Proposed Right to Disconnect
The labor Party (PvdA) announced that it would like to introduce legislation guaranteeing employees a right to disconnect. According to this proposal, employees must be allowed to completely disconnect from work, outside working hours.
Both the EU Working Time Directive and the Dutch Working Hours Act, which aim to lay down minimum safety and health requirements for organizing working time, entitle employees to a minimum daily rest period of 11 consecutive hours. The labor Party proposes to make it a legal right for employees not to respond to email, phone calls or messages from their managers or colleagues outside working hours. Where the Working Hours Act currently applies only to employees earning less than € 60,000 per year (three times the statutory minimum wage), the labor Party proposal would apply the right to disconnect to all employees.
Right to Disconnect in France
The discussion on the right to disconnect is not new. In fact, France has implemented a right to disconnect in its labor Code in 2016, after much discussion. Companies in France are required to negotiate and agree with their employees on their right to be disconnected.
However, contrary to common belief abroad, the French right to disconnect is not as strong as it often is portrayed in the press (Fake news, so to speak). Our French colleagues separated fact from fiction in an earlier article on this matter. Indeed, the French law does not prohibit employers or employees from sending emails, or answering phone calls outside working hours. Rather, it creates an obligation for companies with at least 50 employees to negotiate with staff representatives and trade unions on the periods during which the employee will be granted time offline.
If no collective bargaining agreement can be reached, the employer must provide a code of conduct or policies setting forth the terms and conditions under which employees can exercise their right to disconnect. For instance, instead of sending an email outside working hours, one could suspend the delivery of an email by using the delayed send function, which would hold the email and send it in the morning.
There is no penalty for non-compliance with this French law. Nonetheless, an employer might be held liable for the consequences of excessive workload, burnout, moral harassment, etc., which may entitle employees to claim damages.
Juridische uitdaging of HR vraagstuk?
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Is the Right to Disconnect Necessary?
We will have to see whether a legislation to safeguard this right to disconnect will be implemented in the law. In any event, one could question whether this law would be necessary. Various (international) companies have taken the initiative themselves to implement offline time in their organization. BMW and Volkswagen have already introduced policies to prevent their employees from being “always available”. Lidl Belgium and Luxemburg went even further, delaying internal emails sent after 6 pm until 7 am the next day, until Monday if sent on Friday after 6 pm.
Millennials tend to care much more about work-life balance than previous generations. Even if not legally obligated to recognize a right to disconnect, companies ignoring technostress might face serious hiring challenges in the future.
