00:00:01 Intro
00:00:36 Mary McCaughey
Hello, and welcome to this edition of Eurofound Talks. Today, Eurofound talks the right to disconnect. What is it? Who is it for? Why is it in place? What progress has been made? Is there actually a right to disconnect? We know that during the Covid pandemic, perhaps one of the most enduring elements was in the world of work, where we saw the proliferation of telework. Of course, we know that only actually about a third of European jobs are teleworkable. But for the time being, we do know that a significant portion of workers are teleworking. About 40 million people in total, it is estimated, are doing so on a regular basis. It’s part of our culture and our working arrangements, and I suppose it’s part of the future of work.
The evidence tells us that most workers in that category of the third of jobs that are teleworkable are adapting well, embracing telework and enjoying it for the most part. And of course it has its effects: on work organisation and on managers, but there have also been notable impacts for workers themselves. It seems that at least at this stage, work-life balance is being disrupted as people are experiencing an intensity of work, with perhaps greater demands. Stress levels seem to be rising, and some other psychological elements are emerging from the data. This has given rise to calls for a right to disconnect.
Our expert today is research manager Tina Weber, who is joining us to talk about the right to disconnect. What is its status? What could it mean for workers, businesses, employers and managers? And indeed, what is the role of the European Union? So you’re very welcome today, Tina.
00:02:30 Tina Weber
Thanks for having me, Mary.
00:02:32 Mary McCaughey
So let’s start off by getting our definitions right. It is important to understand what we mean by the right to disconnect.
00:02:40 Tina Weber
The right to disconnect is very much a concept that has arisen with the increasing use of digital tools in the workplace. So the right to disconnect means not to engage in work-related activities or communications using digital tools. It is both: not working with your digital tools outside of working hours, and not having to respond to contact using digital tools, mobile phones, Teams, WhatsApp, etc. outside of your agreed working hours.
00:03:17 Mary McCaughey
So it goes beyond the actual request of a manager or an employer to respond? It’s actually saying that you should not be engaged in work that requires digital intervention outside a particular working time.
00:03:32 Tina Weber
Exactly. And that means it’s not just for teleworkers themselves, but for anyone who can deliver work using digital tools outside of working hours, which is a lot of us these days.
00:03:47 Mary McCaughey
And Tina, I mentioned it earlier in the introduction, but as regards the drive for this right to disconnect, what are we actually seeing in terms of the negative impact on workers’ well-being?
00:03:59 Tina Weber
The first thing I would say in relation to telework is that there are many positive aspects. You’ve mentioned it yourself. During the pandemic, it was safeguarding lots of employment, reducing commuting times, making it easier in principle for people to combine their work and private lives, and perhaps making it more possible for certain groups to access the labour market. So there are a lot of positives.
But we’ve already also seen some negatives, and you’ve alluded to them. There is the potential to increase working hours because of this blurring between work and private life – because of the ability to work from home and remotely. We have seen that in our data: 35% of individuals working from home during the pandemic worked more than 41 hours per week, and 15% of those worked more than 48 hours. That is compared to only 27% of those who worked from the employer’s premises. So it clearly has an impact on extending working hours.
And then you have the physical and mental health effects. The physical effects might be due to less suitable ergonomic situations in the home workplace. There are other things like increased eye strain, headaches, stress and burnout, which is concerning of course for the individual concerned, but also for the employer, and in fact ultimately also for our social insurance systems. If those really affected by stress and burnout ultimately become disabled, it becomes a concern for wider society.
00:05:57 Mary McCaughey
But Tina, if workers are finding greater autonomy in dealing with their work outside the workplace, what is making them respond to work-related communications outside of these hours? Do they not feel that they can manage that in a way that works for them?
00:06:17 Tina Weber
It has been referred to as the autonomy paradox by some observers. It is partly that some workers feel grateful that they now have this possibility to work more flexibly and to better combine various parts of their lives. But I think it is also increasingly becoming workplace culture that so called ‘high performers’ consider that they need to be constantly available.
00:06:52 Mary McCaughey
Always on.
00:06:53 Tina Weber
Yes, always on. And it’s maybe partly also due to this constant connection that we have in our private lives as well. Who is not constantly glued to their mobile phone, feeling that they always have to respond to messages, whether it’s private or work-related? I think it’s increasingly becoming a cultural thing that we feel we need to always be switched on, and that transfers from private to work life. In the survey that we carried out, which I’m sure we will speak more about, a lot of people consider that they are required by their employer to be constantly available. So there are many different reasons for this this autonomy paradox.
00:07:46 Mary McCaughey
And that survey that you’re talking about – just give us an idea of how many people it covered, and who responded.
00:07:53 Tina Weber
2,000 employees responded to the survey in four countries. We focused the survey on the countries that introduced a right to disconnect first, so where there is longer-standing experience among companies of implementing these kinds of policies. That is France, Italy, Belgium and Spain. We also conducted a survey of HR managers, but unfortunately the response rate there was not very high.
00:08:28 Mary McCaughey
And what are they telling you are the different reasons why workers respond to communication? What is the core element at play?
00:08:37 Tina Weber
First of all, it is shocking, and maybe also slightly surprising, that 80% of respondents said that they are sometimes contacted outside of working hours, interestingly actually primarily by colleagues, followed by line managers, and then also external clients. The main reason given for responding and delivering work outside of working hours was to be able to complete tasks because they felt responsible for their assignment, but also because they felt that the employer expected it, and that it might have a detrimental impact if they don’t. Interestingly, particularly for younger workers, this was the main factor – this concern of negative repercussions, but also to some extent a belief that they would be promoted …
00:09:54 Mary McCaughey
… that it may impact on their career progression …
00:09:57 Tina Weber
… if they are constantly available.
00:10:00 Mary McCaughey
And when you say that within working hours, are we applying a general ‘9 to 5’ rule here in principle, or has that been defined?
00:10:12 Tina Weber
Employers are increasingly becoming more flexible in terms of when work is performed, and that’s partly also related to performing that work outside the office or the employer’s premises. So I think most employers would still have some form of core working hours, where everybody needs to be contactable and meetings can be held, etc. But this corridor during which your working hours can be performed tends to be increasing. Workers also appreciate this ability to be able to take an hour or two out of the working day, and then come back in the evening when the children are asleep, or whatever it might be. So that is appreciated, but of course it remains important to stay within your contracted working hours.
00:11:21 Mary McCaughey
You talked there about those four countries that have more established right-to-disconnect policies in place. Which other countries already have some sort of disconnect policy in place, and how have they been?
00:11:38 Tina Weber
Currently, nine countries in the EU have a right to disconnect. France was the first in 2016; I think it came into force in 2017. Then we had Belgium, Italy and Spain. The original Belgian law is considered by some not to have really been a right to disconnect, because it basically said that if there is a health and safety committee in a workplace with more than 50 workers, the health and safety committee can discuss this. But there was no fallback. So if the health and safety committee doesn’t discuss this, or if no agreement is reached with the employer to have a right to disconnect, there was nothing that said that the employer had to draw up some kind of policy. That has since changed in Belgium. So Belgium has tightened up its legislation, and since then, we’ve had Slovakia, Greece, Portugal, Croatia and Luxembourg. And in Ireland, where we are here, there is a code of practice, which doesn’t have any force in law, but can be drawn upon in any judicial proceedings pertaining to working hours, for example. So it has some kind of impact.
The way in which this has been implemented and conceived in Member States is different from country to country, so the scope is different. Some countries only apply it to teleworkers. Some countries like Italy, where there is a specific contract called a smart work contract, only apply it to those smart workers. In some countries, there are different rules for the public and private sectors. In some countries, it’s a kind of direct effect. For example, in Portugal, the legislation says the manager must not contact the employee outside of working hours. So that is in principle a direct effect. Whereas in most other countries, the legislation says that the social partners, at either sectoral or company level, or usually both, must reach some form of agreement on this.
The form that these kind of agreements usually take is issues around awareness-raising of the risk of constant connection, training for managers and employees, and some kind of implementation of modalities for disconnection. What that usually means is requiring workers to delay in sending messages if they are sending them outside of core working hours; even messages being deleted during holiday periods; or some kind of rider in an email message, saying that the person does not have to reply to messages sent outside of working hours. So it’s that kind of thing. There are very few companies that have what we call ‘hard disconnection’, or the right to be disconnected where they effectively sever their link between digital devices and the server – where nothing can be delivered outside of a certain bandwidth. But that is quite rare.
00:15:31 Mary McCaughey
And do we know whether these right-to-disconnect policies actually have a positive effect? Do they stem the flow of these work-related communications?
00:15:41 Tina Weber
This was quite interesting, and a little puzzling to us. As a result of this survey of 2,000 employees, we had a half-and-half split between those that did and didn’t have a right to disconnect at their company. And we found that in terms of receiving and responding to messages out of hours, there was no difference between workers and companies with and without the right to disconnect. But there were other interesting differences. For instance, those workers at companies with a right to disconnect were more likely to be paid for any additional hours they were performing. That could speak to a kind of increased awareness in terms of general policy at that company, that working additional hours needs to be compensated and acknowledged, and to some extent linked to the right to disconnect. We also found that workers at companies with the right to disconnect were more satisfied overall with their work. They were more positive about their work-life balance and were less likely to suffer from all but one of the common health conditions that we asked about, including stress, burnout, headaches, and so on. So it’s interesting.
00:17:17 Mary McCaughey
It is, Tina, and I wonder whether that has a more general resonance, which is that you’re more likely to have a right-to-disconnect policy at a company where social dialogue and employee involvement and well-being are paramount for that company, and so that would probably extend to other aspects of working in the organisation. So the results that you’re talking about may not necessarily be limited to the right-to-disconnect policy itself.
00:17:46 Tina Weber
No. And we did ask in our survey also about other measures that companies had introduced to reduce the necessity to work additional hours outside of the contractual hours. At those companies with the right to disconnect, employees were more likely to say that there were other approaches that were also reducing the necessity to work additional hours or, if they were necessary, then at least for them to be paid.
00:18:22 Mary McCaughey
Are there other tangible impacts or benefits for the working conditions of teleworkers of having a right-to-disconnect policy in place?
00:18:33 Tina Weber
You asked about the flexibility that many workers appreciate, and whether the right to disconnect might actually limit that. Interestingly, we found, again, that at companies with the right to disconnect, workers said, ‘This applies to me.’ They were also more likely to say they have this autonomy, which they appreciate. And that’s also interesting, because one of the criticisms that can be levied against a right to disconnect is that it can make it more difficult for workers to have this autonomy, because they might be squeezed into working more standard working hours. But based on this evidence, that doesn’t appear to be the case.
00:19:21 Mary McCaughey
As regards the impacts, are we seeing great differences between different groups? Do we see differences in younger and older workers, or in men and women, for example?
00:19:33 Tina Weber
We saw differences, first of all, in relation to responding to contact out of hours. Young people were more likely to respond, and they were more likely to do so because they thought it might help their career or because they feared negative repercussions. Older workers were more likely to respond because they felt some kind of ownership of their work and they wanted their work to be completed well. That’s not to say that young people don’t want to do this. There are also some differences between men and women. Women were more likely to say that there was a very positive effect on their work-life balance when there was a right to disconnect.
00:20:25 Mary McCaughey
And in terms of the overarching debate, Tina. You’ve laid out some of the benefits that are seen. Of course, it’s early studies and limited to these countries. But still, in terms of the evidence that is available, you are seeing some benefits from having right-to-disconnect policies in place at company level. There are also some discussions about what certain definitions mean, what core working time is, what ‘outside working hours’ means, etc. There role of managers has probably not been explored quite so deeply as those of workers. Can you give us an idea though – because we’re still without an agreement on this at EU level – what are the core issues at play there? What is preventing this from getting over the line? Is it really just that it requires more definition or granularity, or is it the opposite?
00:21:21 Tina Weber
The situation we’re in now, and what really kicked this discussion into higher gear, was the resolution of the European Parliament in 2021, which basically asked the European Commission to come forward with a directive on the right to disconnect, and included almost the text of a directive within the resolution. But the European Parliament also acknowledged that it is initially the role of the social partners to negotiate. So the social partners at cross-industry level made a work programme in 2021, which said, ‘We will discuss this,’ and they started negotiations on telework and the right to disconnect in 2022. Interestingly, they didn’t start from a blank slate. There is a social-partner agreement from 2002 on telework. Many of its aspects remain quite up to date, though of course some elements could do with updating now that there is more telework. Then from 2020, there was a social-partner agreement on digitisation, which even mentions the modalities of connection and disconnection, and acknowledges this potential extension of working hours through digitisation. So in principle, we didn’t start from nothing.
But then in November 2023, BusinessEurope and SMEunited said that they couldn’t reach an agreement on this, whereas HUC and SGI Europe said, ‘Yes, maybe we could have gone further and we could have reached an agreement.’ So where we are now is that the ball is back in the European Commission’s court. But because we haven’t had a two-stage consultation yet, which is what is required under the Treaty, we will now have a first-stage consultation of the social partners, in April this year we are told. Of course, we do not know all the detail of what was at issue in the social-partner negotiations. What I will say is that some people argue that we already have a Working Time Directive, which delimits maximum working hours and sets some standards for rest periods.
00:24:02 Mary McCaughey
So is that not enough?
00:24:02 Tina Weber
Maybe all we need is better enforcement of the Working Time Directive. And it’s also true to say that there have been a number of court cases where workers have brought action against their employers, saying, ‘You’re contacting me out of hours, requiring me to do a lot of additional work,’ which have been won by those workers. So in principle you could argue …
00:24:29 Mary McCaughey
… it’s in place.
00:24:30 Tina Weber
It works when a worker feels able. And I think this is one of the difficulties that if an individual worker has to bring a case and the risk that brings, the cost that is involved, etc. So it’s not necessarily easy. Then some other people say that it’s difficult to have a right to disconnect, because in an increasingly globalised workplace environment we need to work across time zones. And if you suddenly say, ‘This is it, 5.00pm, we’re away …’
00:25:11 Mary McCaughey
… we never get to speak to New York!
00:25:11 Tina Weber
We can’t work with our colleagues anymore. I don’t think I have a figure of how many workers that actually affects, but I know from case studies and companies where that is the case that they have found a way around it. You know that there are exceptions for teams that have to work in this way. There is flexibility that accommodates that. And then there is this concern that I’ve already mentioned, that it might limit the flexibility that workers want to work at least to some extent when it suits them. So I think those are some of the elements of the issues at stake, which to me are not insurmountable. I think that given that we’ve had the Working Time Directive for many, many years and we still have this issue, and if anything, the issue is growing of people working additional hours if they work in a hybrid way – maybe more is needed. Because this culture has emerged where people feel like they have to be constantly connected. Maybe a signal needs to be sent through a specific right to disconnect.
00:26:43 Mary McCaughey
And that may be the case, Tina, that that is ultimately – I don’t want to diminish it – but that is all that is required. It is a cultural shift, a mindset shift, which is that this ‘always on’ existence is not acceptable and not tolerated. And maybe a right to disconnect, or some other mechanism, would be what is required to try and shift that.
00:27:11 Tina Weber
We asked the question ‘Then what would the other mechanism be?’ It seems to me that in countries that have legislation on the right to disconnect, first of all, what we see in monitoring collective agreements at sectoral and company level, is that there are more and more such agreements that include a right to disconnect. So that’s surely a positive thing, because that also sends a signal and gives some kind of entitlement, at least to the workers, to feel empowered, to say, ‘I have this right, and therefore I will use it.’ And it is likely that implementation is mainly going to be through agreements by social partners, and particularly at company level, because it’s important to take into account the specific circumstances of that company. What is it doing? Is there work across time zones? What kind of jobs are being delivered here that an agreement at company level can be reached between social partners that fits those conditions and still allows for the flexibility for people to work when it suits them up to a point (maybe within the limit of setting some core hours)? So I think it’s not so difficult.
What I think is it is insufficient to say, ‘OK, I’ve drafted this policy, now it’s in a drawer. We might mention it occasionally.’ I think that is not enough. I think that training and awareness-raising need to be constantly reinforced. There needs to be monitoring, ideally involving both sides – so the employer and workers’ representatives – to see what impact this is having, similar to our survey, and if it is actually helping. And it needs to be combined with action around what is a realistic scope of tasks to be delivered within your set working hours. Because we really see that a lot of work that is delivered digitally outside of working hours is done not even because someone is contacted, but because someone feels that they haven’t been able to do everything they’re asked to do inside their working hours. Therefore, they’re doing it additionally, as they are now able to do it at home digitally in the evening or early morning. So that that also needs to be addressed.
00:30:10 Mary McCaughey
Well, Tina, you’ve outlined quite a few of the issues I think that you probably would put on the table to a policymaker were you to find yourself in a room with them. But usually at the end of these, we ask the expert to ‘talk to me in three’. So to give us your three top suggestions or measures that you would advocate for in terms of the right to disconnect, but also how to improve the working conditions of remote workers.
00:30:41 Tina Weber
Maybe if I can go beyond that a little, I think there is still something to be done. And given that the social-partner negotiations weren’t just about the right to disconnect, but about telework more generally, I still think there is a way to go to make sure that everyone who can work remotely and make use of the benefits of telework or hybrid working has access to it. Because we know that a third of jobs are teleworkable, so there is more to do to extend the possibility and the potential advantages of this to more people.
The first thing I would say about the right to disconnect is that I think it is necessary to do something – and it seems to be beneficial to do something – in legislation. This is what the experience of the countries that have introduced a right to disconnect shows us: you then get more action by the social partners to actually make this a reality, at either sectoral or company level. So I think legislation in this area helps. It’s important that implementation be done by the social partners at the level that is closest to the workplace, or where we know all the partners know about the realities of that workplace.
But what I would also emphasise there is the importance of some kind of fallback, because we know through our own research in the areas of industrial relations that social partners don’t have the same capacities, the same culture of dialogue and the same organisational strengths in all Member States and at all companies. So there needs to be something in the legislation that says that if the social partners are unable to reach an agreement or if no discussions are initiated, the employer must do something to set out the modalities for connection and disconnection. And we’ve just had this Val Duchesse Social Dialogue Summit, where the Commission again undertook to foster more social dialogue. That’s part of it. So in those countries and in those sectors and companies where social dialogue is perhaps not so strong, something needs to be done to build capacity to be able to do that. But as I say, if it’s not possible, there needs to be some kind of fallback option.
00:33:33 Mary McCaughey
Thank you, Tina. Clearly, what you’re saying is that something has to be done, with legislation probably the best option, as social partners have a critical role in this, and it should probably be carried out where possible where they are most directly involved. But the necessity to have some level of fallback so that it is not possible for it to fall through the cracks and at national level. Thank you, Tina.
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00:34:42 Outro
