A recent ruling by the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) in Ireland has raised concerns about the enforceability of the right to remote and hybrid working, despite legislation passed in 2023.
The WRC ruling will be no doubt be welcomed by the various bodies such as the American Chamber of Commerce and Ibec that lobbied hard to water down the legislation on behalf of employers both international and domestic. On March 10th last year, Javier Osorio sent an email to the human resources department of his employer, Cognizant Technology Solutions Ireland, the Irish arm of a US information technology services and consulting group. Javier was seeking “ ...
a hybrid work model, where I can work remotely from home most days and come to the office a maximum of two days a week”. The reason for the request, according to Javier, was that he wanted to balance the responsibilities of his job with caring for his 10-year-old daughter. (WRC) had published its code of practice setting out the framework for dealing with complaints related to the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2023. The code set out the procedures employers must follow when dealing with requests for and how the WRC would deal with complaints. It was the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle that was meant to fulfil the promise by the Government parties to enshrine the right to remote and hybrid working in law. Javier’s request was refused along with those of 72 other Irish employees out of Cognizant’s Irish workforce of 380 people. Javier made a complaint under the new code to the WRC in June and its ruling, published before Christmas, will be seen by many as the final nail in the coffin of the promised right to remote working. The writing had been on the wall since the publication of the legislation in 2023 which did little more than require employers to treat requests in an “objective, fair and reasonable manner”. We now have some idea of what objective, fair and reasonable means following the publication of the WRC decision on Javier’s compliant. On foot of his March email Javier met Cognizant’s human resources department on April 26th
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