On both sides of the Atlantic, there are growing calls to give employees the right to ignore out-of-hours work calls and emails. In France, organisations with more than 50 workers are obliged to negotiate on employees’ rights to ignore their smartphones and other devices outside working hours.
And New York City Council is considering a law that would ban private companies with more than 10 employees from requiring workers to respond to communications such as emails and texts out of hours. Employers would still be able to send them, but they wouldn’t be able to discipline workers for ignoring them.
A wide range of multinationals too – including Volkswagen, nuclear power company Areva and insurer Axa – have introduced company policies against workers’ ‘hyperconnectedness’.
It’s all part of a growing wish to protect workers against burnout, intrusion, and 24/7 work pressures.
Does this mean that businesses need such a policy, or may be forced by law to introduce one?
There are no such plans in the UK, but burnout and employee morale is every business’s problem, regardless of whatever country a business operates in. So, for the sake of improving staff engagement or internal culture, businesses may want to discuss the right to disconnect with staff.
Bear in mind, though, that the right (or obligation) to disconnect is not every worker’s cup of tea. For all those who want to be protected from having to deal with emails as soon as they leave the office, there are others who want the flexibility of out of hours working.
For instance, many people like the option to leave work early to spend time with children or family, and then to spend an hour or two catching up with emails later in the evening, or on their early morning commute.
As a result, simply limiting out-of-hours messaging or access to emails may alienate as many staff as it delights. But we do recommend starting a conversation with staff about this, gauging their concerns and preferences, and then trialling possible solutions.
If a business decides to do this, there are two things to remember. The first is that the conversation should be organisation wide, so include people at different levels of seniority, with varied working patterns and from different generations. The second is that senior staff have to set the culture. If a business does adopt a company policy, all staff members must follow it.
