Ya Heard 'bout Portugal?
The news has been abuzz recently with frantic updates about Portugal. Why? Because of a new law that gives workers sweeping new rights.
Amongst those rights are:
Freedom from after-hours harassment — Employers are now forbidden from contacting employees outside of normal working hours.
Freedom from invasion of privacy — Employers are prohibited from monitoring how workers in any way whatsoever.
Freedom from the office — While working from home still requires mutual agreement between employer and employee, the employer must justify in writing, if it doesn’t want the employee to work remotely, why the employ cannot fulfill the job’s duties remotely.
Freedom to raise your children — Employees with children under 8 can work from home, regardless of the employer agreeing (above), unless the job is incompatible with remote work.
Freedom to turn on the lights — Employers are required to cover the costs of additional heat, electricity, communications systems, etc.
Freedom to be treated the same — Employers will not be allowed to discriminate between in-offer and remote workers.
As a business owner, you’re probably gasping for air at this point. This will probably be over the top for you. Portugal did this in order to attract remote workers. Despite this law not applying to employers with 10 or fewer employees, Portugal is actively wooing digital nomads to come and live in their country. And if your employees do that, you might find yourself subject to a whole new set of rules …. Oh, and by the way, France, Spain and the UK either have or are working on similar laws…
To read more, click here.
