COVID and work from home trends: Practices and recommendations in protecting employees

Abstract

The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic or the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has far-reaching effects on many parts of society, particularly the job market in VietNam. In just the third quarter of 2021, the COVID-19 epidemic has impacted approximately 28.2 million employees aged 15 and above across VietNam, which led them to lose their employment, cease work, rotate work, reduce working hours, and reduce income, etc. Furthermore, COVID-19 requires employees to work from home, and the fast rise in work from home creates a fresh urgency to evaluate the impact of work from home on both employees and employers, including contracts, insurance, wages, allowances, working hours, and so on. Due to the aforementioned urgent circumstances, in the framework of COVID-19, this research article tries to examine both positive impact of working from home such as decreasing workplace accidents, cleaning up the environment, saving money for both employees and employers, and harmonizing work and family responsibilities and negative impact, for example, lack of working tools, labour equipment or the right to disconnect between working hours and resting periods. Furthermore, the authors are going to highlight some potential legal loopholes that may exist in the context of changing working techniques in VietNam. Finally, the authors promote awareness of work from home and provide advise on policies that can help people who work from home in the current pandemic situation in VietNam, for instance, restrictions on workplace safety when working from home, regulations on the right to disconnect employees after working hours, and strengthening the function of the labor inspector in examining how much a company is paying out in salary and how much is being cut or reduced.