Getting the work-life balance right is always difficult, especially for business owners who are always on. The concept of the Right to disconnect makes it illegal for employers/managers to contact employees outside of working hours. The pioneer of this law was France in 2017 with “El Khomri”, Italy also followed closely behind introducing it later in 2017.
Spain has outlined the law within their “Data Protection and Digital Rights Act” and in Ireland, a code of practice was introduced for the right to disconnect in 2021. Companies including Volkswagen and Daimler have taken matters into their own hands in Germany, implementing policies to ensure employees aren’t contacted outside of working hours.
UK Employment Law for Right to Disconnect
In the UK, employees are already protected for working hours through the Working Time Regulations 1998 stipulating a 48-hour average work week calculated over 17 weeks. Businesses can have employees opt out of these regulations and visibility of how it works in practice is difficult especially as people work off-site.
Furthermore, UK employers have a legal duty of care imposed on them, including ensuring stress levels are kept to a minimum and risk assessed. Does this make the Right to Disconnect law unnecessary?
Australia is opting to implement a right-to-disconnect law, which already has a similar employment law to the UK. This includes minimum pay provisions and maximum working hours. This may push the Government to implement a similar law in Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
If elected, the Labour Party stated they would implement a Right to Disconnect law to improve employees’ rights for work-life balance.
Why employees need to disconnect from work
By disconnecting from work employees can recover from daily work stress, helping to improve their mental health and general well-being. If an employee feels they need to be continuously connected leading to burnout and other health issues.
As an employer, you may see increased sickness absence and higher turnover rates with burnt-out employees. Whilst the Right to Disconnect policy is primarily to safeguard employees, it can lead to better outcomes for employers, for example, improving retention rates and more productive employees.
4 ways businesses can help with disconnecting
Providing a work phone
If feasible providing employees with work phones is a strong step in helping employees disconnect from work notifications. Employees can leave their work phone in the office or a drawer, outside of business hours allowing them to disconnect from work.
Monitoring workloads
Weekly check-ins with employees to establish workloads or use software such as Trello to monitor workloads. By doing this, you will gather an understanding if the employee is overwhelmed with the workload and if they have been working overtime to meet deadlines.
Lead by example
This is a key aspect; management teams must respect employees’ work-life boundaries. If management communicates with employees outside of working hours through teams or emails regularly, this builds an expectation for others to follow suit.
Lead by example unless it is an emergency or non-work related do not communicate with employees outside of business hours.
Setting boundaries
If employees have been working on days off or outside of working hours, speaking to them is vital to set boundaries. An example of this is if an employee works on a Bank Holiday to catch up or feels they will be too far behind with a day off. When speaking to this person, thank them for their hard work and give them time back, clearly communicating they should not be working on days off.
Considerations
When considering a law such as the Right to Disconnect, there are practicalities up for debate. This ranges from how serious a situation needs to be for an employer to be in breach of the law and how it impacts various industries. Similarly to the Working Time Regulations law already implemented, are the armed forces and emergency services going to be excluded from the law? These are crucial services and rely heavily on employees being on call.
Another consideration would be whether employers will be able to include opt-outs within contracts of employment, similar to those for avoiding Working Time Regulations.
We wait to see how a change in the UK Government may lead to the implementation of the Right to disconnect legislation and many more.
Recruitment and Beyond Podcast
Natalie our director chats with Ewan Anderson Marketing Director at Eden Scott on the Right to Disconnect law and discusses how businesses can promote healthy boundaries and the power of leadership in setting a positive example.
Listen here – The Right to Disconnect