The State of Qatar’s Ministry of Administrative Development, Labor and Social Affairs has said that “The employee’s wage and benefits, including the provision of food and accommodation or the payment of allowances, should not change as a result of teleworking.”
Teleworking is an important component of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, revealed in the Ministry’s website Tuesday.
Issuing guidelines about teleworking (work from home) for employees and management explaining their responsibilities and rights, the Ministry’s website has clearly mentioned that “as per the terms and provisions of employment contract, teleworking conditions of employment should remain the same as before.”
The Arab Gulf state- Qatar is one of the wealthiest in the world has welcomed millions of migrant skilled, semi-skilled and labourers.
From Nepal alone, there are nearly 500,000 skilled to raw-hand migrant workers have been contributing in the State of Qatar’s infrastructures development to hospitality management, service sector to house-hold activities, educational to vocational areas, health to agriculture, engineering to manufacturing management.
According to the guidelines, Regarding working hours, employers and teleworkers will finalized accordingly and during which they can be contacted. However, the number of teleworking hours should not exceed the average that was previously applied at the workplace. It should be noted that for most sectors, the working hours were reduced from 7am to 1pm (6 hours per day) during the crisis, said the information, stated in the information.
Regarding overtime and other issues, it will be decided on the basis of mutually agreed with the employer, added the information.
The employee’s home workspace can have a significant impact on the mental health of workers and should develop advanced strategies to address safety and health of teleworkers, it said and gave stressed that “the effective management of teleworking requires a result-based management approach. This involves identifying work objectives and tasks, and then monitoring and discussing progress.”
Heightened concerns over the new coronavirus outbreak has led many companies in the world to turn to teleworking as a safe alternative to potentially exposing their employees to the virus on public transport or in offices.
Teleworkers should maintain a balance between work and personal life by identifying a dedicated workspace and learning to disconnect from work at specified times reserved for rest and personal life.
The new trend allows employees to work from home or other remote locations using information technology comes an efforts to popularize the practice as a way to adopt teleworking as an emergency measure in times of disasters.
