The Generalitat reduces teleworking among 45,000 officials from 5 to 2 days a week

The Government of Catalonia has activated the back-to-office operation for 45,000 public employees of the administrative staff. From next Monday teleworking is reduced from five to two days a week teleworking. The ‘ministry’ of the Presidency has published a new instruction in which it withdraws the five days a week exceptionally enabled due to the uptick in infections by the variant omicron and returns to the ordinary regulations, which already contemplated two days of remote exercise for department personnel. The direction of the Public Function notified the centrals of the decision on Thursday of this week and it will come into force on Monday, February 7.

The public employees of the administrative staff of the Generalitat had been working remotely since December 22, 2021. The Government decreed it together with the package of measures referring to the closure of nightlife or the curfew. In recent days, several of these measures have been declining due to the improvement in the epidemiological situation and now it is the turn of telecommuting officials. However, the Generalitat maintains the possibility of 100% teleworking for those public employees who are in charge under 12 years old, dependent or disabled people who have to confine themselves due to a positive or due to the closure of their class or day center. This special permit may also be used by those employees who are especially vulnerable to the virus and who have a perceptive medical report.

From the IAC, the center with the largest number of representatives among the Catalan civil servants of the Generalitat, consider the measure premature and consider that, in order to minimize contagion, the Catalan administration should allow up to three days a week of remote exercise. Well, they consider that only two days does not allow to distribute face-to-face work shifts among the templates with enough space in some departments.

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The Official Gazette of the Generalitat de Catalunya (DOGC) has published this Friday the instruction 1/2022 that recovers the ordinary teleworking conditions for administrative staff, in force since the de-escalation culminated on September 1. Remote exercise is not a covid novelty for part of Catalan public employees, who since the previous legislature and before the pandemic could telework up to two days a week if the specific conditions of their position allow it and do not require attendance .

The Generalitat activated 100% teleworking in parallel to many companies, which, given the uptick in infections due to the omicron variant, decided to reinforce the remote exercise to minimize infections and avoid production problems due to lack of hands. Once Christmas is over and with the curve of positives already falling, a large part of these companies have progressively reincorporated their employees into the office and the Generalitat has followed a similar path. According to the latest data from the INE, referring to the fourth quarter of 2021, 15.4% of employed Catalans telework occasionally or mostly. This proportion is higher than in the third quarter of the year (14.7%), thus evidencing the effects of the sixth wave, but lower than in the first moments of the pandemic, when a peak of 21.2% was reached.