Key Contact: Patrick Walshe – Partner
When the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Act was enacted in 2023, it attracted a great deal of attention because it enshrined the concept of Remote Working into Irish law for the first time.
Now, in a recent adjudication, the Workplace Relations Commission has made an award of compensation for the first time. The decision stands as an interesting illustration of how employers need to deal with requests for remote working.
The employee in question was hired as a staff recruiter in September 2021. From 2023 onwards, he had been allowed to work remotely with office attendance only required as needed, due to his relocation from Dublin (where the company’s offices were based) to the west of Ireland. However, in May 2024, the employee was informed that he would be required to attend the office 3-4 days a week as part of the employer’s new return-to-office policy.
He requested a remote working arrangement under the 2023 Act, on the basis of his strong performance records, the distance between his home and the employer’s offices and alleged inconsistencies in the employer’s return-to-office policy.
The employer did not respond to the request for four weeks and two days, outside of the statutory 4-week deadline. In its response, the employer claimed that they were having difficulty assessing the request, and required an additional 4-week extension as provided for under the 2023 Act. Two weeks later, just over six weeks after the request was made, the employer rejected the request. The Employee then filed a complaint with the WRC.
The WRC accepted that the employer had given substantive reasons for its refusal of the request within the 8-week total deadline (the initial 4 weeks, with the 4-week extension). However, the WRC also held that by failing to provide any response within the initial 4-week deadline, the employer had breached the employee’s rights under the 2023 Act. Despite this, the Adjudication Officer found this to be a relatively minor breach, given the Employer responded only 2 days after the deadline. As a result, the employee was awarded €1000 as compensation.
The case is interesting because it demonstrates that the WRC will likely treat the limitation periods in the Act of 2023 as immutable – and if an employer doesn’t respond to the request (and, importantly, respond in a substantive way) an award of compensation will follow. While the amount involved in the present case wasn’t especially high in the grander scheme of things, it’s worth noting that both employer and employee were identified by name in the WRC decision. This is not necessarily the kind of publicity that companies will welcome.
Also notable is the fact that the breach in question was very much a “technical” one – a mere failure to miss the deadline by a couple of days. The WRC was satisfied that the employer had justified its decision to refuse Remote Working (had it not been so satisfied, the amount of compensation could conceivably have been higher).
This suggests that as long as an employer takes care to explain why (in sufficient detail) Remote Working is not suitable in a particular case, that employer is likely to escape without repercussions. It is obviously to be remembered that the Act of 2023 does not empower the WRC to direct Remote Working under any circumstances – merely to award compensation if the employer does not provide sufficient reasons for the refusal (or not provide those reasons in time).
