The labour department of the Philippines has expanded the work from home scheme and called on employers and workers to mutually adopt telecommuting programs to help sustain the country’s economic recovery.

Department Order 237, signed by Labour Secretary Bienvenido Laguesma last week, contained the revised implementing rules and regulations of the telecommuting law, or Republic Act 11165.

The revised rules were the result of almost two months of consultations with concerned sectors. 

Emphasising the voluntary nature of the alternative work arrangement, the labour chief echoed the call for employers and employees to “jointly adopt and implement telecommuting programs that are based on voluntariness and mutual consent.”

Laguesma said this would aim to sustain efforts for economic recovery.

“The new rules stress that ‘the terms and conditions of telecommuting shall not be less than minimum labour standards, and shall not in any way diminish or impair the terms and conditions of employment contained in any applicable company policy or practice, individual contract, or collective bargaining agreement”, Laguesma said.

As a government measure to optimise the use of technology, the revised IRR (Implementing Rules and Regulations) also defines ‘alternative workplace’ as any location where work, through the use of telecommunication and/or technology, is performed at a location away from the principal’s place of business of the employer, including but not limited to the employee’s residence, co-working spaces or other spaces that allow for mobile working.

It also states that a ‘regular workplace’ means the principal place of business or any branch office or physical premises established or provided by the employer where employees regularly report to or perform work. It added that work performed in an alternative workplace shall be considered as work performed in the regular workplace of the employer.

Under the revised rules, telecommuting employees are not considered field personnel except when their actual hours of work cannot be determined with reasonable certainty.

“All time that an employee is required to be on duty, and all time that an employee is permitted or suffered to work in the alternative workplace shall be counted as hours worked,” the rules added.