The general manager of the Grow Remote movement has said it is time for employment law to catch up on the nuances of working remotely as there could be thousands of remote jobs available in the EU that could come to Ireland.
John Evoy told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland that there were many benefits for people and communities with remote working.
“We see remote work as potentially transformative for lots of employees, potentially for people who are commuting and who could put that time to much better use. And also for communities, people who are working locally spend their hard-earned money there, but also spend their discretionary time at home. We have data that shows that it really transforms people's lives and communities.”
However, Mr Evoy pointed out that there were many challenges to remote working. “There's lots of blockers in the way from allowing that to happen to its full potential.
“So I think as a country, we need to tackle those challenges. So, for example, remote jobs aren't as visible or as accessible as traditional jobs. Remote employers have access to talent worldwide, so you never see a remote job advertised on their local radio station or on your local noticeboard in the Spar.
"So we need to help educate people around these jobs. And then there's also a gap between maybe the skills profiles that an employer is looking for. And this profile is what the job seeker has. So there's a piece of work to be done there.”
Change was required “right across the board” and employees, employers, community members and legislators could all get involved in making this happen, he said.
“There's a huge opportunity, if we could get as many people as possible to share our vision of what it could look like if this was done really, really well. For example, reducing commuting by tens of thousands of journeys every day. And what would that mean for our environment as well? And from a legislation point of view, there's a lot of small things.”
Mr Evoy said that while working on site had been the way for over a hundred years, “we still aren't really getting it right. Remote working is so new that maybe things like nuances in employment law haven't really caught up and there are things that just take a bit of time.”
Remote working could be “kind of like a pressure cooker for the economy during different times at different swings in the economy. So, for example, there are 90,000 more jobs that are available across the European Economic Union right now.
"We have to do what we need to do to draw down our fair share of them in Ireland. So in the time of recession, there's jobs that could go anywhere in the world. And if we put our minds to it, we can land them in Ireland.”
