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(b) Teleworking 11

From the viewpoint of preventing COVID-19 infections, working at home is an
option. An employer can require an employee to work from home if having the employee

at the office poses a risk to the health and safety of other staff. Teleworking is subject
to the Labor Standards Law, so it is necessary to pay attention to the relationship with
these labor standards-related laws and relevant regulations when considering the system.
12
From the labor law viewpoint, if neither the individual employment agreement
nor the work rules allow this, it is difficult to resort to teleworking, unless a special law

is enacted in this respect. There is no straightforward court precedent so far regarding
COVID-19 in this respect, but there is a ground to argue for the need to insert a provision
into the work rules to enable the employer to instruct the employees to work from home
in an emergency situation like the current one.

The primary obstacles to introducing teleworking are the identification of

working hours and information management. In the event that the working hours system
and other working conditions are the same for the introduction of teleworking, it is
possible to introduce teleworking under the existing rules of employment without

changing the rules of employment. It may be preferable to introduce teleworking with
the individual consent of the employees without changing the rules of employment,
on the condition that the system is operated in such a way that the cost of communication

and working hours are not disadvantageous to the employees. In some cases, however,
it may be necessary to change the rules of employment, such as requiring employees
to bear communication costs related to teleworking and/or discontinue payment of the

commuting allowances.

11 There are two terms which sound similar and may cause confusion: teleworking and telecommuting.
Teleworking refers to working from remotely, usually from home. Telecommuting refers to the elimination of a
daily commute to and from the work, and it also usually refers to the work from home.
12 The rate of implementation of working from home (teleworking) rose to 48.1% in May. The most common
response in May was “Implementation of working from home (teleworking)” followed by “Shortening of business
hours by reduction of days of operation” (29.0%), “Shortening of business hours by reduction of business hours
per day” (27.2%), and “Granting special paid leave (excluding annual paid leave)” (25.7%): Results of “Survey on
Impact of Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) on Enterprise Management” (June 2020 Survey, First Aggregation). p. 3.

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