UK proposes giving digital workers the ‘right to switch off’

London: Britain’s new Labour government is the latest legislature to consider how it might make it easier for digital workers using always-on technologies to turn them off at the end of the working day.

In Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay, published before it won the UK’s July general election, it promised to address the issue, saying “We will bring in the ‘right to switch off’ so working from home does not result in homes turning into 24/7 offices.”

And this week it brought the issue back into the spotlight, with a government spokesperson telling the BBC, “Good employers understand that for workers to stay motivated and productive they do need to be able to switch off, and a culture presenteeism can be damaging to productivity,” a government spokesperson told the BBC on Monday.

In its pre-election publication, the Labour Party said it planned to follow the lead of Ireland and Belgium, “giving workers and employers the opportunity to have constructive conversations and work together on bespoke workplace policies or contractual terms that benefit both parties.”

Other countries — including France and, more recently, Australia — have taken a different approach, setting out stricter conditions for employers to follow.

The government’s sales pitch is to package the plans as good for employers as well as employees.

Productivity is about more than clicks, desk time and responsiveness, and taken to extremes can lead to employee burnout, already an issue in IT.

Pushing employees into an always-on state is bad for everyone in the long run. If employees want to disconnect then they should have the right to ask for that, the government spokesperson said.

The tricky issue will be working out how to apply the principle across the board. An obvious problem is how an organization defines what is and isn’t reasonable across roles that have different demands. What seems unreasonable in one role might not be in another, for example professions connected to critical services or high-pressure decision making.

One response to any new rules might be that organizations more clearly spell out their expectations in employment contracts. The grey areas will be ironed out over time in employment tribunals, which could be expensive for the unwary.