Netherlands on track to become first country to make work from home a legal right

‘For employers, this is also a good law. Because a happy employee is a happy employer’

The Netherlands could soon make working from home a legal right.

The Dutch parliament’s lower house passed legislation to this effect last week, but to make this a reality, the country’s senate now needs to give its approval so employees and workers can enjoy working from home as a basic right.

If the senate passes the legislation, employers will have to consider requests from employees to work from home as long as their profession allows it, said local media reports.

Under the new law, employers must provide logical reasoning for denying employee requests to work from home or face charges.

The legislation was introduced by Steven van Weyenberg, a member of the pro-European Democrats 66 Party and Senna Maatoug, a lawmaker for the GroenLinks or Green Party. The two submitted the proposal to parliament before it entered summer recess on 3 July.

“We have the green light for this new law thanks to the support we received from both employees and employers’ unions,” Mr Weyenberg had said. “We are very hopeful it will pass before the summer.”

“It [the legislation] allows them to find a better work-life balance and reduce time spent on commuting,” Ms Maatoug told The Wall Street Journal.

“For employers, this is also a good law. Because a happy employee is a happy employer,” said Mr Weyenberg.

The newspaper pointed out that working from home was quite popular in the Netherlands before the onset of the Covid pandemic as well.

In a 2018 survey by Eurostat, the EU’s statistics agency, it was revealed that 14 per cent of employed people in the Netherlands worked remotely, making this the highest rate in the region.

The Netherlands also ranked as the best European country for “digital nomads” based on factors like internet quality, cost of living and volume of co-working spaces, according to a 2019 survey by British broadband provider Plusnet.

In contrast, several companies in many parts of the world are yet to warm up to the idea of remote work.

Tesla boss Elon Musk issued an ultimatum to his employees at the car-making firm and in SpaceX that they should report to office at least 40 hours a week or leave the company.