New bill would have state employees work from home on bad air days

SALT LAKE CITY — Working from home could become something more regular for many people especially if a new bill passes that would have state employees work from home on bad air quality days.

“Take the state out of the problem in air quality. When we have bad air, there’s no reason we should be asking state employees to get on the roads,” said the bill’s sponsor, State Senator Dan McCay.

I’ve opened a bill to require Utah to classify employees as “Work Site Essential” and “Work Site Optional.” On bad air days, Work Site Optional employees will work from home. Where should we draw the line? https://t.co/UWBAmhH9en https://t.co/x6Dq9rTm3F

— Dan McCay (@danmccay) May 14, 2020

McCay says the data showed this March, the air was cleaner than last March because people were not driving as much.

He said we have learned a lot from the remote work being done during this pandemic.

“It’s clear we need to get rid of some of the old paradigms. The old paradigms include that an employee isn’t productive unless they are sitting right in front of us,” he said. He added that he has seen studies showing how much more productive workers are right now.

The state has tried to do more teleworking, but McCay says it could be done on a much larger scale. And he believes the private sector would follow the state’s example.

“We have some habits to break in the workforce,” he said.

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