Home office inspections scheduled in 2022
03.02.2022
The Bulgarian General Labour Inspectorate announced the start of a campaign aiming at inspection of the working conditions of the employees working from distance. A new methodology for monitoring legal compliance of the distance work practices in Bulgaria will be used allowing employers to electronically submit self-check questionnaires on the working conditions applied. To address the spreading news that “labour inspectors will be visiting the home workers” a hearing of the newly appointed Director of the General Labour Inspectorate and the Minster of Labour and Social Security took place on January 26th, 2022 in the Bulgarian National Assembly, providing information on the purposes and mechanism of the campaign.
Why is the 2022 Home Office Inspection Campaign needed?
The Covid-19 pandemic imposed a wider use of distance work regimes in Bulgaria, thus testing in practice the existing legal framework. The General Labour Inspectorate (“GLI”) reports that starting from 2020 the signals of unlawful ‘home-office’ practices have been constantly increasing, as well as the formal inquiries as to how legal and health & safety standards must be applied in the context of distance work.
To ensure that employees who perform work outside the premises of the employer benefit from the same rights as those who are present in the company office space, the GLI announced on its institutional website the start of an inspection campaign aiming to prevent unlawful practices in the context of distance work. The GLI Director underlined during a hearing in the Bulgarian National Assembly that the campaign was designed as preventive and not a sanctioning tool.
Mechanism of the 2022 Home Office Inspection
According to the GLI Director as a first step the GLI officers will conduct an internal analysis based on information registered with the GLI (e.g., signals for breach of law, working permit requests for minors), its public registers (e.g., the Public Register for the Art. 15 Declarations of Healthy & Safe Working Conditions, the Register of Collective Agreements), as well as other public registers providing information about the employer (e.g., the Commercial Register kept by the Registry Agency). Inspections with employers against which signals for unlawful distance work practices have been filed will be treated with priority.
Employers will be notified of the beginning of a labour inspection and provided with a standard form self-check questionnaire to be filled in and submitted electronically to the GLI, as a second step. An example of the newly developed questionnaires has not been communicated publicly, however the GLI Director explained that employers will choose between a “yes/no” or “not applicable” answer.
If the GLI officers establish that there are work practices which do not comply with the requirements of the applicable labour law, including the health & safety standards or the provisions for distance work, mandatory prescriptions will be issued to the inspected employers. Following this third step employers could be imposed administrative sanctions, only if the measures prescribed are not duly implemented.
Are visits of the home-office workers required within the 2022 Home Office Inspection?
Home office workers could be visited at the place where they work remotely only in limited cases, the GLI Director explained. On-spot visits will take place where there are circumstances regarding the working conditions of an employee which could not be established otherwise – either with respect to investigation of a work accidents, professional illness or pending legal dispute, or in the event that an employee has exercised his/her right to explicitly request such a visit from the GLI.
For further information contact:
Irina Tsvetkova, Managing Partner
irina.tsvetkova@eversheds-sutherland.bg
Viktoria Marincheva, Senior Associate
victoria.marincheva@eversheds-sutherland.bg