In exceptional circumstances and only where it has been approved in advance by their line manager, it may be possible for an employee to temporarily work remotely from overseas for personal reasons.
Before the employee can work from overseas, there are some important issues to think about:
- any temporary work location must not last longer than 13 weeks per year
- some countries have different rules and standards for data protection. When considering if working temporarily from overseas would be possible, the employee and their manager must read working outside the UK (PDF, 155KB) and the employee's manager must check with the Information Governance team, to explore any restrictions
- be careful when sending emails and data from abroad to people outside of the ECC email or Teams network. Sending emails that contain anyone's personal data may be deemed as an international transfer of personal data. Check with the Information Governance team, to verify what can be sent to non-ECC email addresses from the overseas location
- before entering a country where the employee may be carrying out work temporarily, they should make sure that they have obtained the appropriate immigration clearance to ensure they are legally permitted to work in that country
- depending on the country they intend to work from, there is a risk that the employee may have to pay tax and social security charges in their overseas location as well as in the UK
The employee and their line manager must agree:
- how the time difference will affect how they interact and communicate with their team or customers
- an appropriate working pattern - make sure they can attend virtual meetings, participate in training or complete time-sensitive work tasks during standard UK working hours
Before it can be agreed for the employee to work from overseas, the employee and line manager must read the following requirements in the working remotely from overseas policy (PDF, 130 KB).
The line manager and employee must ensure any relevant local considerations have been considered (e.g. local employment rights and protections in the relevant country) and appropriate risk assessments have been completed. In addition, they will be sent an appropriate agreement to record their approval for the employee to work temporarily from overseas.
In addition, the manager will work with People Support to prepare a Working Remotely from Overseas agreement which must be signed by the employee. This will record the line managers approval for the employee to work temporarily from overseas.
People Support Services can be contacted by using the Assyst portal.