Britain is considering following the lead of many other European countries and making it more expensive for restless employers to contact staff after work hours.
The country's new Labour government is drafting legislation that could ban late-night use of WhatsApp, email and Slack, and impose heavy fines on bosses who oppose it.
Laws giving workers the “right to disconnect” are common across Europe but have lagged behind in the UK, but could become a more European law if reported changes to working culture are implemented.
A special relationship
Britain is often seen as a special case in Europe, separated from much of the continent by water and having left the EU in 2020.
While the company has relied on its historical ties to the United States to build business partnerships, its workplace culture hasn't always followed suit.
British employees generally enjoy a better work-life balance, more annual leave and shorter working hours than their counterparts on the other side of the Atlantic.
They are also far less interested in their jobs than people in the United States and other countries: Only a quarter of employees say their work is very important or rather important to them, a fraction of the percentage in the United States or France, according to data analyzed last year by King's College London.
Britain's new Labour government is considering moving closer to European countries to better guarantee workers' rights during the working day.
The Times reported that the government could force employers to introduce “right to switch off” policies and make it a legal requirement for them to agree workplace boundaries with employees.
This may dictate expectations for the working day and the level to which managers can contact employees after hours via email, WhatsApp or workplace messaging services.
If employers breach these guidelines or do not have a ‘right to switch off’ policy in place, employees could be liable for significant compensation.
“This will need to be specific to each workplace, so it needs to be something agreed between companies and employees, not a mandate. We also recognise that these policies will have a disproportionate impact on small and medium-sized businesses, so we will take this into account when drafting the bill,” a UK government source told The Times.
The right to switch off
Looking around at the rest of Europe, the UK is playing catch-up.
In 2013, Germany banned employers from sending employees emails outside of working hours, except in emergencies.
In 2017, France introduced a measure requiring companies with more than 50 employees to set times when employees can and can't message each other.
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to further legislation across Europe as remote working blurs the boundaries between home and office, giving employers more opportunities to call on employees at irregular hours.
Research has shown that off-hours contact can be detrimental to employee wellbeing, ultimately hurting long-term productivity and creating increased strain in manager-employee relationships.
In 2021, the Portuguese government banned managers of companies with more than 10 employees from contacting employees outside of working hours, imposing fines of up to 10,000 euros on dissenters.
The UK government is still considering how its “right to switch off” policy would work in practice, but changes to compensation could lead to similar fines as in Portugal.
In Ireland, where the UK appears to be leading the way, the government has introduced “right to disconnect” guidelines, calling on employers and employees to agree reasonable expectations regarding contact outside of working hours.
But there's no guarantee that stricter boundaries are what all employees want.
Some employees welcomed the flexibility that remote work gave them, allowing them to work when they were most productive rather than following a mandated 9-to-5 schedule.
But bosses complained that this created a “dead zone” between the normal working hours of 4pm and 6pm.
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