Donald Trump’s push to get federal workers back to the office is putting pressure on US multinationals to row back on flexible working arrangements
Ireland’s large coterie of US companies means that thousands of Irish workers could face the prospect of a pivot back to the old days. Photograph: iStockIn the disorienting uncertainty of Covid, many predictions were made about the future of work. Some employment experts began to imagine a new world order in which the very idea of working in an office with scores of other people and sharing their germs was no longer feasible.
Presiding over this shift is Donald Trump, who returns to the Oval Office on Monday with his inauguration in Washington, DC. The new US president said last year he wanted federal government workers back in the office – or they would face the prospect of being sacked. Since last March workers have the right to request remote working under the terms of the Work Life Balance Act. The Workplace Relations Commission , the State agency responsible for industrial relations and arbiter of workplace rows, has been busy as a result. Its first decision landed in August.
“The WRC won’t look at why the employer refused it – the rationale that is being given, such as the need for collaboration or on-site engagement – it just looks to see if the employers complied with the legislation and the code of conduct,” says Catherine O’Flynn, employment law partner at legal practice Mason Hayes & Curran.
According to Trayc Keevans, global foreign direct investment director at recruitment agency Morgan McKinley, in many cases the managers making the call to roll back remote working arrangements may not be aware of the problems faced by workers here.“The decisions, in many cases, are being made in international headquarters outside the country, without full visibility of the specific infrastructure challenges that we have here,” she says.
It is this fear of losing key workers to competitors that ensures that many companies continue to offer flexible options – options that in different circumstances may have been revoked. That raises questions about what might happen to remote working should the employment picture change in the future, as it almost inevitably will.
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