safeguard employees at work. It is the employer’s responsibility to proactively ensure that the assessment is completed for each employee by a suitably trained, competent person and account is taken of changing circumstances. The assessment involves a three-step process of, assessing the actual work activity, the hazards arising and lastly monitoring, reviewing, and communicating with employees.”
The Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 comes into play as well and employers must ensure that adequate time recording systems are in place to record working time and breaks. “Although the requirements of the 1997 Act are rigid and were not drafted with a remote working culture in mind, they must continue to be complied with by employers so that they can defend a claim, or in case of an inspection conducted by the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) to investigate compliance with the 1997 Act,” says O’Flynn.
There is also the issue of how employee performance can be monitored when they are not in a traditional workplace environment. Data protection laws require employers to confirm that any processing of employee data is adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary, says O’Flynn.
“In some jobs productivity will be easily measured. In others, however, this is more difficult, and we enter into the dangerous area of monitoring employee activity in a manner which may contravene employee privacy rights. For example, trade unions in Ireland have raised concerns about employers measuring employee productivity by analysing data relating to keyboard taps and mouse clicks. The Data Protection Commissioner in Ireland has stated that any method utilised by an employer to monitor employee productivity must be communicated to the employee, with the employer obliged to explain the purpose for which the data is intended to be processed.”
And then there is the not so small matter of who gets the opportunity to work from home. “Ideally an organisation should ensure that employees have the same or similar access to remote working opportunities,” says Connell. “In our experience at Eversheds Sutherland, one clear policy applied across our firm has achieved the best outcome, particularly in terms of fairness and employee engagement.”
“Flexible and hybrid working are not going away,” Kelleher adds. “Companies owe it to themselves to define what these things mean and explain them to people. Employees have to be supported for it to work properly, as do managers. This requires training and coaching and management development.”