Following the closure of the platform lanes in January, the Government issued an Executive Decree which facilitated teleworking for public employees, in order to achieve a minor impact on vehicular traffic.
In March, the Ministry of Labor explained that after the six lanes were authorized, each company would make an assessment to determine whether or not to continue with the measure. At that time, 1,574 public sector employees were kept under that modality, with ICE topping the list with 364 workers, followed by the MEP with 151 and the CCSS with 130.
Almost a month after the rails were enabled, by mid June there were 1,377 teleworkers, representing an increase of 327 people.
The ICE decided to leave out staggered schedules and temporary telework.
Currently, the normal teleworking process is enabled, which implies a prior technical evaluation of the work activities and the conditions of the candidates to adapt to the internal processes of evaluation and subsequent follow-up.”
At the moment, there are 306 officials under this modality and there are others in process.
Juan Alfaro, Deputy Minister of Labor, said that this unforeseen event was a good opportunity to demonstrate that there is the capacity to apply this modality and that it is effective.
In September, the Ministry of Labor indicated that 21 institutions should have their telecommuting plans ready, as the idea was that by 2018 about 4,000 employees would work that way, which would produce savings of ยข 3.200 million for the State. To this end, training would be carried out in the institutions so that they all work under the same guidelines.