Why does Portugal hate telework? – Observer
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Having approved the most recent labor measures regarding the teleworking school, we are only given questions to the deputies of the Assembly of the Republic: why do you hate telework? (note to Vasco Palmeirim: here is an excellent question for the program oh joker – nobody knows how to answer this one!).
Let us remember: changes to the Labor Code (although their exact determination is not known to them) dictate the implementation of
- obligation for employers to bear additional expenses related to telework, especially electricity and internet,
- possibility for workers with children up to 8 years of age to work on a telecommuting basis, without the need for an agreement with the employer, and
- obligatory teleworkers to physically travel to the company every two months.
Almost two years after the pandemic, in which workers and service providers were forced to carry out their activities from their homes, and in which many companies (in particular, as connections to the service sectors) registered until an expected increase in productivity – if that our illustrious legislators had come out with “something better”. If not, let’s see.
The use of remote work allows companies to attract professionals without any physical barriers, while allowing workers to enter different professional proposals and projects in other countries, with different teams and remunerations.
For a country that complains of large percentages of emigration among young professionals, these measures are a lost opportunity for retaining Portuguese talent and for maintaining the quality of life for workers residing here (although they have tried to address this part of the issue with the consecration of the “right to disconnect”, but this is a discussion that is saved for other nuptials).
A good fraction of young people (though I’m not excluding other age groups, but I admit they have other constraints to do so) enjoy pure telework for several reasons: ease in reconciling work and personal life, reduced insurance traditional latecomers that prevent them from having an “experiment abroad” or even from returning to their homeland in the interior of Portugal, disappearance of the evil eye of older generations when they leave at 18:05 in a work schedule that ends at 18h.
For companies, this work provision regime is also not without advantages. In fact, in many cases, the need to resort to a local physicist to house the various workers disappears, with all the financial expenses that this entails locally (whether rent, electricity, water or furniture). To the above, as companies can present for a smaller space and reduced to activities that do not survive without first being present.
Naturally, this frees companies from the many financial shackles they are placed in by the normal development of business activity. As a result, it may be more willing, who knows, to increase the earnings of its workers (yes, there are still “bosses” who want to see their workers happy and with quality of life, they don’t go back to the boggarts than the extreme left parties so well “cartoonize” in their populist advertisements).
And what did the legislator come to do? Throwing one more expense into a well that is almost overflowing with business expenses, forcing as employers to pay expenses related to telework. To me, he offers me to say: but is everything crazy?
on a working regime in loco, the employer never had to use workers’ expenses with packages, with the natural wear and tear of vehicles, with transport for public transport, with the purchase of proper clothing for work, etc. Where does this invention of telecommuting expenses come from?
More: how are you going to distinguish expenses related to telecommuting from those arising from the normal use of the house? Will the worker be required to present the electricity bill at the end of the month? And will the employer have to pay you more because that worker has decided to join the 10 GB a month package? Has anyone cured of regulating these issues?
As is evident, such a provision has a highly deterrent effect for the employer, which is, it should be noted, the ultimate decision-maker of the labor regime applicable to the worker.
Unless, of course, this worker has a child up to 8 years old. In this case, the employer is not entitled to pronounce on the place of work of that worker. As they say in good Portuguese, come with the telecommuting thing.
This epic of preposterous measures was not enough, clearly coming from those who have never been at the helm of a company or sitting at their desk as a worker in an organization, they still dare to establish that teleworkers have to travel to the company every two months.
That is, they completely distort the telework regime and prevent, on the one hand, workers benefiting from its advantages and, on the other, as employers from adopting the regime that is most convenient for them to develop the activity, as well as from be able to hire foreign personnel. Legislative as big people and leave the decision to apply this remote work regime to the autonomy of companies.
We ended, then, as we always were, as we always are: stuck in time and stupidly alone.