A BILL on the right to disconnect, House Bill 9735, seeks to amend the Labor Code to grant employees the right to disengage from work-related communication outside of regular work hours. It recognizes changes in the workplace brought about by information and communications technology and work-from-home arrangements and takes into account the mental health problems that might develop when employees are constantly on call, even when they are supposed to be resting at home.
Several countries, such as France, Spain, Belgium and Portugal, have passed laws that support the right to disconnect. The European Parliament, in fact, calls for the broad recognition of this right as a fundamental one.
Closer to home, and just this year, Australia passed the Fair Work Legislation Amendment, which includes a right to disconnect. Under the amendments to that country's Fair Work Act of 2009, employees can ignore work-related communications outside of normal work hours, provided that their refusal to engage is not unreasonable. Under Australian law, disputes will be overseen by a Fair Work Commission.
Behind this raft of legislative activity is the belief that the right to disconnect from work — to not engage in work-related electronic communications, such as emails or text messages during nonwork hours — is a human right.
Today's working environment has been drastically changed by digital communication and tools, which have blurred the boundary between one's work and home lives. While digital tools bring flexibility and freedom to employees, they can also create an absence of limits, leading to excessive interference in the workers' personal lives.
Right-to-disconnect legislation has sparked intense debate, notes Luc Pansu in the International Journal of Management and Applied Research.
In the United Kingdom, research by the Chartered Management Institute in 2015 found that British employees were unintentionally canceling the equivalent of their holidays by using smartphones and other digital tools outside of working hours.
Some psychologists say these behaviors incorporating the overuse of digital tools are not sustainable and may have damaging effects on well-being. They are also a source of danger and may lead to burnout. That is why Jon Heuvel, a British employment consultant, concludes that the right to disconnect could boost both well-being and productivity by providing more protection to workers.
In France, the research group Eléas conducted a study and found that over a third of French workers used their devices to work outside of business hours every day. The same study also showed that 62 percent said rules should be in place to regulate the use of digital tools.
On the other side of the debate, the French right to disconnect has also been criticized extensively. Mike Shaw, writing in People Management, argues that education, not legislation, will help us disconnect from technology.
"Although there's no doubt that digital technology has blurred the boundaries between work and home, giving rise to unhealthy working patterns, decreased family connectedness and increased stress and anxiety levels, is legislation, rather than education, the answer?" he writes.
The emergence of digital technology has been a good thing for many workers in the UK, he says. It enables them to work flexibly, and to fit work around their lives instead of having to stick to inflexible routines and rush-hour commuting.
"Problems with technology arise because our psychological processes haven't kept pace with the rate at which technology is evolving," he adds. While most of us are not forced to reply to every email we receive in the evenings or weekends, we are psychologically conditioned to stay connected, an impulse that is difficult to switch off.
"One solution is to do as the French have done and discourage everyone from using email outside of traditional working hours. However, if we want to embrace the opportunities the digital era presents for even more powerful flexible working, the solution isn't banning everyone from working beyond a certain time of day, but educating and empowering employees to use digital technology in healthier ways," he concludes.
In the Philippines, the Employers Confederation of the Philippines has opposed the right to disconnect bill, almost in a knee-jerk fashion, saying it would hurt the country's competitiveness — and that investors would simply go to countries like Vietnam and Thailand, where they have "friendlier" labor laws. The group also argues, without explaining how, that the new bill would hurt "industrial peace."
But relying on these tired arguments does nothing to address the issue and represents a missed opportunity for employers to play a more positive role in exploring new ways to work that could benefit both their workers and their own companies.
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