In Morocco, teleworking was not well known before the Covid-19 pandemic, but it emerged significantly during the health crisis, when many companies have encouraged telework and this has created a break in the traditional working environment, involving a radical transformation of the work and the social relations within the company.

Telework was significantly adopted in Morocco following the decree law n°2.20.292, promulgating provisions relating to the "state of health emergency". This new way of doing business, using information and communication technologies, was firstly adopted the General Confederation of Moroccan Enterprises (Confederation Generale des Entreprises du Maroc, CGEM), on 17 March 2020.

However, the Labour Code does not provide the conditions of recourse to this type of work organisation or the modalities of its application, and, facing the new situation, a new legislation on telework became necessary.

During the 4th and final conference of the Le Matin group's conference cycle on the theme "Employability in the digital era: new jobs, new skills", the President of the Social Commission of the General Confederation of Moroccan Enterprises (Confederation Generale des Entreprises du Maroc, CGEM), Hicham Zouanat, announced that the labour code needs to be adapted to this new reality and, for this reason, the CGEM has worked on a law proposal that will be discuss with the trade unions in September.

The proposal, elaborated at the level of the social commission of the Confederation, could eventually take the form of a law, a social charter or a collective agreement.

"We drew up a 25-article bill which we shared with the two most representative trade unions in the private sector and we agreed to meet just after the elections to discuss it," says Zouanat.

Once discussed with the unions, the copy will be given to the Minister of Employment to start the dialogue. However, the process of reaching a consensus on a law is long, and the urgency of the situation cannot withstand the slowness of legislative procedures.

Hence the option of relying on collective agreements or social charters to regulate telework. It should also be noted that some large companies have adopted internal regulations to govern telework, notably by means of contractual amendments with employees. "The contract between the company and the employee has all its legitimacy to govern the professional relationship between the two parties", says Mr. Zouanat. He believes that this way of doing things on the part of certain companies is valid, as long as it is done with the employees’ free and complete consent, going so far as to say that this practice could replace the framework of conventional law, which is still not very developed in Morocco.

It is relevant to point out that the CGEM proposal also includes the right to disconnect, a discussed and applied in many countries in the last months, that allows to workers to find a balance between their professional and personal lives, mitigating psychosocial.

Consequently, employers have to respect employees' rest and holiday periods, as well as their break times during the day.

Zakia Hajjaji, the director of human resources at Orange Morocco, even sees this as an emergency to be placed at the top of managerial priorities. "Mixing working time with private life is not possible and would even impact on the quality of work, so yes, I am in favour of implementing the right to disconnect," she says.

This right is one of the proposals made by the CGEM and put forward in the debate with the trade unions and the ministry in charge.

“It should not be forgotten that the environmental aspect also counts. Some companies, in an effort to reduce their carbon footprint, are banking on the introduction and sustainability of telework”.

M. Touzani, Social Commission, CGEM commented that “[t]he draft legal framework proposed to the trade unions and which will be the subject of bipartite working sessions in the near future sets out the main points of a general legal framework for telework in order to define the major obligations and responsibilities of the two parties in this new working relationship and remains an example of the maintenance of bipartite social dialogue on large-scale issues. This legal framework should ensure that everyone wins when telework is introduced so as not to unbalance the organisation and ensure its performance.”