Government must introduce policies for home workers
WITH the country once again in the grip of severe lockdown measures not seen since the start of the pandemic, the Government is insisting the majority of people must work from home.
But with schools now closed for the foreseeable future, the line between work life and family life has become increasingly blurred.
Many will now be well familiar with juggling Zoom calls, home responsibilities, emails and Whatsapp messages – all while working from home.
Throw in the challenges of having to supervise home schooling and remote learning for multiple children and you have a recipe for stress and burnout.
Working from home – or in a hub close to home – can have its advantages. It can cut down long commutes, saving time and money. It can also help employees balance work with their lives outside of their jobs.
Many people I know have welcomed the opportunity to work from home and enjoy the increased flexibility. But it can come with serious downsides. For some time I have been hearing the other side of the coin – of people experiencing increased stress and still being at their desks outside of paid working hours.
Technology has given us all great freedom and flexibility. But it has also led to many workers being permanently “on call”. I have heard stories of conflict between work and home life; expectations that messages and emails will be responded to after hours; of increased stress and problems with sleeping. These have all emerged as challenges for many people who work from home.
Working from home has also led to increased costs for many employees. An advertisement currently running, designed to be humorous, suggests a person on a Zoom call has frozen (in a literal sense) due to poor home heating. This ad, while it may bring a smile or chuckle, has a serious element to it.
Under health and safety legislation, employers have responsibilities to their workers. They must maintain a workplace with certain standards in place.
But what happens when the home becomes a workplace? Employers must take up responsibility for funding increased costs associated with work. The Government must catch up – we never asked employees to fund the costs of work before, like electricity or other bills. Why should we start now?
Other countries have introduced very good policies in this area. In Switzerland a federal supreme court ruled that if employees are required to work from home, the company must pay a share of their rent.
We need new laws to ensure work from home can be conducted safely and in comfort.
The Government should enshrine a “right to disconnect” in Irish law, which would mean employees are not obliged to engage in work outside of paid working hours. At the very least, we should amend our health and safety laws, which offer good protection around “trips and slips” in the workplace.
We must also take into account stress at work, while at home, as a health and safety issue.
Workplace bullying and harassment are real problems, which may extend beyond the office and into the traditional sanctuary of the home. Again, employers need to have policies in place to deal with these issues.
The Government has promised some action in this area – but what is proposed falls far short of what is required. Even when we are out the other side of this pandemic, working from home will be the new normal for many of us.
We need to act now to ensure that working from home works for all.
Jennifer Whitmore is a Social Democrats TD for Wicklow and party spokesperson for Children.