The new Distance Work Law that regulates how a teleworking situation should be is already in force.
Except for the sanctions, which will be set aside until next October, companies and workers are already obliged to apply what the new regulation establishes , which establishes the provisions of the Royal Decree that the Government approved last fall.
Among the main novelties , telework is marked as voluntary for the worker and for the company and as reversible. In other words, the company cannot force a worker to telework except for a major cause.
In addition, the law also states that regular distance work is considered to be anyone who is provided outside the company’s work space for at least 30% of the time of a three-month reference period. Teleworking as such is marked as a subcategory of distance work marked by technological use.
The norm also contemplates that the expenses and the means must be collected by the company and can be stipulated in a collective agreement. In addition, the right to flexible hours is also included as long as it is carried out “respecting the times of mandatory availability”.
However, all these vicissitudes between company and worker must be included according to the law in a distance work agreement, a document that must be made in writing. This agreement may be incorporated into the initial employment contract or carried out at a later time, but in any case “it must be formalized before the remote work begins , ” says the norm.
Hours, expenses or how you can control the company: the content of the agreement
According to article 7 of the new Law , the following points will be the mandatory minimum content of the distance work agreement , “without prejudice to the regulation contained in this regard in the collective agreements or agreements”:
- Inventory of the means, equipment and tools required for the development of the concerted remote work, including consumables and furniture elements, as well as the useful life or maximum period for their renewal.
- Enumeration of the expenses that the worker may have for the fact of providing services at a distance, as well as a way of quantifying the compensation that the company must pay and the moment and form to carry it out, which will correspond, if any with the provision contained in the applicable collective agreement or agreement.
- Working hours of the worker and within it, where appropriate, availability rules.
- Percentage and distribution between face- to- face work and remote work, if applicable.
- Work center of the company to which the teleworker is assigned and where, where appropriate, they will develop the face-to-face part of the working day.
- Remote work place chosen by the worker for the development of remote work.
- Duration of notice periods for the exercise of reversibility situations, if applicable.
- Means of business control of the activity.
- Procedure to follow in the event of technical difficulties that prevent the normal development of remote work.
- Instructions issued by the company , with the participation of the legal representation of the workers, regarding data protection, specifically applicable in remote work.
- Instructions issued by the company , prior information to the legal representation of the workers, on information security, specifically applicable in remote work.
- Duration of the distance work agreement