Ms Maeve McElwee:

We recognise it would be very challenging for employers to go out to employees who have no prospect of working remotely, and every year to have to update their remote working plans and policies and bring people up to speed. We are thinking about people in the experience economy such as bartenders, housekeepers, baristas, line operators and factory operators. Reasonably, there is no prospect of them ever working from home remotely, and there is a challenge for employers in trying to balance the needs of on-site workers and the flexibilities they require against those of a cohort they believe are being afforded all the responsibilities and the work-life balance. Rather than going out every time and presenting the policy with an explanation of why the employees can never avail of it, we should probably just exclude those types of roles.