Home » Commentary » Do I Have a Legal Right to Continue to Work Remotely?

Amanda DeMatteis: Hi, Josh.

Josh Goodbaum: Hi, Amanda. What are we talking about today?

DeMatteis: I thought we would talk about working from home — still something on top of everyone’s mind because our world really changed post-COVID, and there’s still so much being done from the confines of our homes, which has turned part of our homes into offices.

Working from home also created some interesting complications with our employers. I thought we would talk about some of those things and see what we can tell Connecticut employees about the risks and benefits associated with continuing to work from home.

Goodbaum: Well, the benefits of working remotely are pretty obvious. So many of us who have the flexibility to be able to work from home want to do so if we can: it’s comfortable; you can quickly change a load of laundry; you can let the plumber in the house if necessary; and you don’t have to put on real pants. All of those are good things.

But there can also be some risks of working from home, and it’s important to remember that, except in very rare circumstances, an opportunity to work from home and an opportunity to work hybrid is almost certainly not forever. Even if your employer says to you, “For now, you can work from home,” or, “You can work from home two days a week or three days a week or flex five days per month,” that ability to work from home is probably not a promise your employer is making to you that’s gonna last forever.

I’ve heard from a number of people who, when COVID started and work from home seemed to be a real thing, moved away from where their offices were. Their office is in Hartford, but now they live in Florida. And what happens when the boss says, “Okay, it’s time to come back to work two days a week?” “Well, I can’t, I live in Florida.” That’s not your employer’s problem, almost certainly, right? So if you took working from home as an opportunity to move to another region of the country or world, and now your employer wants you back in the office, you probably don’t have legal basis to complain.

There are two exceptions to this general idea of not having a legal right to work from home.

One is if you make an actual contract with your employer. If so, you want to write that down. You want to have an individually negotiated contract that says, “Here’s my workplace. My workplace is going to be in my house. My house is allowed to be in X city or X state,” and your employer is agreeing with that. The promise might have a time frame associated with it, but you can rely on that contractual promise.

The other exception is when you are working from home or working hybrid or flexibly as a result of a disability. If you’ve gone to your employer and said, “Hey, the workplace is exacerbating my migraines or causing me asthma or I’m not able to commute because of a disability that I have,” and you and your employer have worked out a reasonable accommodation, and that accommodation for your disability is to allow you to work from home, then your employer cannot just unilaterally withdraw the accommodation. Your employer can’t unilaterally retract your negotiated accommodation for your disability without talking to you about it and without engaging in an interactive dialogue related to that accommodation. That’s assuming, of course, that your disability continues and that the accommodation continues to allow you to do your job. If you no longer have the disability, you’re no longer entitled to the accommodation. And if your employer has asked you for reasonable medical updates and you unreasonably fail to provide information from your doctor to complete the required form, then your employer doesn’t have to continue to provide you with the accommodation. So, you need to be reasonable about updating all of that information.

And overall, you need to make sure to be cautious and understand your rights if you have switched to a work from home situation.

DeMatteis: That’s really good advice. Also, remember, even though we’re in the confines of our homes and maybe we’re not wearing real pants, we still need to follow the policies of our employer. We still need to be working. Remember: Employers can monitor keystrokes. They can monitor the movement of your mouse. They can monitor how much you’re working on a particular thing or project or whatever it may be.

So, make sure that you don’t give your employer any reason to say, “Hey, what are you really doing over there during working hours?” Because the one thing you’re supposed to be doing during working time is working.

Thank you so much for watching. We’ll see you next time.

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