The pros and cons of a right to disconnect

There has been a lot of discussion this week about Labour’s commitment to a right to disconnect, which appears to have been watered down from legislation to a code of practice. The aim is to address the blurring of work and family life, which Covid has exacerbated, but which is generally a result of ever-increasing workloads. While working from home may make it easier to work longer – and this is much more of an issue than the stereotypes of people skiving – it is not in large part the cause of that overwork. The demands of the job are and the fact that many jobs could well be endless these days. You can always do more. A right to have some time that is not dominated by work is surely a good thing – both for individuals and for work itself. An exhausted, stressed worker on the point of burnout is not the most productive or creative.

But there are genuine concerns about a right to disconnect. Ben Willmott from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development says it is important that any new right is introduced with “sufficient flexibility”, with sector-specific demands taken into account. The same surely goes for specific tasks within an organisation. When organisations have trialled the four-day week they have often had to adjust it to the demands of their sector, but also to the demands of individual teams. What works for the IT team, for instance, might not work for customer service. Jobs that have an on-call element make things more complicated, but there are ways around this, for instance, taking extra time off in less busy periods. Each job will have it’s own logic. What matters is to ensure people, whatever job they do, get sufficient rest.

Another issue is flexible working. If people want to, say, break off at 3pm to do the school run and then catch up on work in the evening and that is the way they both get the work done and manage their home life then there shouldn’t be a hard and fast hours rule. Disconnect policies will need to be carefully worded and there may need to be guidance on timing emails to go out first thing in the morning rather than last thing at night for those working later in order not to discourage phone checking all evening.

Mainly, though, a change in the work-all-hours culture is needed. It’s a problem that is worse in some industries than others and the economic uncertainty isn’t helping. Partly, too, it’s due to decades of cutting support staff and others. In many jobs there is no back-up. Partly it’s due to the fast pace of change. Partly it’s due to macho competition or lack of confidence or self-worth. There are many reasons. It needs leadership from the top and it also needs grassroots rebellion, which it seems is already happening if reports about younger people’s embrace of work life balance are to be believed.

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