- Several countries have implemented, or are considering, the right to disconnect after work hours.
- There are clear mental health benefits to healthy workplace boundaries.
In the past few years, there has been a keen interest in legally giving employees the right to fully log off after work.
Having no duty to respond or check calls and emails can be a relief for employees who feel the expectation to be constantly available for their bosses' every request.
However, some workplace analysts are not convinced a blanket ban on out-of-hours communication is the key to a healthy work-life balance — and it could even backfire.
A growing global trend
So far, in varying forms, at least 17 countries around the world have implemented laws to prevent bosses from contacting their employees outside of business hours.
In France, where the trend emerged, workers are under no obligation to work at home, and ignoring calls outside work hours is no grounds for discipline. In Portugal, it has been illegal for employers to text their staff out of hours since 2021.
In August, Australia joined the list with a new law allowing people to ignore their boss' emails after 5 p.m. The UK may not be far behind with the Labour government's "right to switch off" guidance.
Similar bills have been considered in bills considered in New York, Washington, and California.
The laws have led to fines. In 2018, for instance, the French arm of UK pest-control company Rentokil had to pay €60,000 ($64,000) to a former employee for asking him to leave his phone on when he wasn't working.
Elouisa Crichton, an employment partner at Dentons, an international law firm, told Business Insider that a 5 p.m. email cutoff is "a bit of a blunt instrument and arguably puts the emphasis in the wrong place."
"It's more about the expectation to respond," she said.
Mental health benefits
There are clear mental health benefits to healthy workplace boundaries.
A January report from Gallup, previously reported by BI, estimated that a lack of employee engagement at work may cost the US economy nearly $2 trillion in lost productivity each year.
Professor Sir Cary Cooper, a professor of organizational psychology and health at the Manchester Business School, told BI that the right to disconnect guidance is largely a way to try to fight burnout among employees.
Working on weekends and vacations is "just not healthy," Cooper said, but has become normalized, especially since working from home has become so common, and people find it harder to disconnect after the workday.
Bosses also set precedents, whether they realize it or not, if they send emails at all hours, Cooper said. It doesn't matter if they tell their staff not to respond until the morning.
"You're going to worry them," Cooper said. "Wait until the morning."
If it truly cannot wait for some reason, bosses should write the email but set a delay so that it sends the next working day.
"If it makes you feel better to do it on a Saturday morning to your staff, do it," Cooper said. "But don't send it."
Crichton said right-to-disconnect rules are likely to draw attention to excessive workloads in some industries and lead to tribunal claims linked to work-related stress.
"While the code may not revolutionize workplace practices overnight, it signals growing recognition of the need for balance in the digital work environment," she said.
Keeping things flexible
However, there are downsides. If a workplace is toxic, a ban on evening emails would do little to help.
Cooper said that when attempting to improve a company's culture, you also don't want to eliminate flexible working altogether. This is when strict laws can do more harm than good.
In his work on the book "Flexible Work: Designing our Healthier Future Lives," Cooper found that people have wanted flexible work for a long time. It's something that predates the pandemic and the global shift toward remote working.
"If you want to work flexibly, you might go pick your kids up from school at 3:30, spend time with them, and then work at night," Cooper said. "But if you're not allowed to deal with emails after 5 o'clock or in the evenings, weekends, or whatever, it's not giving you the flexibility you need."
Instead of a blanket ban, flexible guidance can help implement a working day that will look different for everyone.
Jeri Doris, the SVP of people at the HR and payroll platform Justworks, told BI that people should shift how they broadly view their work-life balance.
Rather than seeing it as balancing time at work and time off, Doris said the focus should be on how to sustain a level of performance you are proud of.
"I think that that will look and feel differently for everybody," Doris told BI.
"Where do you do your best work? Is it at night? Is it in the morning?" she said.
"What routines and systems and norms do you need to have in order for you to show up in these moments when your energy battery is full? Hybrid work may be whatever it looks like for you."