On the border of the physical and the virtual workplace – Dogmatic issues of home office and telework in general and in Hungarian law
Abstract
The recent pandemic forced companies to switch to working from home, which was necessary to maintain health and economic efficiency. The move from physical workplaces to virtual workplaces in the digital space, however, started earlier than the pandemic. The pandemic amplified this process. In parallel, we also see that companies have had positive experiences in the process of creating virtual workplaces. The virtual workplace has serious IT-issues, which we attempt to reflect on. Some of the employees have taken to this solution: a significant part of the companies has not even returned to the classical former working processes. We have to focus also on the issues of the virtual workplace. Due to its practical popularity, it was necessary to regulate home office at the legal level, as most experts also had the opposite opinion on its essential elements. In order to close this debate, the legislator has created a new regulation concerning teleworking, which amends the rules of the Hungarian Labour Code on teleworking with effect from the end of the emergency. The purpose of this paper is to present the new legislation, with particular attention to the points at issue and the basics of its application in practice.
Keywords
home office; flexibility; telework; virtual workplace; virtual workplace and health
References
Bibliography
Allen, T.D., Golden, T.D., Shockley, K.M.: Assessing the Status of Our Scientific Findings. “Psychological Science in the Public Interest” 2015, 16 (2), pp. 40–68. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100615593273.
Bankó, Z.: The dilemmas of regulating telework. In: Ünnepi tanulmányok Lőrincz György 70. születésnapja tiszteletére. Eds. Z. Bankó, Gy. Berke, L. Pál, Z. Petrovics. HVG Orac 2019, p. 27.
Bankó, Z., Berke, Gy., Kiss, Gy., Szőke, G.L.: Nagykommentár a munka törvénykönyvéről szóló 2012. évi I. törvényhez. Wolters Kluwer Hungary Kft., Budapest 2021.
Berényi, L.: Gondolatok a munkajog dogmatikai fejlődéséről, különös tekintettel a munkáltatói koncepció alakulására. “Polgári Szemle” 2021, 17:4–6, pp. 423–432. DOI: 10.24307/psz.2021.1231.
Berényi, L.: The Right to a Healthy Working Environment in the Light of Flexible Working Conditions. “Revue européenne du droit social” 2022, LVI:3, pp. 70–79. DOI 10.53373/ REDS.2022.56.3.0076.
Cano, V., Hatar, C., and Zapatero, A.: Teleworking: conceptual and implementation problems. “VINE” 1997, Vol. 27, No. 5, pp. 27–34. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb040663.
Davies, P.: Efficiency Arguments for the Collective Representation of Workers: A Sketch. In: Autonomy of Labour Law. Eds. Bogg et al. Hart Publishing, Oxford and Portland Oregon 2015, pp. 367–396.
Gray, M., Hodson, N., Gordon, G. (eds.): Teleworking Explained. John Wiley & Sons, England 1993.
Herdon, I.: A munkavégzés helyének megváltoztatása – távmunka, „home office”. In: Országos Bírósági Hivatal Mailáth György Tudományos Pályázat 2020: Díjazott Dolgozatok. Ed. Országos Bírósági Hivatal, Budapest 2021, p. 660.
Herdon, I., Rab, H..: Megvalósítható-e jogszerűen a home office? A home office fogalmi ismérvei és munkajogi keretei. “Pro Futuro” 2021, p. 3.
Kártyás, G., Petrovics, Z., Takács, G.: Kommentár a munka törvénykönyvéről szóló 2012. évi I. törvényhez. Wolters Kluwer Hungary Kft., Budapest 2020.
Kossek, E., Ozeki, C.: Bridging the work-family policy and productivity gap: a literature review. “Community Work and Family” 1999, 1, pp. 7–32.
Lipták, K.: Maradj otthon, dolgozz otthon! – A koronavírus-járvány hatása a távmunkára Észak-Magyarországon,“Területi Statisztika” 2021, 61:2, pp. 153–169, 17. Doi: 10.15196/TS610202.
Máté, D.A.: Flexible working, flexible rules. “Revue européenne du droit social” 2022, LVI, p. 86. DOI 10.53373/REDS.2022.56.3.0078.
Máté, D.A: New Trends in Employment. “Lex et Scientia” 2022, No. XXIX, Vol. 1, pp. 97–110.
Migliore, A., Ceinar, I.M., Tagliaro, C.: Beyond Coworking: From Flexible to Hybrid Spaces. In: The Flexible Workplace. Eds. M. Orel, O. Dvouletý,
V. Ratten. Human Resource Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62167-4_1.
Mélypataki, G., Máté, D.A.: Necessity of Reconsideration of Labour Law Relations - Pandemic, Labour Market, Social Innovation. “Z Problematyki Prawa Pracy i Polityki Socjalnej” 2021, 19:5. Paper: zpppips.2021.19.05.s.1.z.19. Doi:10.31261/zpppips.2021.19.05.
Molnár, B.: Reflections on the home office in general and in times of virus. “Hungarian Labour Law E-journal” 2021, Vol. 1.
Noonan, M.C., Glass, J.L.: The hard truth about telecommuting. “Monthly Labor Review” 2012, 135, pp. 38–45.
Ortiz-Lozano, J.M., Martínez-Morán, P.C., de Nicolás, V.L.: Teleworking in the Public Administration: An Analysis Based on Spanish Civil Servants’ Perspectives During the Pandemic. “SAGE Open” 2022, https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440221079843.
Strihó, K.: Labour law in the world of digitalisation. “Erdélyi Jogélet” 2021, (4) 157–169. https://doi.org/10.47745/ERJOG.2020.04.12.
Szekeres, B., Mélypataki, G.: The Flexible Home Office Regarding Its (New) Question in Hungary and the Issues of the Virtual Workplace. “Revue européenne du droit social” 2022, LVI:3, pp. 63–69. DOI 10.53373/REDS.2022.56.3.0075.
Vallasek, M., Mélypataki, G.: Rules on Home Office Work and Telework in Romania and in Hungary. “Central European Journal of Comparative Law” 2020, 1:2, pp. 177–191.
Venczel-Szakó, T., Balogh, G., Borgulya I.: Távmunka, home office: hogyan érinti a távolról dolgozás a szervezet intern kommunikációját? “Vezetéstudomány/ Budapest Management Review” 2021, 2, pp. 75–86.
Case Law
A Technológiai és Ipari Minisztérium Munkavédelmi Irányítási Főosztályának tájékoztatása az információtechnológiai vagy számítástechnikai eszközzel végzett távmunka során a munkavégzéshez szükséges, egészséget nem veszélyeztető és biztonságos munkakörülmények szabályairól. 2022.06.17., http://www.ommf.gov.hu/index.php?akt_menu=172&hir_reszlet=851 (10.09.2022.)
Guide on Teleworking during COVID-19 Pandemic Knowledge and results from Tele-WOSH as a RESTART 2016–2020 project, belong to the participating organization carrying out the work that produced them. 2021. 30–31.
EU strategic framework on health and safety at work 2021–2027. occupational safety and health in a changing world of work, European Commission, Brussels, 28.6.2021 COM (2021) 323 final, 2. (20.08.2022).
Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on The challenges of teleworking: the organisation of working time, work-life balance and the right to decoupling (2021/C 220/01). “Official Journal of the European Union” 9 June 2021, Vol. 64.
Pilot projects in Public Administration Management: – Summary of a Research at Pázmány Péter Catholic University Faculty of Law and Political Sciences 2013, Vol. II, edited by B. Sz. Gerencsér. Budapest, Pázmány Péter Katolikus Egyetem.
University of Miskolc Hungary
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0359-6538
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
The Copyright Owners of the submitted texts grant the Reader the right to use the pdf documents under the provisions of the Creative Commons 4.0 International License: Attribution-Share-Alike (CC BY-SA). The user can copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format and remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose.
1. License
The University of Silesia Press provides immediate open access to journal’s content under the Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Authors who publish with this journal retain all copyrights and agree to the terms of the above-mentioned CC BY-SA 4.0 license.
2. Author’s Warranties
The author warrants that the article is original, written by stated author/s, has not been published before, contains no unlawful statements, does not infringe the rights of others, is subject to copyright that is vested exclusively in the author and free of any third party rights, and that any necessary written permissions to quote from other sources have been obtained by the author/s.
If the article contains illustrative material (drawings, photos, graphs, maps), the author declares that the said works are of his authorship, they do not infringe the rights of the third party (including personal rights, i.a. the authorization to reproduce physical likeness) and the author holds exclusive proprietary copyrights. The author publishes the above works as part of the article under the licence "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International".
ATTENTION! When the legal situation of the illustrative material has not been determined and the necessary consent has not been granted by the proprietary copyrights holders, the submitted material will not be accepted for editorial process. At the same time the author takes full responsibility for providing false data (this also regards covering the costs incurred by the University of Silesia Press and financial claims of the third party).
3. User Rights
Under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license, the users are free to share (copy, distribute and transmit the contribution) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the material) the article for any purpose, provided they attribute the contribution in the manner specified by the author or licensor.
4. Co-Authorship
If the article was prepared jointly with other authors, the signatory of this form warrants that he/she has been authorized by all co-authors to sign this agreement on their behalf, and agrees to inform his/her co-authors of the terms of this agreement.
I hereby declare that in the event of withdrawal of the text from the publishing process or submitting it to another publisher without agreement from the editorial office, I agree to cover all costs incurred by the University of Silesia in connection with my application.
