If Work From Home becomes a thing...

mvl

Actually the environment I had in mind is multi-national already based here where wfh for permanent employees (not consultants) might become the norm. These companies are already present across those countries in Europe. Is wfh not meant to be possible from wherever in Europe someone has ties ?
- ppl these days might have ties to few EU countries by means of citizenship/family or even property.

If we are saying that local salaries would continue to be paid for remote workers - wonder how long till "local salaries" even taxes might be normalized at EU level for these workers.

Technocentral

Twitter just announced that employees can work from home forever if they like, the dream!!!

Electric Sheep

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

More plausible is to consider what would happen if the Irish organisation recruited someone living in Poland or Latvia to do <<whatever>> job. In that case, you can be sure that the local salary rate would be paid.

Extremely dependent on skill set. The right skills = the right salary, regardless of location.

mvl

Electric Sheep wrote: »

Extremely dependent on skill set. The right skills = the right salary, regardless of location.

the right skills start in Irish universities, unfortunately for some domains. imo we would be paid only as much as we're worth in a global remote working work environment.
on the question of how much of a pay cut would you get to wfh ... found this report -https://globalworkplaceanalytics.com/pros-cons
""A poll of 1,500 technology professionals revealed that 37% would take a pay cut of 10% if they could work from home."

tony1980

I’m actually starting to enjoy the remote work more. We have a catch up call every morning for objectives for the day on video call. Help is available immediately for anything you haven’t come across, I work as a Consultant integrating with ERP systems. We have weekly company calls and some quizzes some evenings for a bit of a laugh.
I get out for exercise before work every morning and keep things structured. Learning how to cook much healthier lunches and dinners. It’s not so bad if you learn to keep a good routine! Everyone is afraid of change but we all adapt. We are as Productive as we were in the office and we have catch up project calls with Customers weekly on progression and any issues. I realize I’m in an industry where it’s possible to completely remote so I’m lucky that way.

Newbie20

Sorry if this has already been mentioned on the forum because I haven’t read every page. I’m just wondering if people think that the working from home will take off in a much bigger way now, do we expect the N4, N7, M50 etc to have much reduced traffic from now on? Will it have a positive impact on commuters that have to travel to work? Or will it be so spread out and just the odd day here and there that’s its affect will be hard to notice?

Electric Sheep

mvl wrote: »

the right skills start in Irish universities, unfortunately for some domains. imo we would be paid only as much as we're worth in a global remote working work environment.
on the question of how much of a pay cut would you get to wfh ... found this report -https://globalworkplaceanalytics.com/pros-cons
""A poll of 1,500 technology professionals revealed that 37% would take a pay cut of 10% if they could work from home."

No. In my experience, the right skill set depends on what you choose to learn on the job. The university means nothing after a couple of years, particularly in the IT world.

Outkast_IRE

I work as a consultant engineer and our company has nearly 15,000 people globally mainly office based workers. The only group in the company back in the office is in China, we have an office in Wuhan than reopened a few weeks back.



The company was always quite open to flexible working practices anyway, but not to the extent we see now. So the background IT systems were in place for easy enough remote access etc. It just needed a bit of an upgrade when everybody was working from home at once.



The feedback worldwide is excellent, our clients are very happy they are getting an unchanged level of service. I feel personally that when things normalise fully i would like 1-2 days in the office per week and the other days at home. We do need a particularly good home office setup as we generally work better with multiple screens etc. I have to say if you have the right software for collaborating with your colleagues it makes no difference if you are there in person or remote.



One thing i would like to input to those early in the thread saying save on childcare costs, i tell you now there wont be. Any of the established companies doing working from home for a while will have it nailed down in their code of conduct or contract that children under a certain age must be in childcare, school or under supervision of another adult during working hours.

Mrs OBumble

mvl wrote: »

Actually the environment I had in mind is multi-national already based here where wfh for permanent employees (not consultants) might become the norm. These companies are already present across those countries in Europe. Is wfh not meant to be possible from wherever in Europe someone has ties ?
- ppl these days might have ties to few EU countries by means of citizenship/family or even property.

If we are saying that local salaries would continue to be paid for remote workers - wonder how long till "local salaries" even taxes might be normalized at EU level for these workers.

A problem would arise if a worker from Ireland decided to work-from-home in, say, France. Because they are now living in France, local labour laws would apply. So immediately 35 hour weeks, right to disconnect, 5 weeks annual leave, workers council, etc. Just 'cos s/he moved to a new address.

Normalising taxes across the EU would be challenging - normalising labour laws would be harder, because they some from very, very different philosophical bases.

mvl

Electric Sheep wrote: »

No. In my experience, the right skill set depends on what you choose to learn on the job. The university means nothing after a couple of years, particularly in the IT world.

But I was consciously referring to graduates: how does anyone get the experience if not by coaching/mentoring that doesn't work same way when remote working ? I wouldn't 'assume what worked 20 years ago (in the transition from uni to being an dependable employee) will work for grads fresh out of college after Covid. Wfh being the norm, think fresh grads would have it tougher ... would they have competition from grads from lower cost countries ? maybe. that's your workforce next gen.

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

A problem would arise if a worker from Ireland decided to work-from-home in, say, France. Because they are now living in France, local labour laws would apply. So immediately 35 hour weeks, right to disconnect, 5 weeks annual leave, workers council, etc. Just 'cos s/he moved to a new address..

(obviously I never looked into this, but know individuals who are full time and working for / from other countries in IT multinationals environment; never asked how this plays for them - but it appears to be already done at smaller scale)
personally I would have thought if the contract stays with an Irish company - the number of hours a week cannot change to follow French model / same goes for the union stuff ... while the fiscal residency might need to change, so payroll systems need to be adapted to tax ppl differently, pending on where they live.

bilbot79

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

A problem would arise if a worker from Ireland decided to work-from-home in, say, France. Because they are now living in France, local labour laws would apply. So immediately 35 hour weeks, right to disconnect, 5 weeks annual leave, workers council, etc. Just 'cos s/he moved to a new address.

Normalising taxes across the EU would be challenging - normalising labour laws would be harder, because they some from very, very different philosophical bases.

I can't see why there would be an issue unless you were gone so long that you were tax resident in another state. The WFH guidance in my company states that you have to inform the employer if you are going to be abroad, get agreement etc and also states you must remain tax resident in ireland. If you spend 90 days a year working from home in another state I can't see why local labour laws would apply to you, you would be employed for all intents and purposes in Ireland

mvl

bilbot79 wrote: »

I can't see why there would be an issue unless you were gone so long that you were tax resident in another state. The WFH guidance in my company states that you have to inform the employer if you are going to be abroad, get agreement etc and also states you must remain tax resident in ireland. If you spend 90 days a year working from home in another state I can't see why local labour laws would apply to you, you would be employed for all intents and purposes in Ireland

But that is the scenario I had in mind: high performing ppl who decide to work from abroad longer than 6 months (as they've literally moved out of Ireland, unlike the "holiday takers" who want to visit Spanish resorts for the summer while working).

Is your company local or multinational ? Were these rules in place pre or since covid ? (cause for my employer, I know ppl who work from abroad already - I assume we don't have such rules)

Mrs OBumble

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

A problem would arise if a worker from Ireland decided to work-from-home in, say, France. Because they are now living in France, local labour laws would apply. So immediately 35 hour weeks, right to disconnect, 5 weeks annual leave, workers council, etc. Just 'cos s/he moved to a new address.

Normalising taxes across the EU would be challenging - normalising labour laws would be harder, because they some from very, very different philosophical bases.

Could employment contracts not include some legally binding spiel that you can't decide to work-from-home in, say, France ?
Even something quite subtle like a requirement to be at a meeting in xyz location (the headquarters, local office, wherever close to home (not France) at any time during normal working hours with little enough notice?

JimmyVik

Once covid-19 has been and gone employers will forget how hard they had it and go back to their old ways.
The only way to sustain this ios for the government to make it more expensive for employers to have their staff in the office than at home.
You give them a tax break for each day that each employee works from home and watch them actively start making people work from home as much as they possibly can. I heard this is a proposal from the greens as part of government talks. I think its a good one, especially for the green party.

With that then you will get all the societal benefits of more people working from home.

Put the tax rate up for employers to start and knock part of it off for each employee/day working from home.
As the years go by you can slowly reduce the tax break as employers will be used to it.

Having a percentage of your staff WFH brings plenty benefit to employers & to the employees that it suits .......... there are enough big companies who will be happy to implement it. I doubt a tax break for employers will be required tbh.

Addle

Hopefully others will follow twitters lead.

2 days in the office and 3 at home would be perfect for me.

gladerunner

If working home becomes a thing, we could also use this opportunity to become more flexible in regards to working hours.

As a mother to small children, i could work from home between 6.30am ( yes im awake then ) until 9.30am ( to do school drop offs ). I could then work from 10.00 to 2.30pm undisturbed.
If my husband was afforded the same opportunity, we could get rid of the second car ( another huge drain in finances ).

It could be life changing for some people.. really has the potential to get working parents off this mad threadmill of running and racing around.

seamus

Augeo wrote: »

Could employment contracts not include some legally binding spiel that you can't decide to work-from-home in, say, France ?
Even something quite subtle like a requirement to be at a meeting in xyz location (the headquarters, local office, wherever close to home (not France) at any time during normal working hours with little enough notice?

There'll be a mixture of local and national barriers. Aside from the requirement from some employers that an employee must be available to attend the office, I expect tax laws will also adjust to compensate.

So in the case you are employed by an Irish company, but living in France, the Irish company may be obliged to ensure that you have a PPSN and they pay PAYE to Revenue on your behalf. The French authorities will likely then require you to pay tax income locally too. And while you might be able to reclaim some of your PAYE from Revenue, it'll just be too complicated and difficult for most normal employees to manage.

It will require the introduction of considerable flexibility in many global corporations. If you work for Twitter Dublin, but live in France, then you will "officially" be employed and paid by the French office, but organisationally you're part of the Dublin office.

This is something that companies do at the moment on a limited scale, but it gets complicated. Internal accounting rules mean that the French office "bills" the Dublin office for the cost of paying the employee, and this involves various calculations and reconciliations. It's just pushing numbers around on paper, but it's a headache companies prefer to do without. I expect they will become more flexible on it though, and accountants will devise simpler methods of getting it done.

seamus

seamus wrote: »

....... Aside from the requirement from some employers that an employee must be available to attend the office,...........

I think that will apply to the majority tbh.

Mrs OBumble

mvl wrote: »

personally I would have thought if the contract stays with an Irish company - the number of hours a week cannot change to follow French model / same goes for the union stuff ... while the fiscal residency might need to change, so payroll systems need to be adapted to tax ppl differently, pending on where they live.

So if a French person decides to WFH in Ireland they would keep their French entitlements?

JimmyVik

Augeo wrote: »

Having a percentage of your staff WFH brings plenty benefit to employers & to the employees that it suits .......... there are enough big companies who will be happy to implement it. I doubt a tax break for employers will be required tbh.

Equally there are an awful lot who have the bums in seats attitude.

Kintarō Hattori

Halfway through this the attitude coming out of the company I work for was 'Why do we need so many people in the office?', 'this has shown us that we can work from home'. Now the attitude has shifted to 'A team in the office is always going to be more productive'.

Depressing.

mvl

seamus wrote: »

There'll be a mixture of local and national barriers. Aside from the requirement from some employers that an employee must be available to attend the office, I expect tax laws will also adjust to compensate.

So in the case you are employed by an Irish company, but living in France, the Irish company may be obliged to ensure that you have a PPSN and they pay PAYE to Revenue on your behalf. The French authorities will likely then require you to pay tax income locally too. And while you might be able to reclaim some of your PAYE from Revenue, it'll just be too complicated and difficult for most normal employees to manage.

It will require the introduction of considerable flexibility in many global corporations. If you work for Twitter Dublin, but live in France, then you will "officially" be employed and paid by the French office, but organisationally you're part of the Dublin office.

This is something that companies do at the moment on a limited scale, but it gets complicated. Internal accounting rules mean that the French office "bills" the Dublin office for the cost of paying the employee, and this involves various calculations and reconciliations. It's just pushing numbers around on paper, but it's a headache companies prefer to do without. I expect they will become more flexible on it though, and accountants will devise simpler methods of getting it done.

That was also the information I had: this is done already at small scale in private sector/multinationals, for what I've seen as usually exceptional employees. but did wonder if covid will bring opportunities to adapt legislation at EU level, to make this accessible for everybody having a role allowing wfh 100% (and in my domain, I would say 90% of the permanent staff can wfh, based on their role description).

Technocentral

Kintarō Hattori wrote: »

Halfway through this the attitude coming out of the company I work for was 'Why do we need so many people in the office?', 'this has shown us that we can work from home'. Now the attitude has shifted to 'A team in the office is always going to be more productive'.

Depressing.

Public Sector is terrible for this attitude, you think the State would set an example on home working, but no. :rolleyes:

jrosen

gladerunner wrote: »

If working home becomes a thing, we could also use this opportunity to become more flexible in regards to working hours.

As a mother to small children, i could work from home between 6.30am ( yes im awake then ) until 9.30am ( to do school drop offs ). I could then work from 10.00 to 2.30pm undisturbed.
If my husband was afforded the same opportunity, we could get rid of the second car ( another huge drain in finances ).

It could be life changing for some people.. really has the potential to get working parents off this mad threadmill of running and racing around.

I think this is a little naive. Most companies who have work from home policies will have it stated in your contract that your children must be either in childcare or under the care of another adult in the house.

What happens when your getting the kids up, fed, lunches made and all the usual morning chaos? what happens when they come home from school?
The huge benefit with WFH is the commute. Anyone with kids will still need childcare to some degree.

Biker79

A few guys on various teams in our place were permanent employees living in Dublin, but moved back to their respective countries due to high rents. They are still doing the same jobs but have been rehired as contractors and are liable to pay tax according to their own local laws ( Poland/ Italy/ Spain ).

Not sure about their contracting rates, if they are locally based or Irish - the latter would make it lucrative for some of them. However, they would be the easiest to get rid of if the company decides to cut numbers. They are also ' on-call ' effectively outside of hours as they can't say no to tasks in the same way that we can.

They have a higher burden of performance and are at a higher risk than the rest of us.

kippy

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

So if a French person decides to WFH in Ireland they would keep their French entitlements?

Why are you so concerned about this?

There are numerous companies that can and do hire people from other jurisdictions to work for them all the time - whether they are working from home or otherwise.
WFH is not a new thing, neither are national borders.

JimmyVik

JimmyVik wrote: »

Equally there are an awful lot who have the bums in seats attitude.

Indeed, but they are generally smaller companies, not multinational .......... likely indigenous SMEs, they'd be into micromanaging and worried that folk WFH might only be doing 30 hours despite getting the job done........ there's no pleasing bean counters like that IMO.

AndrewJRenko

Technocentral wrote: »

Public Sector is terrible for this attitude, you think the State would set an example on home working, but no. :rolleyes:

Really? Where did you get this from?

I'm hearing the exact opposite, that WFH is here to stay, and we have to find ways to make it work.

Biker79

Biker79 wrote: »

....... rehired as contractors............

They have a higher burden of performance and are at a higher risk than the rest of us.

That's generally the way with contractors.
Unless it's menial, brain dead work they are likely being well paid for it.