French companies would be required to guarantee a “right to disconnect” to their employees from today as the country seeks to tackle the modern-day scourge of compulsive out-of-hours e-mail checking.
From today, a new employment law is to enter into force that obliges organizations with more than 50 workers to start negotiations to define the rights of employees to ignore their smartphones.
Overuse of digital devices has been blamed for everything from burnout to sleeplessness as well as relationship problems, with many employees uncertain of when they can switch off. The French measure is intended to tackle the so-called “always-on” work culture that has led to a surge in usually unpaid overtime.
“There’s a real expectation that companies will seize on the ‘right to disconnect’ as a protective measure,” French workplace expert Xavier Zunigo said in October.
“At the same time, workers don’t want to lose the autonomy and flexibility that digital devices give them,” added Zunigo, who is an academic and director of research group Aristat.
The measure was introduced by French Minister of Labor Myriam El Khomri, who commissioned a report submitted in September 2015 which warned about the health impact of “info-obesity” which afflicts many workplaces.
According to the new law, companies are to be obliged to negotiate with employees to agree on their rights to switch off and ways they can reduce the intrusion of work into their private lives.
If a deal cannot be reached, the company must publish a charter that would make explicit the demands on and rights of employees out-of-hours.
Trade unions in France, which see themselves as guardians of France’s highly protected workplace and famously short working week of 35 hours, have long demanded action.
However, the new “right to disconnect,” part of a much larger and controversial reform of French labor law, foresees no sanction for companies which fail to define it.
Left-leaning French newspaper Liberation on Friday praised the move in an editorial, saying that the law was needed because “employees are often judged on their commitment to their companies and their availability.”
Some large groups, such as Volkswagen AG and Daimler AG in Germany or nuclear power company Areva SA and insurer Axa SA in France, have already taken steps to limit out-of-hours messaging to reduce burnout among workers.
Some measures include cutting e-mail connections in the evening and weekends or deleting e-mails automatically that are sent to employees while they are on holiday.
A study published by French research group Eleas in October showed that more than a third of French workers used their devices to do work out of hours every day.
About 60 percent of workers were in favor of regulating to clarify their rights.
However, computing and work-life balance expert Anna Cox from University of College London says that companies must take into account demands from employees for both protection and flexibility.
“For some people, they want to work for two hours every evening, but want to be able to switch off between 3pm and 5pm when they pick their kids up and are cooking dinner,” she said.
Others are happy to use their daily commute to get ahead before they arrive in the office, Cox said.
Furthermore, the world of work is changing as rapidly as technology, with more and more employees working remotely or with colleagues in other time zones.
“Some of the challenges that come with flexibility are managing those boundaries between work and home and being able to say ‘actually I am not working now,’” she said.
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