The bill amends the Netherland’s Flexible Working Act of 2015, which allowed employees to request changes in the number of hours they work, their working schedule and their place of work.

The new law makes mandatory for employers to consider employee requests to work from home as long as their professions allow it, aiming to enable a better work-life balance for employees.

While under current Dutch law employers may reject workers’ requests to work from home without giving a reason, the new legislation forces employers not only to consider such requests, but also to give a reason in case of deny.

“We have the green light for this new law thanks to the support we received from both employees and employers’ unions” said Steven van Weyenberg, one of the politicians politicians spearheading the proposal.

Working from home in the Netherlands was already popular, even before the pandemic: in 2018, 14percent of employed Dutch people worked remotely, the highest rate in the European Union, according to Eurostat, the EU’s statistics agency. During the pandemic, the Dutch government offered reimbursements and tax exemptions to businesses who paid employees for additional costs of setting up home offices.

Some Dutch businesses believes that allowing remote working would facilitate productivity and worker satisfaction.

Howevere, there are a lot of employers all around the world that prefer to ask employees to come back to office, even if 87 percent of workers would take the option to work from home or in a hybrid format if presented, according to a new survey by McKinsey.

This topic has been debated around the world: many European countries, but also Canada, the UK and the United States are questioning this new approach regarding the introduction of measures similar to those that have been proposed in the Netherlands.