Amongst the plans for worker reforms proposed by the new Labour Government and announced in the King’s Speech last week is the party’s “right to switch off from work”. The plan will see workers empowered to disconnect from their jobs outside regular working hours.
Under new rules to be introduced by the Labour government, workers will be able to ignore work-related calls and emails and outside of their contracted hours and refuse to take on extra work in the evenings and at weekends.
The plans are also expected to extend to workers’ annual leave, so managers would not be allowed to ask employees to carry out work-related tasks, which might be answering emails, calls or queries, whilst they were on holiday.
The new plans, believed to be brainchild of deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, come amongst a raft of new measures including a ban on zero-hours contracts, full worker rights from day and making sick pay available from the first day of absence without waiting days.
The idea of spending less time at work and having more quality time to share with family has long been seen as a vote-winner for Labour and appeared in the party’s manifest during the previous General Election.
Employee wellbeing and work/life balance are phrases that have appeared in the workplace with increasing regularity over recent years. Being able to request flexible working arrangements is now a statutory right for employees and employers must be seen to give all such requests due consideration. Indeed, employers need to present a strong business case to deny flexible working requests.
Currently in the UK, there is no official right to disconnect from work, but employers can implement their own policies. Legislation does state that a working week should be no more than 48 hours on average, however, if a boss wants to contact their employee outside of these hours, they can.
There was some discussion a few years ago over how to determine when an employee actually started their working day. In a world of electronic communication, many workers would choose to “triage” email on their mobile phones during their commute so that only the important ones were left to deal with by the time they reached their desks. Whether the commute should therefor be classed as work time was bought into question.
The concept of being able to switch off is a good one in principle, however ensuring that an employee is not bothered during their holiday may come down to how well a workload handover to colleagues is implemented, or how well they have tied up any loose ends of business they are dealing with before they leave.
There is also the enormous impact of company culture to consider. Even if bosses and managers uphold the ideology of not contacting staff outside of work, employees may find a great deal of peer pressure. This may make it feel impossible to leave work without putting in a reasonable dose of extra time in order to meet targets or complete projects to schedule.
Furthermore, a restriction on contacting employees outside of work hours may cause more employers to insist on their pound of flesh during designated work time. This may lead to more organisation removing the option for employees to work from home and may impact wider decisions around flexible working requests.
Unlike other measures, the right to switch off is unlikely to be enshrined in law but will more likely become a code of practice for businesses. Notwithstanding, there are bound to be employees who will apply the new rules as strictly as they are able so it’s worth making plans about how a policy will be communicated sooner rather than later.
HR Champions will of course support you with this. Call us on 01452 331331 or email info@hrchampions.co.uk
