It may be annoying for you if your boss messages or calls you after your office working hours are over, then you must want to move to Portugal.
Portuguese parliament has passed new labour laws to give workers a healthier work-life balance particularly to attract “digital nomads”.
Portugal is the first European Country to change its remote working rules for work from home staff as a result of the pandemic and the new measures also aim to make collaboration among employers and employees, with companies expected to organize face-to-face meetings at least every two months.
The new law may penalize employers for contacting their staff after work hours. Many employees have turned into temporary offices due to the new culture of working from home because of the coronavirus pandemic.
However, many people are bothered by working from home owing to less privacy and more interference.
Now, the Portuguese parliament approved the new laws for the benefit of workers on Friday, reported Vice. Besides the penalties, employers will also have to pay their staffers for increased domestic expenses – such as gas, internet and electricity bills – incurred while working from home.
A law that gave workers the “right to disconnect”, meaning they could switch off work devices, failed to get enough support.
Some other rules – to ban employers from monitoring workers’ productivity at home and to ensure face-to-face meetings with other employees at least once every two months – were voted through by the parliament. Employees with children will be given the legal protection to work from home until their children turn eight, without having to secure approval from management, according to the sources.
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Portugal’s Minister of Labor and Social Security, Ana Mendes Godinho, said last week that COVID-19 “has accelerated the need to regulate what needs to be regulated” and hopes that new laws will surely come as a welcome change for those working from home employees.