Telework: The great legal silence
The Covid pandemic was the driving force behind the practice of teleworking as part of health measures. This relaxation of the work practices was recommended by the public authorities and professional organizations without being governed by any legislative or regulatory provision. After the health crisis, teleworking continues to be practiced, albeit to a lesser extent, most companies having resumed the usual mode, but some employers continue to offer this teleworking possibility to part of their staff, or on a rotational basis.
However, this organizational mode is not regulated by law. This is one of the provisions that employers want to introduce into labor legislation because teleworking has become a reality on the ground.
“We have set up teleworking during the Covid period because it was planned within the overall framework of the state of health emergency, and based on a recommendation from the authorities. Today we keep a certain flexibility while waiting for a change in the legislation in force”, explains Zakia Hajjaji, HR Manager of the multinational company Orange. The absence of a legal framework is a problem for the entities concerned. Indeed, labor legislation should include some provisions for the protection of the interests of employers as well as employees, in particular with regard to accidents at work, delimitation of the scope covered by insurance contracts, coverage of commuting accidents, and other issues. The labor legislation should also define telework, teleworkable activities, the proportion of telework, the conditions of telework, the return to face-to-face work, its duration, the proportion of face-to-face work, its compulsory or optional nature, and other provisions.
In principle, telework, if applicable of course, as well as its terms, must be specified in the internal regulations of each company which must be approved by the regional labor directorates. However, as long as telework has not been included in the labor legislation, it is difficult to imagine that it will be validated with a provision that is not yet governed by law. Indeed, when companies include a clause on remote work in their internal regulations, the latter is systematically rejected by the regional directorates of the Ministry of Employment.
The option of teleworking can be adopted without being referred to in the internal regulations of a company. The law must therefore specify whether this form of work organization must be mentioned in the internal regulations. It now remains to be seen whether teleworking should be regulated via the Labor Code or a simple decree.
Hassan EL ARIF
