Teleworking - law regulations and labor market reality

Flexible forms of employment became the focus of attention both of practitioners and researchers in recent years. To popularize teleworking law regulations concerning telework were introduced in Poland in 2007. However, the attitude of the representatives of the labor market towards these regulations seems ambiguous. Moreover, the research shows that no significant increase in teleworking practice appeared. The study described in the article aimed at verifying to what extent the employers comply with the requirements and recommendations concerning teleworking included in the Labor Code. It was also intended to assess how the practice goes in line with the legislator's intentions and to indicate possible directions of changes in legislation to popularize telework. The research was based on a questionnaire filled in by employees of organizations using teleworking and on individual interviews with HR experts. The study confirms that there is a significant discrepancy between the national law on teleworking and the practice of the labor market. Only a few of the surveyed organizations used new regulations. Informal principles of regulating telework were dominant. It seems that the adopted solutions focus on the protection of employees, and not on encouraging employers to use this form of work organization, and in some areas even discouraging them. The analysis allows for concluding that although legislator has defined many objectives, neither the suggested measures nor the expected values accompany them. Therefore, one can presume that the primary goal to be achieved by the Legislature was a qualitative change, i.e., a significant popularization of telework. Unfortunately, the conducted research did not prove that such change has occurred