Hi, firstly I hope you are managing to continue to survive these ongoing Covid times.
Secondly, and this may even give cause for amusement, I am writing to advise you of some new labour regulations that have come into effect regarding how employers are to formalise their agreements with employees who work from home.
These new regulations apply to businesses who have employees currently working from home or businesses that want their employees to commence working from home.
Employers must have a written agreement in place with the employee. This agreement can either form part of the official employment contract or can be added at a later date, once the employee decides to start working remotely but, note, it must be in place before the remote working actually begins.
The next line is important if maybe a little confusing:
Please note that companies that currently have existing employees working remotely due to Covid 19 do not need to do anything, i.e. no agreement is necessary, why? Who knows.
This new regulation applies to the following types of remote working and this is a literal translation:
- “Home working (“Trabajo a distancia”): the work is carried out in the employee’s home or in a place chosen by the employee, during all or part of the working day, on a regular basis.
- Remote working (“Teletrabajo”): the work is carried out in the employee’s home or in a place chosen by the employee, during all or part of the working day, on a regular basis carried out through the exclusive or predominant use of computer, telematic and telecommunication means and systems.
- Office working (“Trabajo presencial”): work that is carried out at the workplace or at a place determined by the company.
Not formalizing the agreement in the terms set out in the law (in writing, with the minimum content foreseen…) is treated as a serious infringement punishable by a fine between 626€ and 6,250€.”
As you will probably understand, the translation had to be word for word, as any fine tuning by us could lead to misinterpretation. To be honest we find it baffling enough in its original form.
Anyway, if this is of interest to you and you want to find out more about this. Please do not hesitate to get in touch.
The Spanish do love to regulate everything………
Thank you for reading.
