French companies will be required to
guarantee a "right to disconnect" to their
employees from Sunday as the country
seeks to tackle the modern-day scourge of
compulsive out-of-hours email checking.
From January 1, a new employment law will
enter into force that obliges organisations 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 -- while
also giving employees flexibility to work from
outside the office.
"There's a real expectation that companies will
seize on the 'right to disconnect' as a protective
measure," said Xavier Zunigo , a French
workplace expert, as a new survey on the subject
was published 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 Labour Minister
Myriam El Khomri , who commissioned a report
submitted in September 2015 which warned
about the health impact of "info-obesity" which
afflicts many workplaces.
Under the new law, companies will 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.
But the new "right to disconnect", part of a much
larger and controversial reform of French labour
law, foresees no sanction for companies which
fail to define it.
Work-life balancing act
Left-leaning French newspaper Liberation praised
the move in an editorial on Friday saying that the
law was needed because "employees are often
judged on their committment to their companies
and their availability."
Some large groups such as Volkswagen and
Daimler in Germany or nuclear power company
Areva and insurer Axa in France have already
taken steps to limit out-of-hours messaging to
reduce burnout among workers.
Some measures include cutting email
connections in the evening and weekends or even
destroying emails 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.
Around 60 percent of workers were in favour of
regulating to clarify their rights.
But computing and work-life balance expert
Anna Cox from University of College London
(UCL) 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 3-5 pm when they pick their
kids up and are cooking dinner," she told AFP.
Others are happy to use their daily commute to
get ahead before they arrive in the office, she
explained.
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.
One of the positive effects of the law will be to
encourage "conversations with people working
together about what their expectations are."
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