It’s been use it or lose it  at the Commission for some time now and the 10 days of teleworking from anywhere (TWA) are an example of this. Article 11 of the March 2022 working time and hybrid working (WTHW) decision gives all staff the right to enjoy up to 10 days of teleworking from outside their normal workplace per year, upon their request, subject to the agreement of the line manager.

All of you, regardless of your place of origin, centre of interests, nationality, place of assignment or family status have the right to 10 days of teleworking from outside the place where you normally work. Yes, even Belgian colleagues working in Brussels have the right to those 10 days: you don’t even have to have family abroad to be entitled to these days. Any excuse to work outside your normal place of work is a good one. Why not extend a holiday, go discover a new place or participate in an event? Yes, really: go ANYWHERE! So long as you have a stable internet connection and you take your laptop and headphones you can work from anywhere. Check the WTHW FAQ for guidance.

But I’m not outside my country of origin!

The 10 TWA days are independent of any expatriation allowance or foreign residence allowance, you have 10 days, please use them! Do it now! Here’s how to register TWA days in the system. Please put your TWA days in sysper, you can always change them later if your plans change. The important point is to make every effort to ensure that there are 0 days left in in your account! Why not get a head start on the 2025 TWA days and request them now?

Why are we reminding you now?

Because in contrast to annual leave, these days must be used within the calendar year. So our remaining 2024 days cannot be transferred to 2025: that means in practice that any days not used by 23 December 2024 are lost forever. We shoehorn in here a reminder of our end-of-year checklist.

Why is it so important to use all 10 TWA days?

There have been many, many, many calls to increase the number of TWA days, but those calls consistently receive the same response: that those who make use of the TWA days use on average only 7 of the available 10[*], meaning that the 10 days are more than sufficient for current needs. Please make every effort to use those days!

Could we have more than 10 TWA days?

As a workforce, we’ve shown teleworking works and we’ve shown ourselves to be flexible, responsible and trustworthy. We delivered, even from kitchen tables and living rooms, even from outside the place of assignation. Generation 2004 make no secret of our ideal of having 60 TWA days at the disposal of staff: other EU institutions and bodies have shown themselves to be rather more flexible than the Commission in this regard.

What’s available elsewhere?

At the European Central Bank (ECB) ‘… staff may telework from a location within the Union for a maximum of 90 working days per calendar year … staff may telework from a location outside the Union for up to 20 working days per calendar year…” (Art. 5.1bis). Core time starts on Monday at 14h and ends on Friday at noon. Staff at the European Patent Office (EPO) may telework from abroad for 60 days per year. and have a MINIMUM presence in the office of 60 days PER YEAR! In the meantime our own Corporate Management Board has expressed a desire (23.01.2023) to see more presence in the office.

For anyone with an alternative agreement

If you have a less-formal arrangement, please ensure that you have what you need in case of difficulties e.g. if you become sick and your certificate/bills show that you are outside your place of employment, will this be a problem? The Investigation and Disciplinary Office of the Commission took disciplinary action against a colleague found to be working from abroad without authorisation (see activity report 2021, page 12,  oddly listed under ‘unauthorised absences’ although the colleague was working).

As always, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact us!

If you appreciate our work, please consider becoming a member of Generation 2004.

[*] Figures from 19.10.2023:

• Total number of Staff that used the possibility of teleworking outside the place
  of employment (10 days max): 17 367
• Total number of days teleworked outside the place of employment: 128 966.5
• Average days of telework outside the place of employment taken per Staff member who made use of this possibility: 7.5
• (Sysper data, 9/6/2023 for period 1/4/2022 to 30/4/2023)

We intend to look closer at these figures in a future article.