Anyone who has followed the media recently will have noticed the same debate recurring: should employees be required to come into the office more often? The term “camel hunting” regularly comes up in this context. Employers are seeking to avoid a working week with two distinct “humps”, characterised by busy Tuesdays and Thursdays and near-empty offices on the other days.
The temptation to reduce the number of remote working days can be considerable, but doing so risks addressing a symptom without resolving the underlying cause. This debate is also taking place at Booking.com, as recently reported by the Dutch financial newspaper Het Financieele Dagblad. While the company believes that greater office attendance promotes collaboration, team building and productivity, the works council argues that there is insufficient justification for requiring employees to work from the office two days a week.
Many organisations focus immediately on how to get employees to come into the office more often. However, the more fundamental question is why employees are staying away.
Is working from home really the cause of the problem, or are other factors at play? These might include unclear arrangements for collaboration, insufficient support for new colleagues, poor knowledge sharing, an unattractive office environment, or a lack of clarity about expectations and responsibilities.
This is precisely where the works council can add value. After all, it has a unique understanding of what is happening on the shop floor and can help interpret signals from across the organisation. This provides a clearer picture of both the underlying causes of the problem and the possible solutions.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, many organisations have allowed employees to work from home and formalised the arrangements in a remote working policy. Such a policy is generally intended to do more than simply facilitate flexible working. It also clarifies the rights and obligations of employers and employees and contributes to healthy and safe working conditions.
Organisations considering changes to their policy should therefore first revisit its original purpose. A change aimed primarily at increasing office occupancy may have unintended consequences for other interests that the policy was designed to protect.
If, following this analysis, you conclude that the remote working policy needs to be amended or re-established, it is important to establish in good time what role the works council must play.
A remote working policy may be subject to the works council’s right of consent. Recent case law indicates that such a policy may qualify as a policy relating to working conditions and occupational health and safety. In addition, remote working policies often address matters such as working hours, privacy, information security and monitoring. These matters may also give rise to a right of consent.
You should also always check what any applicable collective labour agreement (CLA) provides for remote working. If the matter has already been regulated substantively and exhaustively in the CLA, influence primarily rests with the parties to that agreement, and the works council will generally have no right of consent. However, if the CLA merely establishes a general framework or contains a delegation clause leaving the detailed arrangements to the employer, the works council’s consent may still be required for those further arrangements.
Finally, review any previous agreements made with the works council. Such agreements may grant the works council a right of consent that goes beyond the statutory requirements.
The debate around “camel hunting” often begins with the question of how to get employees to come into the office more frequently. However, anyone seeking to solve the problem must first understand why employees are not there in the first place. By investigating the underlying issue and involving the works council at an early stage, organisations increase the likelihood that the measures they adopt will genuinely help resolve the problem. They should also keep the original purpose of the remote working policy in mind. Ultimately, successful hybrid working depends not on having more rules, but on having clear agreements and sufficient support from those affected.
Do you have questions about changing your remote working policy or the role of the works council? Please contact Thomas Catersels, attorney at law specialized in Employment & Employee Participation law, or Barbara van Dam, paralegal Employment & Employee Participation law.
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