Amendment to the Labour Code
On 1. 10. 2023, a fairly extensive amendment to the Labour Code came into force, regulating working from home among other things. Working from home means performing work somewhere other than the employer’s workplace. Under the new statutory provision, a written remote working agreement must be concluded with every employee who works somewhere other than your office. For existing employees, the deadline is 1.11.2023. For new employees or employees starting to work from home for the first time, you must conclude this agreement before their first day of working from home.
Failure to meet this obligation is an offence punishable by a fine of up to 300.000 Kč. Either party may terminate the remote working agreement on 15 days’ notice, with or without giving a reason, unless you agree otherwise with the employee.
What should such an agreement contain?
The law does not prescribe an exact form, so its structure is more or less up to you. Remember to include all important information about how working from home will operate, where the work will be performed, its scope, reimbursement of costs incurred while working, and the working hours schedule. If you are unsure how to draw up the agreement, feel free to get in touch and we will gladly help you draft the agreements.
There are 3 options for reimbursing the additional costs incurred by an employee in a standard employment relationship in connection with working from home. The first is reimbursement of actual additional costs (electricity, water, heating and others) – but these are difficult to substantiate in practice. It is therefore possible to reimburse these costs using a flat-rate amount, set from 1.10.2023 at 4,60 Kč for every hour or part of an hour worked. The third option is for the employer and employee to agree in writing in the remote working agreement that costs will not be reimbursed at all. Be careful: if the agreement does not expressly state that the employee is not entitled to reimbursement of costs associated with working from home, they are treated as entitled to it at the statutory flat rate (the so-called opt-out system).
Workers under DPP and DPČ agreements are not automatically entitled to reimbursement of these costs as employees in a standard employment relationship are. However, the law does not prohibit you from providing these benefits. So, if you have a worker under such an agreement who works from home, you must draw up a remote working agreement with them, and if you want to reimburse their associated additional costs, you must expressly state this in the agreement. (The so-called opt-in system.)
Specific features of working from home
As regards working hours when working remotely, employees may organise their own work under agreed conditions, but their working time must not exceed 12 hours per day. The fact that employees organise their own work must also be stated in the agreement. Employees who freely organise their own working hours also lose entitlement to various supplements, such as those for working at night, on public holidays or at weekends. You may require remote working only where a measure by a public authority provides for it, only for as long as strictly necessary, and only if the nature of the work allows it.
Finally, I would like to mention that this benefit is a tax-deductible expense for the employer and also is not subject to contributions for the employee! So, in my view, it is definitely a good benefit for your employees who work from home. If you are unsure, feel free to get in touch and we will look at it together. 🙂