Return-to-Office Mandates and Remote Work under Turkish Law
Acquired “home office” practice, essential change, equality and CBAs
1. Global context: the RTO wave is real, but not absolute
Internationally, especially in the US, many large employers are clearly moving away from fully-remote arrangements:
- JPMorgan Chase now requires staff to work full-time from the office, ending hybrid schemes that were introduced during the pandemic.
- AT&T has mandated a five-day in-office schedule from January 2025, with management openly telling reluctant employees to “adapt or leave.”
- Goldman Sachs applies an office-first, effectively full-time office policy; Disney expects four days in the office; tech giants like Apple, Google and Meta typically require three days in the office under hybrid models.
At the same time, statistics show that hybrid work has become the dominant compromise: around 70% of companies now have some formal RTO requirement, three days in-office is the most common rule, and “fully flexible” setups dropped sharply between 2023 and 2024.
This picture leads employers in Türkiye to ask similar questions:
Is home office an “acquired” working condition? Is a return-to-office mandate an essential change in working conditions? Where are the limits of equality for disabled, pregnant and parent workers?
Below, these questions are examined from the perspective of Turkish employment law.
2. Legal framework in Turkey: remote work and “essential change”
2.1. Remote work under the Labour Law and the 2021 Regulation
- Article 14 of the Turkish Labour Law No. 4857, as amended in 2016, introduced a statutory definition of “remote work”. It provides that work may be performed at home or outside the workplace, by means of technological tools, within the employer’s business organisation, and that this must be based on a written employment contract.
- The details were further regulated by the Remote Work Regulation of 10.03.2021. This Regulation sets out the framework for transitioning to remote work, the content of remote work agreements, occupational health and safety obligations and data protection aspects.
Key points include:
- Remote work can be agreed from the outset of the employment relationship or introduced later by means of a written agreement or amendment.
- An employee who has switched to remote work may request to return to working at the workplace, and the employer is obliged to give such request “priority consideration”.
2.2. Essential change in working conditions – Article 22
Article 22 of the Labour Law regulates “essential change in working conditions”.
- Working conditions are not limited to salary; they also include workplace, job position, working time, fringe benefits and established workplace practices.
- The employer must propose any essential change in writing; if the employee does not accept this proposal in writing within six working days, the change does not bind the employee.
- If the employee does not accept, the employer must either refrain from implementing the change or proceed to termination based on a valid reason.
The Court of Cassation (Yargıtay) frequently qualifies situations such as salary reduction, removal of bonuses, relocation of the workplace or changes to shuttle routes as essential changes that aggravate the employee’s position.
3. Is “home office” an acquired working condition?
There is no explicit provision in Turkish law stating that “home office is an acquired right”. However, Article 22 and Court of Cassation case-law indicate the following:
- Working conditions arise not only from the employment contract, but also from:
- personnel handbooks,
- internal regulations, and
- workplace practices that have become established over time.
- Where a benefit such as a regularly paid bonus has become a stable practice, it turns into a “workplace condition”, and the employer cannot unilaterally abolish it without complying with Article 22; such unilateral removal is treated as an essential change.
Applying this logic to home office:
- If “remote / hybrid work” is explicitly agreed in the employment contract or in written addenda,
→ it becomes a clear contractual working condition. - If, after the pandemic, home office or hybrid work has been implemented in a consistent, long-term and stable manner, and the employee has organised their life around this arrangement,
→ it may qualify as a workplace practice amounting to a working condition.
Consequently, for the employee, home office/hybrid may in practice become an “acquired working condition”. In such cases, a directive to “return fully to the office” may be treated as an essential change within the meaning of Article 22 and may not be imposed unilaterally.
4. Is a Return-to-Office mandate an “essential change”?
4.1. General approach
Particularly in larger cities, the Court of Cassation attaches significant importance to distance and commuting burden when assessing workplace changes:
- Even where the new workplace is in the same city, if the distance increases significantly, commuting time becomes longer or public transport options are weaker, the change can be regarded as essential.
- In some decisions, even a change in the route of the company shuttle—where it lengthens travel time and increases commuting costs—has been considered an essential change, justifying the employee’s right to terminate with severance.
In light of this case-law:
- If, at the beginning of the relationship, the employment contract specified a workplace address, and due to force majeure such as the pandemic the parties temporarily switched to remote work, clearly communicated as exceptional and time-limited,
→ the employer can argue that, once the force majeure has ceased, requiring the employee to return to the original workplace is a restoration of the status quo rather than a new essential change. - By contrast, where:
- home office / hybrid work has been in place for a long time on specific days,
- remote work is supported by contract clauses or internal policies, and
- the employee has determined their residence and family arrangements on the basis of this model;
→ an RTO policy (especially a full-time office requirement) may be characterised as an essential change that worsens the employee’s position.
In such a scenario, the employer should:
- Present the change in writing to the employee,
- Allow the employee six working days to consider the offer under Article 22, and
- If the employee refuses, decide whether to abandon the change or to terminate on the basis of a valid reason.
If the employer simply imposes RTO unilaterally, this may lead to claims of justified termination due to non-application of working conditions, along with severance pay claims.
5. Equality, disabled / pregnant workers and parents
Article 5 of the Labour Law sets out the principle of equal treatment and the prohibition of discrimination, explicitly banning discrimination on grounds including sex, pregnancy and disability.
In its case-law, the Court of Cassation has held that, when assessing a workplace change, factors such as family status, the presence of disabled children under the employee’s care, and the need to change residence must also be taken into account.
Within this framework, RTO policies carry the following risks:
- For disabled employees, a home office or hybrid model may effectively function as a form of reasonable accommodation. A rigid “five days in the office” policy, without individual assessment, could give rise to allegations of indirect discrimination.
- For pregnant employees and employees with small children, heavy traffic and long commuting distances may seriously interfere with health and family life. RTO policies that do not provide any exceptions or facilitations for these groups are likely to be challenged as inconsistent with the principle of equality.
- Especially in metropolitan areas such as Istanbul, long and costly commutes may impose a disproportionate burden on disabled, pregnant or parent workers. Even if the rule is formally applied “equally” to everyone, it may in practice affect these groups more severely and thus amount to indirect discrimination.
Therefore, when designing RTO policies, employers should:
- Establish special assessment and flexibility mechanisms for disabled employees under disability law and anti-discrimination rules,
- Offer flexible arrangements based on medical advice for pregnant employees and those in the post-partum period,
- Consider priority or specific exemptions for employees with small children, particularly single parents, in order to mitigate risks.
6. Commute cost, time and the “reasonableness” test
In its decisions on workplace relocation or changes to shuttle routes, the Court of Cassation does not look only at the formal change of address; it asks how much additional time, how much extra cost and to what extent the employee’s life order is disrupted.
Against this backdrop, RTO mandates may create the following issues:
- If the distance between home and the workplace increases dramatically,
- If public transport options are limited and require long, multi-leg journeys,
- If commuting costs become a serious financial burden for employees, especially those on lower wages,
employees may reasonably refuse to accept the change and may raise claims of justified termination with severance pay.
In particular, decisions in which workplace changes for employees with disabled children have been recognised as a justified reason for termination show that RTO policies will likely be examined through the same lens.
7. Role of collective agreements and internal regulations
Working conditions derive not only from individual employment contracts but also from:
- Collective bargaining agreements (CBAs),
- personnel handbooks,
- internal circulars, and
- established workplace practices.
If a CBA or internal regulation:
- Expressly grants certain positions hybrid or remote working days,
- Provides specific commuting benefits (company shuttle, travel allowances, etc.),
- Introduces flexible working hours,
then any amendment that materially worsens these conditions will again be subject to the Article 22 procedure.
Accordingly, before rolling out an RTO policy, employers should:
- Review existing CBAs and internal rules,
- Identify explicit or implied rights relating to home office / hybrid work, and
- Where necessary, hold prior negotiations with CBA parties, which will significantly reduce legal risks.
8. Practical takeaways for foreign employers and investors
For foreign investors managing teams in Türkiye, a “copy-paste from a US-style RTO memo” approach can be risky. A more legally robust path would include:
- Structuring remote / hybrid policies via written contract addenda and internal regulations, aligned with Article 14 of the Labour Law and the Remote Work Regulation.
- When introducing RTO, assessing for each role whether this represents a return to the original situation or a new, more burdensome arrangement, and documenting this assessment.
- Applying the Article 22 procedure (written offer, six-day response period, acceptance/refusal, possible termination) rather than imposing RTO by a generic “as of Monday everyone must be in the office” announcement.
- Designing exception mechanisms and individual review processes for disabled employees, pregnant workers and employees with small children, and expressly incorporating these mechanisms into the RTO policy.
- For employees whose commuting time and cost will increase significantly due to RTO, documenting a “reasonableness test” in light of the Court of Cassation’s case-law on workplace relocation (e.g. alternatives such as shuttle services, travel allowances, partial remote work).
In conclusion:
When properly structured, home office can provide flexibility for the employer and comfort for the employee; a poorly designed RTO mandate, however, may bring severance pay, reinstatement and discrimination claims as a single package.
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