White paper: By-laws must regulate the protection of employees who work from home

The Foreign Investors Council (FIC) published a White Paper for 2023 with recommendations for regulatory reforms that would improve the business environment.

One of the recommendations refers to the Law on Safety at Work, adopted in April 2023.

In their analysis, the experts' general impression is that the legislator's intention was to bring the national occupational safety and health system closer to European standards, as well as raise the level of awareness and responsibility among all parties in the occupational safety and health system, especially the employer.

- The ultimate goal certainly remains the prevention of injuries at work, occupational diseases and work-related diseases, and for the purpose of achieving the physical, psychological and social well-being of employees during their working life - analysts state in the White Book.

The Law on Safety at Work has brought numerous changes, and employers have been given a two-year deadline to align their operations with the new regulations. However, it is expected that numerous issues will be regulated in more detail through by-laws. The deadline for their adoption is 18 months from the date of entry into force of the law.

Some of the most significant novelties involve the redefinition of the terms workplace, work at heights, workplace with increased risk, risk assessment, act on risk assessment, prevention, preventive measures, expansion of the powers of labor inspectors, tightening of the penal policy in relation to legal entities and responsible persons, giving greater importance to the protection of personal data, etc.

On the other hand, new concepts such as workplace, work environment, work in deep environments, remote work and work from home, advisors and associates for occupational safety and health, employee representatives, harm, electronically managed work injury register and license register were introduced, as well as the work permit issuing system.

When it comes to the good things that the labor protection law brought, according to the analysts of the Foreign Investors Council, they primarily refer to the fact that a wider range of medical examinations for employees is now recognized, so in addition to the mandatory previous and periodic medical examinations for employees who work in jobs with increased risk, the Law also provides for targeted medical examinations that will be more closely regulated by sub-legal regulations.

- Also, now the Law expressly stipulates that the employer is obliged to refer the employee to a medical examination that corresponds to the risks at the workplace, at regular intervals, and no later than within five years of the previous examination. Last, but not least, the law leaves the employer with the right and obligation to, in accordance with the specifics of his business, the regulations on occupational safety and health regulate in detail the rights and obligations, measures and procedures for safe and healthy work, all of which should lead to an improvement in the quality of implementation of safe and healthy working conditions - the report states.

The problems that remained unregulated are legal uncertainty and under-regulation of work from home or remote work.

The recommendations of the Foreign Investors Council are that it would be necessary for by-laws to regulate at least a minimum set of obligations for employers and employees when employees work from home or remotely, and representatives of the economy should also be included in the drafting of those by-laws.

- Obvious differences that exist in relation to work from the employer's premises, especially in terms of preventive measures for safe work from home / remote work, minimal ergonomic requirements, lighting and installations, as well as for the preparation of a risk assessment report for work from home, i.e. remote work, should certainly be stated in the by-laws - it is stated in the White Book.

Analysts further state that the risks are multiplied due to trends and requests from employees to frequently change the premises and places from which they perform their work (and which is not the employees' home), including work outside the territory of the Republic of Serbia.

Also, it is necessary to prescribe a new code or codes (except in the part where the working environment is determined) which would be reported to the authorities, in case of injuries while working from home or remotely. That is why the new by-laws should prescribe the way in which employers will determine and report the cause of injury, as well as an adequate code when work is performed from home and remotely.

The Employers' Union of Serbia (UPS) agrees that it is necessary to specify the differences between work from home and remote work through an adequate framework and that the possibility of regulating the employment relationship must be introduced so that the employee spends part of the working time at home.

- It is necessary to define obligations regarding equipment and tools for work, reimbursement of labor costs, as well as obligations of employers based on safety at work. Many other aspects of working from home are currently unregulated and therefore subject to arbitrary assessment and decision, which is not in the favor of either employers or employees - says UPS.

In the report, the experts point out that there is a partially unclear provision in the Occupational Safety and Health Act that stipulates that employers have two years to organize their business with the provisions of the Act.

However, the aforementioned provision is open to interpretation as to whether it refers to compliance with all the provisions of the Law or only with the provisions related to the licensing conditions of occupational safety and health advisors and associates. Therefore, it is open to interpretation whether, in the mentioned two-year period, employers will be exposed to sanctions in case of possible non-compliance of their operations with the Law. Therefore, it would be important for the ministry in charge to give an official interpretation and position regarding the aforementioned legal provision, the analysts of the Council of Foreign Investors concluded in their report in the White Book for 2023.

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