Work from home, telework

Work from home or telework is performed

• regularly from the employee’s home
• within the scope of determined weekly working time or a part thereof
• it is not exceptional or occasional work which the employee performs upon the employer’s consent and agreement

Work from home or telework does not include work which the employee performs occasionally or under exceptional circumstances upon the employer’s consent from the employee’s home if the nature of work allows it. In addition, work from home or telework does not include a situation when an employee temporarily performs work from home due to technical reasons at the workplace, an exceptional situation, etc.

Telework means work performed regularly from the employee’s home with the use of information technologies in which remote electronic data transfer is performed regularly.

Home and working time arrangement

The definition of employee’s home is specified. The employee’s home means the place of his or her performance of work outside the employer’s workplace. This can include the place where the employee lives or any other place determined by the employee.

Work from home, telework must be agreed in the employment contract or in an annex to the employment contract. The employment contract must define the extent of working time of the performance of work which is carried out in the employee’s home (the entire working time or only certain days) or the extent of the working time of the performance of the employee’s work at the employer’s workplace (when work from home or telework is not supposed to be carried out only from the employee’s home). The agreement must also determine whether the employee will arrange his or her working time alone or whether work from home or telework will be performed in a flexible working time arrangement.

When the employee arranges their own working time when working from home or teleworking:

• unless otherwise agreed to with the employer, the employee is not entitled to wage for overtime work, surcharge for work on a public holiday, surcharge for work on a Saturday, surcharge for work on a Sunday, surcharge for night work, and wage compensation for work performed in difficult conditions
• the employee is not entitled to wage compensation for significant personal obstacles to work
  • apart from wage compensation under Section 141, par 2(d) – death of a family member
  • provisions on the arrangement of determined weekly working time, continuous daily rest and continuous weekly rest shall not apply

In case an employee temporarily cannot perform his or her work and the idle time is caused by the employer, the employee is entitled to wage compensation. This might include for example the failure to deliver work-related documentation, technical problems, unscheduled repair of technical equipment.

Measures which must be adopted by the employer for work from home and telework:

• provision, installation and regular maintenance of hardware and software apart from a case when the employee uses his or her own equipment
• ensuring protection of data which are being processed
• payment of demonstrably increased expenses incurred to the employee in relation to the performance of work from home, telework, when the employee is using his or her own equipment
• allowing the employee working from home (telework) access to
  • improvement of their qualification in a manner comparable to an employee performing work at the employer’s workplace
  • informing the employee on all restrictions of use of hardware and software, as well as of the consequences of breaching these restrictions
  • allowing access to the employer’s workplace, if possible, for the purpose of meeting with other employees

From 1 March 2021, a new obligation is introduced for an employee performing work from home, telework, to immediately inform the employer about technical problems related to the failure of hardware or software or issues with internet connection which prevent the employee from performing work.

For work from home and telework, it is important to stress the prohibition of discrimination. An employee performing work from home, telework must not be given any advantages or disadvantages over a comparable employee who performs work at the employer’s workplace. This means that the employee working from home must have comparable working conditions.