It's illegal to monitor employees or text them outside work hours: Portugal's new remote work law 🚫‍

Portugal was the first European country to change its remote work rules, learning strong lessons from the pandemic. They made remote working a mandatory option and pushed companies to provide the necessary tools to employees.

Now, they are taking it a step further with their new remote work laws. It'll now be illegal to text employees outside of working hours or monitor them while they work from home! There's also great news for working parents.

Here's a summary of the new law in Portugal

• Fines can be levied on companies if they contact employees outside working hours.
• Employees can't be monitored by employers while they work remotely.
• Companies should contribute to expenses incurred after switching to remote work eg. electricity, etc.
• Parents now have a legal right to work-from-home without needing employer permission till their child turns 8 years old

Although this brings great news, the proposal for a bill relating to "right to disconnect" (legal right to switch off work messages & devices outside work hours) was rejected by the Portugal Parliament. 

Read more about the new laws & share your thoughts here — Portugal's new remote work laws.

Meanwhile, Airbnb has released a host of new features & tools specifically for remote workers, who plan long work stays i.e. workcations. Read more about it here.

Finally, if you missed the news early this week, Puma has announced hybrid remote work with 3 days in office and 2 days at home.