Don’t you just love that Friday feeling? Swanning out of the office, WhatsApp pinging with messages in the group chat, a fun weekend unfolding before you.
But then another notification pops up. It’s your boss: “Happy Friday everyone! Just a quick reminder: our quarterly results meeting is on Monday. DO NOT forget. Enjoy your weekend!” Wah. Fat chance now.
Why do we need to disconnect?
While smartphone and internet technology have given us work-from-anywhere flexibility, making work more accessible and enjoyable for many, they also tether us to a 24/7 ‘always-on’ culture that can creep into our every waking moment.
If people are scared to take time off for fear of appearing less committed, or they never feel ‘off’ because they’re getting constant reminders of work, they are at risk of burnout. This is counterproductive, causing lower productivity, more errors, more sickness absence and higher turnover.
In this new reality where your boss, colleagues or clients can contact you anywhere, at any time, do we need to give workers a legal right to disconnect ?
Current global landscapeX
France certainly thinks so. In 2017, it pioneered a legal right to disconnect, requiring businesses to set specific hours where employees are not expected to respond to work communications. Since then, several European countries have followed suit with similar regulations, and some outside of Europe too.
Could the UK be next? The new Labour government is keen on the idea. The
Working Time Regulations 1998 make no mention of out-of-hours contact, meaning it does nothing to stop presenteeism – which is essentially what logging on outside of work is.
The proposed plan for the UK involves the creation of a Code of Practice that requires employers to agree with their staff when and how they can be contacted outside of contracted hours.
Isn’t that a bit ‘nanny state’?
It’s important to say that this pressure doesn’t always arise from the employer. It’s a bad habit that we are all guilty of from time to time, so should there not be an element of personal responsibility?
The same phones that keep us permanently tethered to our inboxes have optional safeguards and restrictions that let you enforce your own boundaries and avoid interruptions to personal time, like ‘focus mode’, timed emails – and there’s always the option to leave your work devices at your desk!
Taking personal responsibility means people can still enjoy the benefits of flexible work without encroaching on others’ boundaries. A blanket approach to the right to disconnect based around ‘regular’ business hours could take away from that flexibility.
But of course, these actions only protect you from yourself. Sadly, there are employers who may treat staff more or less favourably depending on their responsiveness out of hours. In this case, you might feel an implicit pressure to meet these unfair standards.
Ultimately a top–down approach is needed, and before we worry about individual action we need to look higher. That means management can’t be emailing out of hours unless that comes with a very clear caveat that no response is needed. There is no reason that companies in the UK can’t adopt similar policies to those that have been made law elsewhere, on a voluntary basis. This would go a long way towards creating a “switch-off” culture and setting the right example.
If you’ve already got a healthy work culture that respects boundaries and prioritises wellbeing, you’re just formalising that by putting it into writing. There is a power imbalance between employer and employee that needs to be taken into account. Codifying the right to disconnect would allow people to protect their personal time without fear of repercussions or discriminatory treatment.
Key takeaways
The right to disconnect is about recognising and respecting that people have a life outside of work that deserves to be ringfenced. They should not be pressured, directly or indirectly, to compromise their wellbeing to increase productivity.
It is looking likely that this right will become law in the UK, but to truly tackle “always on” culture, we’ll likely need a combination of formal law, leadership modelling, and tech tools like a holiday tracker that promote work-life balance and time-limited productivity.. How can you enforce healthy, non-intrusive device and communication practices in your workplace? For now, it’s in your hands.
Author – Phil Norton
Phil is the co-founder of Leave Dates, the employee annual leave planner. He loves problem-solving and making life easier for small businesses. If you book a Leave Dates demo, he will give you a warm welcome and show you everything that you need to know.
