What changes?
Do you have 10 employees or more? Your staff will get more rights to work from home. With the ‘Work where you want act’ (Wet werken waar je wilt) working from home will be enabled by law.
As the employer you can no longer simply refuse a request from your employee to work from home. And neither can you simply refuse a request to work in the office. A request to adjust the work location must be handled the same way as a request to adjust working hours or working time.
Refusal only in case of significant business or service interests
According to the new act, your employee can request to work from another location. In principle you will have to grant such a request. This also applies to employees who work from home and want to work in the office more often. If an employee requests a change in work location, you can only refuse this when important interests of the business or service are at stake.
Following the current Flexible working act (Wet flexibel werken) you can deny a request to adjust the work location in consultation with the employee. Under the new law, you can only refuse the request for an adjustment in work location for very good reasons, in reasonableness and fairness.
Small businesses
The new act will only apply to companies employing 10 or more people.
Only applicable to home or office
The new act does not mean an employee can work from wherever they want. Only requests to work from home have to be granted in principle. The home address can be outside of the Netherlands, but not outside the European Union. The new law will also apply to employees who currently work from home often but want to work more in the office.
For whom?
- employers with 10 or more employees
When?
It is not yet known when this change in the Flexible working act will come into effect.
Please note: The effective date of this measure is not yet final. Entry into force is subject to its passing through the upper and lower houses of parliament or proclamation of the Order in Council (Algemene Maatregel van Bestuur, AMvB) or ministerial decree and publication in the Staatsblad or Staatscourant (Government Gazette, in Dutch).
