Registration of remote work of employees in the conditions of COVID-19
How to transfer an employee to work remotely at home (information from the website of the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection https://rosmintrud.ru/labour/public-service/249)?
1) determine the lists of employees and the procedure for organizing work, schedule, ways of exchanging information about tasks and their implementation;
2) issue an order for temporary transfer to remote work and familiarize employees with it. The transfer should take place taking into account the production possibilities, i.e. it is important to make sure that your employee has the resources to do this work or you can provide him with the necessary equipment / materials
3) the level of remuneration with the transfer to remote work at home does not change.
If a regular employment contract is concluded with an employee, then an additional agreement on the recognition of telecommuting for a certain period must be signed to it. This period can be designated either by a specific date, or by an event that should occur, for example, "before the normalization of the epidemiological situation in the city (region, country)".
When deciding whether to issue an order to transfer employees to a remote mode, it is important to consider the following:
if, for reasons related to changes in organizational working conditions, certain working conditions cannot be maintained, then in accordance with Part 1 of Art. 74 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, they can be changed at the initiative of the employer.
The introduction of restrictive and other organizational measures can be considered such changes that do not allow maintaining the previous conditions of the employment contract. In this case, these conditions can be changed at the initiative of the employer - this is the issuance of the order. However, in accordance with Part 2 of Art. 74 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, it is necessary to notify about changes in the conditions of the employee's employment contract no later than two months in advance. Failure to comply with this deadline is a violation of labor legislation, for which the employer may face a fine under Art. 5.27 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation (up to 50 thousand rubles for organizations, up to 5 thousand rubles for individual entrepreneurs). .
At the same time, the Labor Code of the Russian Federation does not prohibit an employee from contacting the employer with a request to transfer to remote work. After submitting the application, an additional agreement is also signed.
The employer is not obliged to provide the employee at remote work with equipment, software and hardware, information security devices, but he can do it. But the employer must reimburse the employee for the costs associated with the performance of labor duties. These costs include communications and the Internet. The procedure for compensation is fixed in a supplementary agreement to the employment contract.
When transferring employees to remote work, it is necessary to ensure the security of all data of the organization, including those constituting a commercial secret. We recommend changing the provisions of local regulations on commercial secrets, personal data, access to internal databases. If employees will be provided with remote access through electronic keys-identifiers, then it is necessary to draw up rules for working with identification tools, establish responsibility for transferring this tool to third parties.
Remote employees can continue to work from March 30 to April 3, 2020. Document: Addendum to the Recommendation of the Ministry of Labor of Russia dated 03/27/2020. No. 14-4 / 10 / P-2741, Decree of March 25, 2020 No. 206 of the President of the Russian Federation.
The Ministry of Labor of Russia indicated that workers who already work remotely have the right to continue working remotely with mandatory compliance with the requirements for the prevention of coronavirus infection. Unfortunately, the Ministry of Labor of Russia did not clarify whether it is possible to oblige remote employees to work and how to make payment in this case.
In our opinion, the provisions of the Recommendations delivered by letter dated 26.03.2020 No. 14-4 / 10 / P-2696 were applied to working remote workers. It is stated that this period is payable in the usual way.
However, if the decree applies to the organization and it should not work, then taking into account the reduction of the norms for the production calendar for it, such work for employees becomes overtime. Accordingly, it must be paid according to the rules of Art. 152 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, that is, in one and a half amount for the first two hours, and in double - for all subsequent ones.