Working from home to become a legal right in this European country

Dutch lawmakers have made a move to make telecommuting a legal right. This makes European countries the first in the world to enshrine the flexibility of remote work in the law.

The Dutch Parliament approved this measure earlier this week. Per BloombergCurrently, the bill is heading to the Senate for final approval before it becomes a fixture for the legal framework.

Stephen van Weienberg, a member of the Democratic 66 Party and co-sponsor of the bill, told Bloomberg. In late June The bill had the support of the union.

“We got the green light of this new law thanks to the support we received from both our employees and our employers’ union,” Weyenberg told the outlets. “I am very much looking forward to passing before the summer.”

Current Dutch law allows an employer to deny an employee’s request for remote work without justifying the decision.

The new bill will force employers to consider telecommuting requests and provide reasons for denying them if it passes the Senate and the law is signed.

For many employees, pandemics have overturned work arrangements, often remote or hybrid.

More and more workplaces are beginning to ask staff to return to the office, but many workers want to maintain flexible options.

Recently Owl Research Institute Survey Regarding the trend of remote work in Europe, he concluded that “hybrid work stays here” and said that 76% of employees are worried that employers will not adopt a policy to allow hybrid work. ..

According to the same survey, the top policies that workers are most likely not to accept jobs are not allowing flexible hours (37%), flexible work locations (28%), and giving staff full-time work. Was to force. (28 percent).

Opinion polls show that flexible work styles are widespread in the United States as well, before they occurred. About 6 percent of Americans During the pandemic, more than a third shifted to work from home, but worked remotely.

A Recent Morning Consult Survey Sixty-one percent of adults employed in the United States have shown that they are more likely to apply for a job that offers remote work options.

In the same poll, 56% of respondents enjoy working away from the office, while 50% say it’s more productive to work remotely.

But more and more US companies are keen to get their staff back into the office.

A Recent research by Microsoft has found that 50% of companies already require workers to return to the office five days a week or plan to do so within the next year.

Employees, on the other hand, want flexibility, and research shows that 52% of workers are considering switching to full-time remote or hybrid jobs in 2022.

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Tom Ozimek has a broad background in journalism, deposit insurance, marketing and communication, and adult education. The best writing advice he has ever heard is from Roy Peter Clark.