How legal changes that were supposed to make remote work easier have in fact restricted it. It seemed that the return-to-office debate peaked last year. On 7 April 2023, the Polish Labour Code’s regulations on remote work came into force.
Some of those affected say: “Finally we have it!”
The legislator has once again regulated remote work in the Labour Code, and the provisions have been made more detailed. HOORAY. Crowds of employees expected this form of work to stay with us for longer, and yet…
Great disappointment… among those who became remote workers over the last two years. These people are:
Employees who have come to enjoy remote work – they have learned to balance home life and work.
Specialists who have learned to work independently and whose effectiveness drops with crowds and noise around them.
Employees who have organised their lives differently – moved house, sold their car – and sometimes physically have no way of coming to the office every day.
For many of these employees, a forced return to the office will prompt a difficult decision about whether to change jobs.
Those employees who felt bad at home, didn’t have the right conditions or needed other people around them were persuaded by their employers to return earlier.
Throughout this time, various specialists could be read in various sources, backing their views with research and polls.
Whatever source you open, it cites some survey results on remote work. Many contradict each other, some prove a thesis set in advance by the study’s sponsor, and some are so methodologically unreliable that they are not worth quoting. Most, however, show that managers want employees back in the office because they believe employees are then more motivated, easier to supervise and guaranteed to be working. And a few other “becauses”.
Since the pandemic began to fade, more and more employers have been persuading and encouraging employees to return to the office.
And the employees? Those who missed the office came back immediately and without any problem. Those who have come to enjoy remote work don’t want to think about returning. In negotiations with their employer, many employees say they will return to the office on certain conditions: a pay rise, more flexible working hours, compensation for commuting, etc.
Until the Polish parliament passed the changes to the Labour Code on remote work, most people worked remotely on the basis of mutual agreement.
The provisions came into force on 7 April 2023. In practice, this means that most employees will be forced to return to the office.
The act does state that the employer must set out the rules for remote work and that in certain cases they will not be able to refuse an employee the right to work remotely. It introduces occasional remote work – 24 days a year.
In practice, however, it limits the possibility of using it. In addition to the above, the employer is to pay an allowance (PLN 30–90 per employee per month), but above all will be obliged to carry out a whole series of procedural steps.
Accounting for remote work will also be a nightmare.
In summary – most employers view the regulations negatively, and it is more likely that they will try to avoid this form of work.
It will indeed become a benefit available to the few. It will become a test of an employer’s flexibility, which future employees will put them through. It will be interesting to see how job ads change – today hybrid and remote work is a fairly common feature encouraging people to apply.
