On the border of the physical and the virtual workplace – Dogmatic issues of home office and telework in general and in Hungarian law

Abstract

The recent pandemic forced companies to switch to working from home, which was necessary to maintain health and economic efficiency. The move from physical workplaces to virtual workplaces in the digital space, however, started earlier than the pandemic. The pandemic amplified this process. In parallel, we also see that companies have had positive experiences in the process of creating virtual workplaces. The virtual workplace has serious IT-issues, which we attempt to reflect on. Some of the employees have taken to this solution: a significant part of the companies has not even returned to the classical former working processes. We have to focus also on the issues of the virtual workplace. Due to its practical popularity, it was necessary to regulate home office at the legal level, as most experts also had the opposite opinion on its essential elements. In order to close this debate, the legislator has created a new regulation concerning teleworking, which amends the rules of the Hungarian Labour Code on teleworking with effect from the end of the emergency. The purpose of this paper is to present the new legislation, with particular attention to the points at issue and the basics of its application in practice.