Belgium: federal government imposes 4 days of telework per week

On 17 November and faced with a resurgence in the number of Covid-19 cases, the Belgian authorities decided to modify the Royal Decree of 28 October 2021 and to make telework compulsory again in order to “limit the number of contacts, as well as reducing the number of people on public transport during peak times and thus avoiding their inability to uphold social distancing rules”. From 20 November until 12 December, all people whose work permits it, “regardless of the nature of their employment relationship”, must work from home at least four days a week. This will be reduced to a minimum of three days from 13 December. The measure applies to public and private companies, and associations and services. This decision, which comes at a time when many employers had started bringing employees back to the office, has not secured unanimous employer support. “We are not against telework per se and to applying it to its fullest where possible, but we are against the obligation”, remarked Pieter Timmermans, the head of the Federation of Belgian Enterprises.