The New Legal Framework For Teleworking In Greece

• Published date: 29 April 2022
• Subject Matter: Employment and HR, Media, Telecoms, IT, Entertainment, Health & Safety, Employee Rights/ Labour Relations, Mobile & Cable Communications
• Law Firm: lus Laboris
• Author: Konstantina Botsari (Kremalis)

During the COVID-19 pandemic, working from home, which was previously very unusual, became common in Greece. New legal provisions now regulate teleworking, including employers' duties and employees' rights.

Traditionally, teleworking in Greece was regulated in article 5 of law L.3846/2010. However, teleworking as an employment practice was not widely implemented until the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This provision was recently amended by the new Labour Law (4808/2021). Article 67 of the new Labour Law regulates remote employment more comprehensively; it also defines the types of teleworking or remote working and whether these types of work can be implemented unilaterally or not. In addition, it has reinforced employees' entitlements. Specifically, it acknowledges a right to disconnect for teleworkers for the first time, that is, a right to refrain completely from working and communicating digitally or answering telephone calls, emails, or any form of communication outside working hours and during their statutory leave.

Additionally, it contains a provision that the monitoring of the employee's performance needs to be conducted in a privacy-friendly manner and in compliance with the protection of personal data.

Teleworkers' health and safety is also acknowledged and the employer must inform the teleworker regarding its policy on health and safety at work, including specifications for teleworking areas, the rules on the use of visual display screens, breaks, and organisational and technical means. Finally, the employer has to ensure that teleworkers have the same rights and obligations as employees working on-site in relation to workload, assessment criteria and procedures, rewards, access to information concerning the undertaking and other matters.

One of the more significant aspects of the new regulation of teleworking is that the employer bears the costs incurred by the employee as a result of teleworking, that is, the cost of equipment, unless it is agreed that the employee's equipment will be used, telecommunications, maintenance of the equipment and damage repair. The employee must be provided with technical...