The UK’s new government has promised to take action to prevent homes ‘turning into 24/7 offices’. The risk of ‘always on’ working has grown since the pandemic with the boundaries of home and work blurred for many more working people. Around a quarter of workers, for example, now report working some of the time at home and some of the time in the office.
The government is now considering how best to allow workers to be redraw these boundaries. WISERD Co-director, Professor Alan Felstead, was interviewed live on BBC News on Monday 19 August 2024 about the context for the proposed policy of giving workers the ‘right to disconnect’ or ‘switch off’. In the interview, Professor Felstead drew on his research on remote working. The proposed policy has attracted widespread commentary in the national press with reports in The Times, The Financial Times and the Daily Telegraph in recent weeks.
One of the issues with the proposed policy is that there is no precise definition of what disconnecting actually means in practice. It could mean not expecting replies to emails or telephone calls made after a certain time or during holidays. Or it could mean not scheduling meetings outside of core hours – this might be of benefit to parents of young children in particular.
In addition, it is unclear what form the ‘right to disconnect’ might take. However, there are strong suggestions that employers would only have to adhere to a general framework to be compliant. This would allow employers leeway in how the right is implemented in practice and to whom it applies.
As a code of practice, the sanctions for non-compliance are likely to be relatively weak and would only come into play if the employer is taken to an employment tribunal. The coverage of the right might also be limited. For example, the Belgian approach, which the new government is looking to follow, excludes small firms and those operating in certain sectors, such as aviation and medicine.
Concerns have been raised by employer bodies, such as the Institute of Directors, that the ‘right to disconnect’ would place another burden on businesses. However, it would appear from recent commentary, that the Labour government is keen to avoid a blunt, ‘one-fits-all’ approach. Instead, it is pursuing an approach which can be nuanced to business circumstances, while also protecting workers from being ‘always on’.
Implementing the ‘right to disconnect’ has the potential to reinstate some of the lost work and home life boundaries and allow workers to more easily switch off from their work. In turn, this would also help to retain the positive aspects of hybrid working for employers, namely the productivity boost that it often brings. There may even be the potential to enhance productivity further, with improvements to employee well-being made possible by enabling employees to redraw some of the boundaries between work and home.
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