Do Employees Have A Right To Work Remotely?

• Published date: 14 September 2022
• Subject Matter: Employment and HR, Employee Rights/ Labour Relations
• Law Firm: lus Laboris
• Author: Ms Liat Shaked-Katz (Herzog Fox & Neeman) and Ran Hofman (Herzog Fox & Neeman)

A court in Israel has ruled that a company was entitled to turn down an employee's request to work remotely.

In a ruling recently issued by the Tel Aviv District Labour Court in the case of the Middle East Pipeline Company, the district court discussed a claim lodged by an employee, who worked as a payroll accountant, that her employer discriminated against her in comparison with an equivalent employee, by not allowing her to work from home. This, according to her, was contrary to the provisions of the Employment (Equal Opportunities) Law of 1988.

The district court stated in its ruling that, as a general rule, the decision whether to allow an employee, following his or her request, to work from home, is part of the employer's prerogative, and is at the core of the employer's discretion. It does not constitute a right and does not form part of the employee's working conditions.

This is because employees must devote all their time and energy during working hours to the employer's business, which is usually done on the employer's premises. Because of this, the district court ruled that if the employer does not see working from home as beneficial or indeed if it considers it may be a disadvantage for the business, it cannot be required to allow an employee to work from home.

The district court ruled that there was no flaw in the company's judgement on the facts of this case when it did not approve the employee's request to work from home, for, amongst others, the following reasons:

• The relatively short period of time for which the employee had been employed by the company (also resulting in less experience at her position).
• A low level of satisfaction with the employee's performance.
• The fact that there was only one employee, with more experience and seniority, in the department who was allowed to work from home (and she agreed to return early to work from parental leave following a request from the employer and conditional upon working from home for a certain period).
• The fact that the employee based her request...