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As part of The Good Information Project we are posing the question this month ‘What is the future of work after Covid-19?’.
AS GOVERNMENT ANNOUNCEMENTS go, it wasn’t the type we’ve gotten accustomed to over the past year.
Since March 2020, these announcements have usually carried grim news with serious implications for every citizen in Ireland.
The one to launch the government’s National Remote Work Strategy in January 2021, however, was more in keeping with the kind of pre-pandemic announcements we were used to – low-key, accompanied by a press release and not likely to lead the front pages the following day.
But, in a time now where so many people have switched to remote working because of Covid-19, the government’s plan for how the population will work in future takes on a greater significance than it otherwise might have.
While the strategy includes a number of actions the government plans to take, the opposition have been quick to seize on them for not going far enough and say Ireland could lag behind other EU countries as a result.
In the foreword of the strategy, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar acknowledges that while many people will return to the office “when the pandemic is over”, working as we knew it before “will never be the same again”.
The plan is at times both ambitious and vague: the government is making clear that this is something that is going to happen, but as of now it is also being somewhat cautious about potentially treading on employers’ toes. This is influencing how it plans to legislate in certain areas.
Here, we’ll break down the government’s plan to encourage remote working and what it says it will do to make this happen.
Positives and negatives
In its strategy, the government breaks down the benefits and challenges that have come with a mass shift towards remote working.
The benefits are broad, and include attracting and retaining talent, improving work/life balance, improving child and family wellbeing and reducing the amount of time spent commuting.
“The impacts of increased remote work can be substantial and remote working has the potential to fundamentally change the nature of where, how, when and why people work,” the strategy says.
On the other hand, the challenges include impacts on employees’ mental health such as experiencing feelings of isolation, loneliness and stress. They also have difficulty switching off and keeping regular hours.
For employers, the strategy says remote working “does not easily support creativity” and group dynamics. If these issues aren’t overcome, it could result in “long-term impacts on firms’ productivity”.
Furthermore, while it may help revitalise towns and villages across Ireland, “it could result in challenges for cities as increasingly workers may choose to work from other locations”.
On productivity, it says that the effect of remote working is unclear. In any case, remote working during more normal times cannot be compared remote working during the sudden, sharp shock of a global pandemic, it says.
To reap the benefits while mitigating the potential downsides, the government said it will take action to remove barriers and develop infrastructure to support remote working into the future.
‘A permanent feature’
The overall objective of the strategy is to “ensure remote work is a permanent feature in the Irish workplace” in the future.
It puts forward a number of measures which the government says it wants to have done by the end of the year to help make that a reality. One is a right for employees to request remote work.
It says: “Currently in Ireland, all employees can request the right to remote work from their employers but there is no legal framework around which a request can be framed.
“Introducing legislation on this topic will provide employees a framework around which such a request could be based.”
Such legislation is expected in the third quarter of this year.
One area where action has already been undertaken is in the right to disconnect.
“The sudden onset of remote working, as a result of Covid-19, has blurred the boundaries between people’s professional and private lives,” the strategy says.
To that effect, it proposes the right to disconnect which gives employees the right to switch off from work outside of normal working hours, including the right to not respond immediately to emails, telephone calls or other messages.
The government opted not to draft legislation in this area, saying that there was a balance to be struck, and opted for the creation of a code of conduct instead. If an employee feels their workplace is not adhering to the code, they can take a case to the Workplace Relations Commission.
Labour and Sinn Féin, however, are among those saying that the right to disconnect should be enshrined in law to be effective.
Sinn Féin’s workers’ rights spokesperson Louise O’Reilly said that the code of conduct “does not confer a single additional legal right on workers”.
“Workers not only deserve a legal right to disconnect which is protected in law, but they absolutely need it, for their physical and mental health, for their wellbeing, and for their productivity,” she said.
Another area the government is looking at, which could be included in the Budget later this year, are tax or financial incentives.
Already, employees are entitled to up to €3.20 a day from their employer which is exempt from tax for expenses like light, heat and broadband. However, that’s up to the employer to give to a worker. If an employer doesn’t pay that allowance, you can make a claim for tax relief at the end of the year.
Some countries go further. In Belgium, employees can be reimbursed up to €144 a month for costs incurred while working from home. That’s expected to cover the likes of office supplies, utilities, insurance, maintenance and even coffee and snacks.
When it comes to the incentives here, the government’s plans are a bit vague.
It says: “In the context of Budget 2022, the Department of Finance will review tax arrangements for remote working for employers and employees and assess the merits of further enhancements.”
Infrastructure
Alongside these, the government hopes that new infrastructure – particularly in rural Ireland – will help to create a better environment for remote working.
One of those bits of infrastructure, which were referenced heavily in the government’s Our Rural Future plan announced late last month, are remote working hubs.
From how they’re talked about the National Remote Work Strategy, it’s clear the government is pinning a lot of its hopes on these hubs.
It says: “A national network of remote working hubs provides a solution for those who are often required to travel across the country for work and aids the transition of employees moving from a fixed workplace model.
“Remote working hubs also provide the opportunity for potential dynamism between employees from different firms working in the same environment.
In particular, the use of remote working hubs can have a transformative impact on local economies and communities and can facilitate a more equal geographical distribution of high-value knowledge economy roles. The presence of remote working hubs with high speed broadband could facilitate many to work locally and result in increased regional employment and lower carbon emissions.
The government plans to invest in remote work hubs and infrastructure, extend the coverage across the country along with developing metrics to track the impact of remote work in both hubs and homes. Another element will investigate how the hubs can align with the transition to a low carbon economy.
All of this is due for completion this year.
Another part of this programme is the National Broadband Plan and hopes to accelerate its progress in the near term.
While it’s not expected for most of the country to have access to high-speed broadband until 2024 at the earliest, the government wants to “explore how [this] can be accelerated”.
The strategy adds that broadband connectivity across rural Ireland will be a “central part of remote work infrastructure”.
Big data
The last element of the plan involves creating future policy and guidelines in the area.
To do this, the government wants to develop national data on the incidence and frequency of remote work in this country.
A number of government departments and the CSO are expected to deliver on this by the end of the year.
Furthermore, a number of government departments have been tasked with gaining a full understanding of the impact of remote work on areas such as employment, transport, carbon emissions, broadband and equality by the end of the year.
The strategy also identifies the potential for remote work to address issues around gender balance in the workplace.
“A lack of flexible working opportunities is often cited as one of the reasons behind the scarcity of women in senior jobs” it says.
“Increased remote and flexible working has the potential to improve women’s representation at senior level. Policy on remote working can support this by ensuring that remote working does not limit career development.”
To underpin all of these aims in remote working, the public service must “lead by example in all of this”, the strategy says.
In the Programme for Government, a commitment was made on 20% home working in the public sector this year. Work on that remains ongoing, according to the strategy, with an update due in Q4.
Another area is encouraging businesses to adopt remote working policies, and giving them the skills to do so. Agencies such as Enterprise Ireland, the IDA, the Western Development Commission and Skillnet Ireland were given this task to complete this year.
Closing off the strategy, it says that each of the actions suggest this plan has an agreed delivery date sometime this year.
The strategy itself was broadly welcomed by business groups, who advised caution in terms of the plans for legislation in the area of the right to disconnect and the right to request home working.
While it has a number of deliverable actions, however, it will be in the enacting of these measures that the government will be judged.
For example, its decision to create a code of conduct around the right to disconnect rather than provide for it within legislation has faced criticism and accusations it won’t actually benefit employees.
This will make how they legislate for the right to request remote work closely watched when it is due in the third quarter of this year.
So too will its commitment for 20% of the public service to be working remotely by the end of the year.
The government has said it wants to “lead” in the area of remote working going forward.
With hundreds of thousands of people in Ireland still working from home for the foreseeable future, a great many are relying on the government to get it right.
This work is co-funded by Journal Media and a grant programme from the European Parliament. Any opinions or conclusions expressed in this work is the author’s own. The European Parliament has no involvement in nor responsibility for the editorial content published by the project. For more information, see here.
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Really hope they get this right, I for one would be happy to never step into an office setting again. Being at home for me has been the best working experience of my life. No long commute, leaving the house in the morning when it’s dark and getting home when it’s dark during the winter wreaks absolute havoc on my mental health. Having the lunch break to tidy the house, go for a walk, get out to the garden is a god send. I understand that not everyone feels this way or is as lucky to have their own space, but for those of us that do, I think we should have the right to work from home. As someone who grew with MSN, messenger, WhatsApp etc, I find a lot of my social interactions are online anyway, so am happy to take part in an online office culture.
Oh and, “the right to disconnect”? How about the right to connect in the first place. National broadband plan my back side .
@Euro McPúnty: I have used the internet in every corner of Ireland. Some places are crap. They are generally remote. Since when was there a God given right to super fast broadband half way up a mountain in Kerry? You want electricity to run the broadband you pay for it to be connected. You want to live on the countryside, great, your house costs much less. Pay for your own bloody broadband connection.
@Gerard Carthy: I don’t think they’re looking for free broadband, they’re looking for any broadband. If we are moving a remote working environment it’s crucial there is a basic infrastructure there to support it, that’s the point
@Gerard Carthy: I have no problem paying for broadband but if the underlying infrastructure does not exist in your area you’re screwed.
Also, when you think about it. If we provide decent broadband to all areas of the country (we can skip the Kerry mountains) that would surely take the pressure off Dublin which might become less expensive, less crowded and therefore, a better place to live.
Some forward thinking rather then old fashioned Irish begrudgery is needed.
Heating, light and electricity are being used all day when otherwise they wouldn’t be. It costs employees considerably more to run these than the paltry 10% allowance that can be claimed.
Group productivity, the synergy of team work and the informal sharing of information in the workplace will also be impacted by remote working.
There is the environmental impact of heating thousands of individual homes and apartments instead of communal workplaces.
Last but not least there is the as yet unquantified personal toll of isolation. We worry about kids spending endless hours alone on computers, now we’re encouraging adults to do the same. This may not end well.
Balance is required for this to be a viable long term option.
@Stephen Byrne: It’s a choice for the worker. It will suit many but won’t suit everyone. There must thousands of parents who are up at 5 a.m. to get their sleeping child to childcare and then have to drive two/three hours to work, stuck in traffic for most of it. The sleeping child wakes up and finds itself in a crèche. That’s not a good life for anyone, least of all for the children.
Even the flexibility of working a few hours from home before going to work or leaving earlier and finishing off work from home has to be a good thing.
People will work out what’s best for themselves and their employers. The job will get done.
Rural working hubs are a great idea and will give the feel of an office environment.
I don’t understand how “employees are entitled to up to €3.20 per day”… But employers don’t have to pay it. Please correct me if I’m missing something but if it’s voluntary then surely it’s not an entitlement?
@Podge: Employers are entitled to pay it without the employees having to pay tax on it. Same as mileage, expenses, etc.
@Podge: The next sentence told you, employees are able to make a claim for tax relief : https://www.revenue.ie/en/jobs-and-pensions/eworking/index.aspx
@Podge:
Beyond.ie has a very helpful explanation on the workings of this relief.
If the Er chooses not to pay the €3.20 per day, Ee can claim up to this sum per day as a credit against taxable income.
10% of home electric and heating bills and 30% of BB bills are mentioned as in the mix for the calcs.
@Rory J Leonard: Believe you me it’s nowhere near €3.20 a day, you’d be lucky to get that in a week from Revenue.
It might seem like a dream come true for many office workers but what will happen to all these office buildings in the city centres? I can see urban decay running rampant over the next 5-10 years couple with the fact that most clothes brands will have far fewer Shops with e commerce. There’s only so much cafes and phone repair shops Can go into the one urban area.
@Cian: google are officially encouraging staff back into the workplace and other big tech companies will do the same as they have staff facilities in site that many miss, it’s the mid size companies in crappy locations that only offer a seat and a coffee dock that’ll struggle to encourage staff back.
@Jason Walsh: it’s the mid size companies in the crappy locations that drive this economy, think delis newsagents etc the likes of google and Apple not only take their profits out of the country but also provide Massive canteens and social areas further taking money out of our economy and increasing their coffers.
I am working remotely a few days each week and I would prefer not to be….live alone so the isolation just doesn’t help me at all…people’s medical conditions (depression etc.) need to be taken into account…
The goal to have people work from home more often , commuting less and decentralising govt services out of Dublin are all good intentions and no better time to tackle it with some momentum on the back of a pandemic – but the more i reading these articles about these initiatives I think they are already starting to make an absolute dogs dinner of it before it even gets started – why in the name of God do they have to always start throwing in the old chestnuts like ‘ women are not represented enough in Senior roles and so remote working initiative can address this – nonsense – utter nonsense – they need to try focus on the KEY ISSUES – before all this lofy nonsense about how remote working is going to suddenly fix all the inequalities in the workplace – its BS- heres the facts – many many people are working from home in small properties that were never meant to be used for living and working – paying high rents and often in relationships that face an extra burden when they are now living and working 24/7 – added with the reality that many ( US based employers) are in different time zones and will place demands out of working hours with emails and pressures to meet deadlines that ‘guidelines for right to disconnect’ won’t help. – the other real problem i have with this plan is that it ignores detailing work sectors – there is a world of difference between ‘work from home’ for a govt civil servant being 20% out of the workplace when in all honestly this just means a 4 day week for them – and comparing to working for a US multinational that has the systems and demands in place to really monitor and stretch the worker – office based jobs too are very different than the vast majority of work roles in this country – it is far too simplistic to just say Ireland is going to do % work from home going forward – and the reality that automation and shift to online for so many roles is coming down the tracks hasn’t even been mentioned in this strategy – talking about the gender inequalities will come to look like the nonsense it is ( in this context ) when this strategy has to face the realities of the world – the reason the plan is so vague is because it is so poorly thought through – they need to put some serious efforts into identifying the real significant challenges facing our workforce ( all sectors ) in the next 20 years and then see what role remote working might be able to play to lessen the damage that the shift to automation is going to bring – all those BS jobs’ that involve departments faffing and paper shuffling are not sustainable for the next 20 years already , the down sizing of banks is one example of what i mean – the paypal down sizing announced in Dundalk and Dublin yesterday in another – wait and see how ridiculous all these fanciful notions of everyone being able to just do 4 day weeks and not have to commute as much translate into reality in the years ahead.
So, Charlie McCreevy was right about decentralisation, but unfortunately 20ish years before his time. Everyone would love to know where he got his ideas from.
@Neil Neart: it’s not decentralisation, company remains where it is but staff are based from their homes
We have had years to invest and implement rural broadband and I was almost tired about hearing about it on the radio over the last few years. Yet here we are, neck deep in a pandemic, and we have been found out……. I can smell pandemonium after the covid dust has settled here
Under FFG all benefits to remote working will be heavily slanted in favour of employers and not employees. Once again the light touch regulations are in employers favour in regard to costs and right to disconnect.
Ever since this started this mantra has kept up, things will never be the same again.
The reasons society are ordered the way they are is because for the most part it’s the way people have wanted it, since society has evolved in a way to suit people, not as an abstract design handed down.
Sure home working will play a bigger part, but that’s hardly earth shattering, it’s been happening slowly for a decade.
What politicians seem to have missed is the data, which isn’t surprising.
Clever people have been modelling what happens to dynamic systems when you hit them for some time, and more so since virtual dynamic system have become prolific and valuable.
Invariably they run back onto their original trajectory when the force or event is removed.
Talk of this time it’s different is always wrong; there is no reason to believe this time will be any different.
The really interesting thing about the past 40 years is how closely it has mirrored the period 100 years previously. Economic upheavals, long wars, the rise of the rentier class, the restoration of the oligarchs and a global pandemic, albeit one with a smaller death toll compared to the Spanish flu.
Wanna see what happens next? The roaring Twenties. Jamie Dimon agrees.
@Gerard Carthy: computer says no
My electricity bill didn’t go up noticeable since i started wfh so 3.20€/day seems a bit much and broadband costa the same regardless if you use it for work or not, it’s always on anyway. If you put this against fuel/luas/bus costs you saved people should be lucky they can work from home but not make it dependent on that payment.
Oh please ‘the government’… Business calls the shots at this car boots sale and it will be back to normal as soon as it can.
have your say