Employees will have right to request remote working under new laws - Irish Examiner

techdiver

I Irish Examiner are reporting that the government are drawing up legislation as part of the "Making Remote Work: National Remote Work Strategy".

It could be one good thing to come out of the disaster that is covid. Employers have been shown that remote working can and does work in roles where it is possible and resistance to it has no basis anymore.

Some employers, including mine have been quite flexible on this front for many years, but as someone who still commuted 3 days a week for the midlands top Dublin I feel I have gotten my life back again during the pandemic. I would dread the thoughts of returning to the same grind again after all of this and fully intend to negotiate more days at home.

The full article is here:

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40207493.html

listermint

Element of this but Element of be careful what you wish for. Jobs can just as easily be off shored at far lower cost again.

I don't know how I fully feel about this.

techdiver

listermint wrote: »

Element of this but Element of be careful what you wish for. Jobs can just as easily be off shored at far lower cost again.

I don't know how I fully feel about this.

I understand the concern, but offshoring isn't as easy as just setting up a guy in a house in Bangalore. It's more nuanced than that. Also, we have been hearing about offshoring in one form or another for years and if anything the opposite has happened in many cases. There is more to cost than salary.

gaming_needs90

techdiver wrote: »

I understand the concern, but offshoring isn't as easy as just setting up a guy in a house in Bangalore. It's more nuanced than that. Also, we have been hearing about offshoring in one form or another for years and if anything the opposite has happened in many cases. There is more to cost than salary.

I work in quite a niche and specialised engineering field and as the poster above describes, offshoring is not that simple.

We have thousands of people working in Bangalore and it seems to work, but just about. There are cost savings compared to an Irish site (major savings vs US site) but there are major drawbacks. There is an extreme turnover rate in general (Common in tech due to the proliferation of companies) which hampers projects but, more importantly, there appears to be a general culture of "hiding" things from management IMO. This is simply due to each company site competing with each other for investment and resources.

"You can definitely do this project by X"
"Absolutely."

X date comes.

"Oh, unfortunately we need more time"

on and on

There are a lot of 'soft' barriers to offshoring that hurt businesses. On paper it may look great but then the practicalities hit.

I suppose you could say the same about eir's new call centre in Sligo :pac:

listermint

techdiver wrote: »

I understand the concern, but offshoring isn't as easy as just setting up a guy in a house in Bangalore. It's more nuanced than that. Also, we have been hearing about offshoring in one form or another for years and if anything the opposite has happened in many cases. There is more to cost than salary.

Lads I'm fully versed in off shoring back to front. I'm also fully versed in the costs.

Equally I'm fully versed in how wages rise to the surface with these decisions.

It has to be a concern only the fool hardy would think their skills aren't replaceable and or that even if their matched 40 percent companies would be happy getting half the effort at one tenth the cost. They make it up throwing head count at it.


Don't be complacent.

listermint

gaming_needs90 wrote: »

I work in quite a niche and specialised engineering field and as the poster above describes, offshoring is not that simple.

We have thousands of people working in Bangalore and it seems to work, but just about. There are cost savings compared to an Irish site (major savings vs US site) but there are major drawbacks. There is an extreme turnover rate in general (Common in tech due to the proliferation of companies) which hampers projects but, more importantly, there appears to be a general culture of "hiding" things from management IMO. This is simply due to each company site competing with each other for investment and resources.

"You can definitely do this project by X"
"Absolutely."

X date comes.

"Oh, unfortunately we need more time"

on and on

There are a lot of 'soft' barriers to offshoring that hurt businesses. On paper it may look great but then the practicalities hit.

I suppose you could say the same about eir's new call centre in Sligo :pac:

Fully agreed and have suffered similar outcomes several times over.

But that doesn't negate the fact that the same off shoring keeps occuring. It always looks great on paper to the financial pullers in HQ. And that's generally the highest concern.

It's become less so recently but on the flip side off shoring firms have increased their quality . Its not ten years ago now where they have to be micro managed to the nth degree. I've seen both sides of the coin.

gaming_needs90

listermint wrote: »

Lads I'm fully versed in off shoring back to front. I'm also fully versed in the costs.

Equally I'm fully versed in how wages rise to the surface with these decisions.

It has to be a concern only the fool hardy would think their skills aren't replaceable and or that even if their matched 40 percent companies would be happy getting half the effort at one tenth the cost. They make it up throwing head count at it.


Don't be complacent.

Depends on the industry really. In tech just throwing engineers at a project rarely has the desired effect. There is a famous book about this exact phenomenon!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month

I agree in general though that there is no room for complacency. Leo was on RTE and basically said this, but also alluded to the fact that we would be better off ahead of the curve as apposed to behind it.

KaneToad

This should have been done years ago. It helps with so many of our issues...

Environment
Housing
Infrastructure
Schools
Health
Work Life Balance
Transport
Sustainable communities
Elderly living in own communities for longer

It's a no brainer. If anything the 20% objective is too low. If it is not significantly higher then a lot of the above issues will not improve. People will not be able to move away from the sprawling Greater Dublin area just because they have 1 day working remotely.

We should have a balanced growth across all our major cities and towns.

Successive govt have failed dismally at decentralising depts under their direct control. This new objective may follow a similar path, I fear.

Naos

listermint wrote: »

Lads I'm fully versed in off shoring back to front. I'm also fully versed in the costs.

Equally I'm fully versed in how wages rise to the surface with these decisions.

It has to be a concern only the fool hardy would think their skills aren't replaceable and or that even if their matched 40 percent companies would be happy getting half the effort at one tenth the cost. They make it up throwing head count at it.


Don't be complacent.

What's stopping companies doing it now?

FinishingTime

listermint wrote: »

Element of this but Element of be careful what you wish for. Jobs can just as easily be off shored at far lower cost again.

I don't know how I fully feel about this.

Listermint fear you may be right... At the end of this pandemic there will be bills need paying & a quote from an economist i heard on the radio about people thinking they are in a Brave new working world not knowing that they have already lost their jobs... it may only become obvious at the end of all this & then become be a grim reality.

The Spider

Should have been done years ago, I work in tech so may be different, but the amount of people from 'down' the country who had to move to Dublin for jobs and found themselves stuck in not only rental traps but sharing houses with complete strangers and having worse lives than people from their home counties, towns or cities who never went to college and had jobs in bars or whatever but still managed to buy houses in their home towns is astonishing, god knows if I had the option back in the early 2000's to work from and move home I would've jumped on it.

Ireland being Dublin centric has meant that people with what would be considered decent jobs, have nothing to show for it after years of work, and living in rental accomodation, work should allow you to better your living situation and not live month to month. And all those people moving up from the country put huge pressure on house prices so that many Dubs were priced out of living in their hometown.

And lets not get started on the misery of the commute in the mornings for people who did manage to buy a house, but its miles from where they work.

Outsourcing has been around for years I dont see it changing that every company will now head to India for staff, not going to happen, if anything this will even things up around companies that paid lower wages but offered work from home as a perk, people who put careers on hold or took jobs less than what they would have been able to achieve in Dublin will now have the chance to take those jobs.

And finally on companies outsourcing, if your staff are based in ireland, but not Dublin, its still easy enough to get people into the office a few days a month for face to face comms.

Mrs OBumble

KaneToad wrote: »

This should have been done years ago. It helps with so many of our issues...

Environment
Housing
Infrastructure
Schools
Health
Work Life Balance
Transport
Sustainable communities
Elderly living in own communities for longer

It's a no brainer. If anything the 20% objective is too low. If it is not significantly higher then a lot of the above issues will not improve. People will not be able to move away from the sprawling Greater Dublin area just because they have 1 day working remotely.

We should have a balanced growth across all our major cities and towns.

Successive govt have failed dismally at decentralising depts under their direct control. This new objective may follow a similar path, I fear.

Except that very few homes rely have adequate facilities for long term remote working.

I'm not even talking broadband. Just lockable rooms that will only be accessed by the employee.

The Spider

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Except that very few homes rely have adequate facilities for long term remote working.

I'm not even talking broadband. Just lockable rooms that will only be accessed by the employee.

Absolute nonsense, last time I checked 99.9percent of offices in Dublin dont have individual lockable rooms for employees either, they have open plan offices with everyone on top of each other, with a desk and a few drawers you can lock, in fact you'll more than likely have more privacy at home than you would in an office.

Outkast_IRE

The government should give a small tax break for both employers and employees to encourage this as it will help carbon targets, roads , public transport, health benefits etc.

listermint

gaming_needs90 wrote: »

Depends on the industry really. In tech just throwing engineers at a project rarely has the desired effect. There is a famous book about this exact phenomenon!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month

I agree in general though that there is no room for complacency. Leo was on RTE and basically said this, but also alluded to the fact that we would be better off ahead of the curve as apposed to behind it.

Agreed. But the strategy would have to be all encompassing. Tax benefits. Green credentials because of minimised carbon etc.

If people are coming up with a strategy around this I hope they round it out entirely.

Mrs OBumble

The Spider wrote: »

Absolute nonsense, last time I checked 99.9percent of offices in Dublin dont have individual lockable rooms for employees either, they have open plan offices with everyone on top of each other, with a desk and a few drawers you can lock, in fact you'll more than likely have more privacy at home than you would in an office.

No: they just have policies that say employees-only in working areas, and visitors must be accompanied by an employee at all times, and escorted from the building. It's really painful lurking outside a toilet block waiting for someone, but I've had to do it more than once.

This week, I've been taking support from employees in a SME organisation that's currently 100% WFH. Quite a few clearly had children in the background (wouldn't be acceptable in non-pandemic times). About 30% had woeful broadband, which was the cause of their issue. I had to parrot the "you need to contact your broadband provider, or get an alternative one" line - knowing full well that in some cases there are no better alternatives in the places these folks are living. Two told me they were sitting at the kitchen table - ergonomics, yeah!

Augme

For a lot of people there are definitely significant gdpr and privacy concerns. In a pandemic they are easier to ignore given the lack of an alternative but once over they will be harder to ignore.

caviardreams

Surely it would be "reasonable" for an employer to say - you can work from home 3 days a week, but you need to be on-site for the purposes of developing and understanding team culture, developing deeper relationships and understandings with colleagues, collaboration and keeping tied in with vision and mission etc., in order to help you work more effectively from home for the other 3 days?

I think the sense is though that employees will now be able to say I want to work completely remotely, and unless it's absolutely essential to be on-site e.g. a hairdresser or whatever, then they will have to say yes to full remote working? I find that tough on the employer as there are some intangibles like culture, feeling personally and emotionally connected, the sense of a shared experience/struggle working together on something, picking up on things happening in the rest of the organisation etc. that come from 1 or 2 days a week working together etc. which can be very valuable in an organisation in terms or effectiveness, even if the individual may not see it themselves.

thomas 123

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

No: they just have policies that say employees-only in working areas, and visitors must be accompanied by an employee at all times, and escorted from the building. It's really painful lurking outside a toilet block waiting for someone, but I've had to do it more than once.

Apple have a few thousand staff working from home in Ireland. This is to highlight to you that if they can do it whats stopping any other business from a privacy perspective?

Video calling in has replaced onsite visits in many companies also, I don't think anyone would be expected to host company visits in their house in fairness.

"Thank you for joining me today president Xi, Oh, here is my computer, and that concludes the tour" - lol

thomas 123

Augme wrote: »

For a lot of people there are definitely significant gdpr and privacy concerns. In a pandemic they are easier to ignore given the lack of an alternative but once over they will be harder to ignore.

Such as?

lawred2

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Except that very few homes rely have adequate facilities for long term remote working.

I'm not even talking broadband. Just lockable rooms that will only be accessed by the employee.

What on earth is a lockable room in an office context?

And who needs those outside of maybe security services?

lawred2

I would have thought part WFH would be the best solution for most going forward.

100% WFH could prove very hard to achieve for a lot of operations. Onboarding becomes more difficult.

Maybe AR could help there. Imagine sitting in your home office partaking in an AR meeting. Or AR work colleagues in close proximity for certain durations of the day.

Tigerandahalf

The climate issue will surely push more people to WFH. It makes sense. So many people are doing long commutes in diesel cars when they could easily work fulltime from home.

With climate becoming such a big issue I can see employers and organisations having a type of BER rating where they will pay taxes based on their carbon footprint.

If you have 100 workers and they all wfh or walk/cycle to work you will pay less tax and vice versa.

The savings that people will make could be put into a compulsory pension scheme or even a free healthcare scheme.

I don't see a loss of jobs to abroad. If an employee in Bangalore defrauds a company how are you going to bring them before the law?

I do think people should have to live in Ireland. Let people spend their money here rather than in Spain or Portugal and the locals there don't need outsiders taking up their housing.

CrazyFather1

Lockable rooms :-) next someone will mention you need a panic room for your laptop :-) I would also suggest they read up the company policies on why they have to follow around visitors in their offices.

Most companies are offering work from home budgets, so you can buy monitors etc to help with ergonomics. Also options like taking chair from the office or buying a chair for your home office.

If you look down at the breakdown of staff, the cost to the company yes wages make up part of it, but also the cost of office space, laptops etc. If you are comparing Ireland v other countries our wages only make up part of it. Having to pay a couple of million for rent also makes us less competitive. If a company can give you lets say 1k to set up a home office and off you go then suddenly Ireland becomes a lot more competitive.

Or even they say you can use a hub 2-3 days a week to shorten your commute. Also when companies are moving to Ireland they look at our infrastructure, so it is less likely for companies to move over if staff cannot rent/buy a house close to office. But if we can say that everyone will work from home 4 days a week and 1 day in office then it makes us more attractive As people can live further from office location, instead of a 2 hour commute everyday, doing it once a week is it a lot better.

Allowing people to live outside a major hub like Dublin also means the cost of living goes down. Potentially wage benefits.

in reality if people are looking to get the information off your laptop I can tell you they aint walking in the door, they are coming in across the network

CrazyFather1

lawred2 wrote: »

I would have thought part WFH would be the best solution for most going forward.

100% WFH could prove very hard to achieve for a lot of operations. Onboarding becomes more difficult.

Maybe AR could help there. Imagine sitting in your home office partaking in an AR meeting. Or AR work colleagues in close proximity for certain durations of the day.

Most people will not be 100% WFH, some times it is just easier to have a big meeting face to face. But instead of 5 days a week in office you maybe have to go in 1-2 days, that is a huge decrease for some people.

Antares35

We were surveyed and one of the questions was how we'd like the days split. I selected one in the office, four at home. I'd love to be able to arrange meetings etc predominantly for that day, because I just find zoom to be a pain the àss to be honest. All that not knowing where to look, looking at your big mug on screen like the back of a spoon reflection and the awkward delays as people talk over each other and apologise And I miss the face to face sometimes too, who doesn't? But not enough to want to go back to the way things were.

I was commuting 2 hours a day (and I live in Dublin, where I work). Before I started driving to work, I used Luas P&R and was let down so many times by the thing not working/ crashing etc I just gave up. But even commuting two hours a day (which isn't bad compared to some), that's over a working day per week, sitting in the car.

is_that_so

Tigerandahalf wrote: »

The climate issue will surely push more people to WFH. It makes sense. So many people are doing long commutes in diesel cars when they could easily work fulltime from home.

With climate becoming such a big issue I can see employers and organisations having a type of BER rating where they will pay taxes based on their carbon footprint.

If you have 100 workers and they all wfh or walk/cycle to work you will pay less tax and vice versa.

The savings that people will make could be put into a compulsory pension scheme or even a free healthcare scheme.

I don't see a loss of jobs to abroad. If an employee in Bangalore defrauds a company how are you going to bring them before the law?

I do think people should have to live in Ireland. Let people spend their money here rather than in Spain or Portugal and the locals there don't need outsiders taking up their housing.

The WFH paradigm is a lot more complicated than just being at home. The climate impact is not really a justification at all, as we move towards more climate friendly technologies. There will also need to be a solution to the potential isolation and productivity issues. It may also require locations so that people can congregate as one cannot nor should not spend a working life at the end of a screen. Sectoral requirements are also part of the equation.

storker

caviardreams wrote: »

Surely it would be "reasonable" for an employer to say - you can work from home 3 days a week, but you need to be on-site for the purposes of developing and understanding team culture, developing deeper relationships and understandings with colleagues, collaboration and keeping tied in with vision and mission etc., in order to help you work more effectively from home for the other 3 days?

I think with 2 days on site and 3 WFH or 1:4 alternating between the two it could work. I'm loving 100% WFH but would have no problem with a split arrangement like that. When you've been spending 3 hours per day on your commute, going from 5 days of that per week even just to 2 is huge. I always hated the idea of hot-desking but here it makes sense for those one or two days on site. My permanent desk is in my home office.

I suspect that the number of people looking for 100% WFH all the time would be quite low.

CrazyFather1

is_that_so wrote: »

The WFH paradigm is a lot more complicated than just being at home. The climate impact is not really a justification at all, as we move towards more climate friendly technologies. There will also need to be a solution to the potential isolation and productivity issues. It may also require locations so that people can congregate as one cannot nor should not spend a working life at the end of a screen. Sectoral requirements are also part of the equation.

I disagree the climate justification is huge, if 2000 people are travelling daily into an office and that is reduced to lets say 500 per day to that office that will have a huge decrease in CO2. Plus it will also take pressure off the public transport system in major cities.

As I said above most people will never be 100% work from home, office locations to get out of the house and also central hubs in smaller towns to mix will give options.

thomas 123

is_that_so wrote: »

It may also require locations so that people can congregate as one cannot nor should not spend a working life at the end of a screen. Sectoral requirements are also part of the equation.

Firstly this is being done by many WFH companies already.

Secondly technology already allows video calling, many would argue regular congregations actually lead to less productivity.

Bethesda(A video game company) works in an office, they have a policy that meetings must be held standing up, why? So employees don't waste time talking about things that do not need to be discussed. This was in a documentary I watched on the company foundation so it may not be the case anymore but I am sure other posters may have more examples.

Ultimately what I am trying to say here is fringe cases or whats ifs without a factual basis should not lead to progress stifling.

I am sure many an employer was not too happy when the idea of the weekend was introduced back in the day.

I'd be happy to work from home 2 or 3 days a week when this pandemic is over. But I'd like to get into the office too. I've been working from home since May 2020. Happy enough but not sure I'd like it long term.

It can be good crack in the office but on the other hand I dont miss the bitching and moaning and petty grievances.