Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 27 April 2022
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation
General Scheme of the Right to Request Remote Work Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed)
Mr. Finn Hegarty:
I will chime in on one point because it is important to recognise that people who are outside the office may tend to compensate for not being visible. As the Senator stated, they are working the time they got back from the commute. The challenge we have seen through the years is that leads to burnout. We are back to Ms Mangan's point on the right to disconnect. We encourage employees to see the time they get back as being time for them rather than for us. In the long run, employees who work for that time will end up burnt out. Productivity has certainly improved for us through the time and it is not because we have gotten those hours back from people's commutes. It is the flexibility we are giving people to work when they want and changing the culture in getting used to asynchronous communication. Employees do not have to respond to an email after working hours but, rather, can reply when they wish to do so and when it works for them.
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