As a bus driver, i completely disagree with the government.
>The Government has rejected calls to introduce a right to work from home, promising instead to legislate for a right for employees to request home-working.
We won’t give it too you, we’ll just make you beg for it
Employer should be able to say no to employees with reason. What does a right to work from home mean? It’s the same as a right to housing – it means different things to different people and in practice isn’t realistic in every situation.
If you don’t like the remote situation in your job look for a better situation.
Obviously it’s a silly idea but there’s no middle ground with these cunts. Why not introduce incentives to companies to WFH?
Man, fuck those guys.
I get it’s a hard thing to implement, but can’t help but think it’s just because “we need office workers in the towns and cities buying their expensive coffees and 16 euro chicken fillet rolls for lunch”.
Thinking about it the other day and wouldn’t it be a good way to try and hit whatever climate goal we’ve half arsed promised to reach by 2030 or whatever? Less cars on the road, less pollution, less offices need less energy etc etc. Or is that a stupid view on it all?
I agree with this. Each employee should be negotiating with their employer on work from home. The government should not be telling companies how they run their business. If your company doesn’t offer WFH, move to a company that will.
It’s not the governments place to introduce things like this.
A “Right to work from home”? What does that even mean? For some careers it’s just fundamentally not viable to work remotely. There’s no way of legislating that, there’s no way of implementing it. People really need to stop viewing this thing exclusively from a position of their laptop tech job.
This is down to the employers and the employees to reach a medium ground that suits everyone. It’s clear as day that a WFH or hybrid model is what the vast majority of employees want.
If your employer isn’t facilitating what you think is a reasonable request and something that would work for your job? Then that raises questions about how happy you might be in that current employment and maybe it’s time to see what other options are out there in the market.
If we truly are living in a time of climate crisis then WFH should be mandatory wherever possible. It will be interesting to see which comoanies that bang on about climate change put their money where their mouth is and insist on full time WFH whenever possible.
As for the giving incentives, it doesn’t have to always be a government that creates these incentives. These incentives already exist for many companies.
1. Higher productivity. Many companies have seen increases in productivity from WFH so they are incentivised to keep it.
2. Employees preferring it. Employees might be incentivised to go to companies that have WFH if their current company does not which in turn incentivises the current company to offer WFH.
Legislating a “right to WFH” would just force companies that don’t have these ‘organic’ incentives by creating a ‘fake’ incentive for them.
There might be other considerations like CO2 emissions and things but on the downside there are other negative effects of WFH also so IMHO it’s best to leave it to the ‘organic’ incentives which will naturally push companies into the side of WFH anyways.
“Rights” in law are too big a hammer for a nut this size. WFH has certain advantages and disadvantages that don’t apply equally to all sectors. So any law would have to be complicated with exceptions, caveats, and so on.
On one hand, I understand that both employers and employees should have a choice.
On another hand, as someone whose profession is impossible from WFH, I would love to see less traffic…
Wfh isnt as simple as just legislating for it. As people mentions what about industries where its not possible? It becomes a beast of a law with exception clauses and so on.
Add to that there’s then an impact on health and safety, the employer would in theory have to carry out a work place assessment of your home to ensure the location you work in meets required safety standards such as desk size, no trailing cables, screen height and other ergonomics.
Then there’s possiblen insurance complications. If there’s an accident where does the work please end and home start?
Finally there’s confidentiality and security, suddenly the home is an extension of the office so document management, secure waste bins etc are needed. How can the employeer ensure that no confidential data is left exposed to a casual observer in the home or a file goes in the trash and suddenly there’s a data breach.
It’s not a s simple as “I demand to work in my jocks” and i say this as a person that has had the ability to wfh part time for 5 years
Makes sense. No point having a right with the list of exceptions needed.
There is a massive economy around people travelling back and forth from work. From fuel to public transport to food while people are on the go. Most of the nightlife in the cities highly dependent on it too. If it’s done it would probably be better to be a gradual process.
The government should accept this and make it law where possible. There is a crisis in terms of childcare and traffic congestion that this would go a long way towards solving.
This is one of those things that if it passed could have unintended consequences. If employers had no right to ask their employees to come in, then they could potentially choose to set up offices in other countries where they could.
In an ideal world, most jobs that could be done from home would ideally request that employees come in 1-2 days. That way people will commute less, and employers can also build culture and have face to face meetings. The fact is some things *are* missing when everything is virtual. Anywhere in Ireland is commutable for 1-2 days a week, so it would still allow people to live anywhere in the country.
There are also many people that *want” to go the office, and want separation of home and work. If it was imposed on employers that they can’t refuse wfh, then many will have to weigh up if it makes sense to even have an office. I know of one company who announced during the pandemic they were going to shut their offices permanently and everyone would wfh going forward, but it has to be in Ireland. They had huge attrition as a result. I interviewed someone from there and he said a lot of people were deeply unhappy with the decision. Not everyone has the home life or accomodation to suit that.
It’s easy for companies to have everyone in the office (at least some of the time) or everyone wfh. The biggest challenge is when you have some in each camp.
There has to be a balance of rights here, and you can’t unilaterally force this on employers. If this is hugely important to an employee, they can apply for other roles that can provide total flexibility. More jobs are going to be wfh after this, and this will be a differentiator to attract the best talent.
Pretty predictable if you ask me.
Positive change for workers and Fine Gael don’t go together
People will vote with their feet. Companies who offer WFH, will have a huge advantage, that actually saves them money when hiring.
Does not make sense. It might be worse for the small economy short term. The likes of lunch places that are shit but convenient might have to close or change their target audiences. Fuel consumption would go down due to commutes being cut.
Better for the government in the long term. Because you could actually have an increase in buying power from people saving the money. And, given its what most want, an increase in general mental health…
What might upset the balance is that a drop in demand might leave the services sector needing less people, thus creating an excess of workers.
I don’t know the answer, I’m no professional in economics, I’m just having a think. And it doesn’t make sense to me…
It’s a dumb idea to legislate for something like that – every business will differ and it’s not a right, it’s a privilege.
A proper Tory-lite government would not entertain such a notion – that’s why FGF fail at even doing that little bit of politics.
The “leftie” party’s making the calls are prone to over-reach there. If they would spend their energy focusing on transport issues, housing and healthcare, that would be great, because all parties suck balls at doing the basics, no exceptions.
You spelled IBEC wrong.
any environment that uses an agile work arrangement for desks in work is pointless because it proves people can just work from home. offices are complete and utter bullshit.
My organisations work hasn’t been impacted by the move to remote working but I can still see them dragging us all back to the office.
Being able to work from home shouldn’t be a right, so I think this was the right call. If someone wants a WFH job there are plenty of them available if they go looking and applying.
How can you make that a “right”?
Fucking ridiculous
I’m okay with this right as long as the inverse applies. Employers should have an obligation to provide a workspace for their employees (which a lot of them have decided to stop doing). My tiny apartment in Dublin that I share with three other people is absolutely not suited to WFH
You’ll work at home when we tell you to work at home. Now that we have gotten wind that some have preferred it, all must return to the workplace!
Looks like it’s back to square one for people with Disabilities
Didn’t someone trip or fall on the way to their home office and successfully sue their company?
There was a case in German guys court case and a Canadian lady also with a court case involving, falling down the stairs on his way to the office, and hers was falling down the stairs on her way to the kitchen to get lunch.
Not saying there’s a mass fear about it, some managers just want people where they can keep an eye on them, but some people would see it as easy money.
I dont know, I think if you’ve been able to prove you can do the job from home *successfully and without issue.., then you should be allowed to do it.
*edit
It’s all very straightforward; if you have been working from home for the last 2 years and there’s no valid reason why you can’t continue to do so. You should be allowed to do so if you so desire.
simples
The Irish government rejects a move to the detriment of workers in favour of bosses, commercial landlords, commercial property developers, coffee chains?
Imagine my shock!
How have the Greens not lept on this and pushed work from home from an environmental standpoint of having less cars on roads etc.
Entirely wfh might not be possible but a hybrid is definitely what should and can happen. If you’re in a couple of days a week and wfh a couple days am sure you’d get employees willing to waive their right to claim liability within very strict boundaries. I mean am sick of this shite, oooh its all sooo tricky to do. During first lockdown 2020 we were told our company was bringing in hybrid working, wfh one day across the board, the legislation was on the way it’d be ready by the time we “flatten the curve” lolz. Nothing, nada. Fucking typical. If they wanted it done, it’d be done. We have to ask ourselves why they keep fobbing us off with this “it can’t be done within the next 3 months/years/decades/hope you’ve forgotten about it” bullshit all the time. Unions have been looking for this on behalf of their members for around a decade prior to the pandemic. Disgusting carry on.
Government robots out IN FORCE on r/Ireland today! It’s like the end of Age of Ultron!
This thread links in nicely with the one earlier in the week where everyone said they’re basically working an average of about 4 hours a day the past year or so
Covid showed us that it was possible for plenty of people to work from home. A normal person would take something from that and use it. Not the Irish government it seems.
It’s entirely possible. I’m near the Slovakian Border in Poland visiting my partners relatives and her brother is working remotely from there for a British HR company.
If he can work for a British company from the middle of nowhere in Poland I dont see why jobs in Ireland need to be done from an office.
I mean we lost two highly skilled accountants recently because the business insisted on back to work…. I Mean they are bloody accountants we don’t need them on site to do their work especially when they did all of it for the guts of two years remotely.
If working remotely was a long term option it would have a lot of positives for the country as a whole, all this shit a decade or two ago about decentralisation could be achieved…. but nope.
39 comments
As a bus driver, i completely disagree with the government.
>The Government has rejected calls to introduce a right to work from home, promising instead to legislate for a right for employees to request home-working.
We won’t give it too you, we’ll just make you beg for it
Employer should be able to say no to employees with reason. What does a right to work from home mean? It’s the same as a right to housing – it means different things to different people and in practice isn’t realistic in every situation.
If you don’t like the remote situation in your job look for a better situation.
Obviously it’s a silly idea but there’s no middle ground with these cunts. Why not introduce incentives to companies to WFH?
Man, fuck those guys.
I get it’s a hard thing to implement, but can’t help but think it’s just because “we need office workers in the towns and cities buying their expensive coffees and 16 euro chicken fillet rolls for lunch”.
Thinking about it the other day and wouldn’t it be a good way to try and hit whatever climate goal we’ve half arsed promised to reach by 2030 or whatever? Less cars on the road, less pollution, less offices need less energy etc etc. Or is that a stupid view on it all?
I agree with this. Each employee should be negotiating with their employer on work from home. The government should not be telling companies how they run their business. If your company doesn’t offer WFH, move to a company that will.
It’s not the governments place to introduce things like this.
A “Right to work from home”? What does that even mean? For some careers it’s just fundamentally not viable to work remotely. There’s no way of legislating that, there’s no way of implementing it. People really need to stop viewing this thing exclusively from a position of their laptop tech job.
This is down to the employers and the employees to reach a medium ground that suits everyone. It’s clear as day that a WFH or hybrid model is what the vast majority of employees want.
If your employer isn’t facilitating what you think is a reasonable request and something that would work for your job? Then that raises questions about how happy you might be in that current employment and maybe it’s time to see what other options are out there in the market.
If we truly are living in a time of climate crisis then WFH should be mandatory wherever possible. It will be interesting to see which comoanies that bang on about climate change put their money where their mouth is and insist on full time WFH whenever possible.
As for the giving incentives, it doesn’t have to always be a government that creates these incentives. These incentives already exist for many companies.
1. Higher productivity. Many companies have seen increases in productivity from WFH so they are incentivised to keep it.
2. Employees preferring it. Employees might be incentivised to go to companies that have WFH if their current company does not which in turn incentivises the current company to offer WFH.
Legislating a “right to WFH” would just force companies that don’t have these ‘organic’ incentives by creating a ‘fake’ incentive for them.
There might be other considerations like CO2 emissions and things but on the downside there are other negative effects of WFH also so IMHO it’s best to leave it to the ‘organic’ incentives which will naturally push companies into the side of WFH anyways.
“Rights” in law are too big a hammer for a nut this size. WFH has certain advantages and disadvantages that don’t apply equally to all sectors. So any law would have to be complicated with exceptions, caveats, and so on.
On one hand, I understand that both employers and employees should have a choice.
On another hand, as someone whose profession is impossible from WFH, I would love to see less traffic…
Wfh isnt as simple as just legislating for it. As people mentions what about industries where its not possible? It becomes a beast of a law with exception clauses and so on.
Add to that there’s then an impact on health and safety, the employer would in theory have to carry out a work place assessment of your home to ensure the location you work in meets required safety standards such as desk size, no trailing cables, screen height and other ergonomics.
Then there’s possiblen insurance complications. If there’s an accident where does the work please end and home start?
Finally there’s confidentiality and security, suddenly the home is an extension of the office so document management, secure waste bins etc are needed. How can the employeer ensure that no confidential data is left exposed to a casual observer in the home or a file goes in the trash and suddenly there’s a data breach.
It’s not a s simple as “I demand to work in my jocks” and i say this as a person that has had the ability to wfh part time for 5 years
Makes sense. No point having a right with the list of exceptions needed.
There is a massive economy around people travelling back and forth from work. From fuel to public transport to food while people are on the go. Most of the nightlife in the cities highly dependent on it too. If it’s done it would probably be better to be a gradual process.
The government should accept this and make it law where possible. There is a crisis in terms of childcare and traffic congestion that this would go a long way towards solving.
This is one of those things that if it passed could have unintended consequences. If employers had no right to ask their employees to come in, then they could potentially choose to set up offices in other countries where they could.
In an ideal world, most jobs that could be done from home would ideally request that employees come in 1-2 days. That way people will commute less, and employers can also build culture and have face to face meetings. The fact is some things *are* missing when everything is virtual. Anywhere in Ireland is commutable for 1-2 days a week, so it would still allow people to live anywhere in the country.
There are also many people that *want” to go the office, and want separation of home and work. If it was imposed on employers that they can’t refuse wfh, then many will have to weigh up if it makes sense to even have an office. I know of one company who announced during the pandemic they were going to shut their offices permanently and everyone would wfh going forward, but it has to be in Ireland. They had huge attrition as a result. I interviewed someone from there and he said a lot of people were deeply unhappy with the decision. Not everyone has the home life or accomodation to suit that.
It’s easy for companies to have everyone in the office (at least some of the time) or everyone wfh. The biggest challenge is when you have some in each camp.
There has to be a balance of rights here, and you can’t unilaterally force this on employers. If this is hugely important to an employee, they can apply for other roles that can provide total flexibility. More jobs are going to be wfh after this, and this will be a differentiator to attract the best talent.
Pretty predictable if you ask me.
Positive change for workers and Fine Gael don’t go together
People will vote with their feet. Companies who offer WFH, will have a huge advantage, that actually saves them money when hiring.
Does not make sense. It might be worse for the small economy short term. The likes of lunch places that are shit but convenient might have to close or change their target audiences. Fuel consumption would go down due to commutes being cut.
Better for the government in the long term. Because you could actually have an increase in buying power from people saving the money. And, given its what most want, an increase in general mental health…
What might upset the balance is that a drop in demand might leave the services sector needing less people, thus creating an excess of workers.
I don’t know the answer, I’m no professional in economics, I’m just having a think. And it doesn’t make sense to me…
It’s a dumb idea to legislate for something like that – every business will differ and it’s not a right, it’s a privilege.
A proper Tory-lite government would not entertain such a notion – that’s why FGF fail at even doing that little bit of politics.
The “leftie” party’s making the calls are prone to over-reach there. If they would spend their energy focusing on transport issues, housing and healthcare, that would be great, because all parties suck balls at doing the basics, no exceptions.
You spelled IBEC wrong.
any environment that uses an agile work arrangement for desks in work is pointless because it proves people can just work from home. offices are complete and utter bullshit.
My organisations work hasn’t been impacted by the move to remote working but I can still see them dragging us all back to the office.
Being able to work from home shouldn’t be a right, so I think this was the right call. If someone wants a WFH job there are plenty of them available if they go looking and applying.
How can you make that a “right”?
Fucking ridiculous
I’m okay with this right as long as the inverse applies. Employers should have an obligation to provide a workspace for their employees (which a lot of them have decided to stop doing). My tiny apartment in Dublin that I share with three other people is absolutely not suited to WFH
You’ll work at home when we tell you to work at home. Now that we have gotten wind that some have preferred it, all must return to the workplace!
Looks like it’s back to square one for people with Disabilities
Didn’t someone trip or fall on the way to their home office and successfully sue their company?
There was a case in German guys court case and a Canadian lady also with a court case involving, falling down the stairs on his way to the office, and hers was falling down the stairs on her way to the kitchen to get lunch.
Not saying there’s a mass fear about it, some managers just want people where they can keep an eye on them, but some people would see it as easy money.
I dont know, I think if you’ve been able to prove you can do the job from home *successfully and without issue.., then you should be allowed to do it.
*edit
It’s all very straightforward; if you have been working from home for the last 2 years and there’s no valid reason why you can’t continue to do so. You should be allowed to do so if you so desire.
simples
The Irish government rejects a move to the detriment of workers in favour of bosses, commercial landlords, commercial property developers, coffee chains?
Imagine my shock!
How have the Greens not lept on this and pushed work from home from an environmental standpoint of having less cars on roads etc.
* Surprised Pikachu Face *
[This video helped me understand why it’s not as simple as some people think.](https://twitter.com/IrelandAMVMTV/status/1485909776404033537)
Entirely wfh might not be possible but a hybrid is definitely what should and can happen. If you’re in a couple of days a week and wfh a couple days am sure you’d get employees willing to waive their right to claim liability within very strict boundaries. I mean am sick of this shite, oooh its all sooo tricky to do. During first lockdown 2020 we were told our company was bringing in hybrid working, wfh one day across the board, the legislation was on the way it’d be ready by the time we “flatten the curve” lolz. Nothing, nada. Fucking typical. If they wanted it done, it’d be done. We have to ask ourselves why they keep fobbing us off with this “it can’t be done within the next 3 months/years/decades/hope you’ve forgotten about it” bullshit all the time. Unions have been looking for this on behalf of their members for around a decade prior to the pandemic. Disgusting carry on.
Government robots out IN FORCE on r/Ireland today! It’s like the end of Age of Ultron!
This thread links in nicely with the one earlier in the week where everyone said they’re basically working an average of about 4 hours a day the past year or so
Covid showed us that it was possible for plenty of people to work from home. A normal person would take something from that and use it. Not the Irish government it seems.
It’s entirely possible. I’m near the Slovakian Border in Poland visiting my partners relatives and her brother is working remotely from there for a British HR company.
If he can work for a British company from the middle of nowhere in Poland I dont see why jobs in Ireland need to be done from an office.
I mean we lost two highly skilled accountants recently because the business insisted on back to work…. I Mean they are bloody accountants we don’t need them on site to do their work especially when they did all of it for the guts of two years remotely.
If working remotely was a long term option it would have a lot of positives for the country as a whole, all this shit a decade or two ago about decentralisation could be achieved…. but nope.