Remote work as a challenge for the organisation and functioning of public administrations in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has become one of the greatest global challenges of recent years. It forced the governments of many countries to introduce new and unique legal instruments, whose main objective was to prevent, counteract and combat the infectious disease caused by a novel coronavirus. One of these instruments was the possibility to limit the functioning of public administration offices. This accelerated the design and implementation of solutions which, on the one hand, ensured the safety and health protection of employees of public offices and, on the other hand, allowed the continuation of public tasks. The subject of the article is the analysis of Polish legal solutions concerning the possibility of remote work in connection with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of the study is to show that the coronavirus pandemic forced the Polish legislator to introduce new instruments into the legal order regarding the organisation and functioning of the state administrative apparatus. One of them was the possibility of remote work, i.e. work that is carried out away from the place of its permanent performance.