The American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine welcomes the adoption of Draft Law #4051 improving the regulation of distant work and flexible working regime by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on February 4, 2021.
The main novelties envisaged by the adopted Draft Law include the following:
- Two separate types of work – distant work and work from home
- Employers are allowed to familiarize employees with the documents related to labor relations in an electronic form
- Distant work can be combined with the usual working regime (e.g. in the office)
- Specific regulation of distant work for parents is adopted and list of categories of employees who are allowed to work distantly is defined
- Flexible working regime can be applied under condition that employees are notified about the change of their working regime no later than 2 months in advance
Experts of the Chamber Human Capital Committee have been continuously highlighting the importance of accelerating the improvement of regulation of the distant work, work from home, and flexible working regime by providing proposals to the responsible policy-making bodies.
Among other things, the Chamber promoted the exclusion of the excessive administrative burden suggested in the initial text of Draft Law #4051 with regard to the employer's obligation to maintain registration forms/records for employees who work from home. As a result, such an obligation has been excluded from the final text of the adopted Draft Law.
We welcome this step and are ready to further assist the Government and the Parliament in continuing their work on the improvement of labor legislation in Ukraine to help create equal rules on the labor market as it will balance employees' and employers' interests.
