Dutch companies actively banning joining online meetings from the car

Several Dutch companies are actively prohibiting employees from joining online meetings while driving, NOS reports. Some companies allow hands-free meetings from the car but without a camera.

NOS surveyed several large companies after a study by the Scientific Institute for Road Safety Research (SWOV) showed last month that one in five adults sometimes participate in online meetings while driving.

Road safety organizations are not happy with this trend. “You cannot do two things at the same time: driving and having a meeting,” Veilig Verkeer Nederland said. “It can also be accompanied by emotions, such a meeting. Those are all distractions.”

Shell, Unilever, and Friesland Campina, among others, have banned employees from joining online meetings in the car, even if they use a hands-free kit.

ING doesn’t allow video calls from the car. “You can naturally conduct team discussions without keeping your camera on. As far as we are concerned, common sense is leading,” a spokesperson for the bank said. Heineken allows hands-free calls from the car but not meetings.

Other companies don’t have a specific policy on the matter. “In practice, we see that employees address each other about safety and that, for example, the use of a camera while driving is mutually unacceptable,” a spokesperson for the insurer National Nederlanden told NOS. The Tax Authority said they do not encourage or require meetings in the car.

Calling from the car is only allowed in the Netherlands with a hands-free kit. According to personal injury lawyer Mark de Hek, companies can face liability if their employee is in an accident while in a meeting without using a hands-free kit. “If the employer knows that this is happening, then he must implement policy against it,” De Hek told NOS.