The number of hours employees have been working has spiked throughout the pandemic, with several studies indicating that remote working has encouraged more overtime.

In fact, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) previously found that people working from home during the pandemic were putting in an average of six hours of unpaid overtime a week.

Similarly, analysis by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) from the Labour Force Survey revealed that more than three million UK employees on average worked an extra 7.7 hours per week during 2020, equivalent to £7,300 per person in unpaid overtime.

This increase in hours sparked concerns over burnout and struggles to switch off from work, particularly in the UK over the last year.

Additionally, this is something that France has been trying to tackle long before the pandemic, as in the European country there is a rule against contacting employees out of work hours.

The law which was dubbed the ‘right to disconnect’ states that if a company has 50 employees or more, employers cannot email an employee after typical work hours.

Calls to the Government

Now a trade union in the UK is calling on the Government to introduce a ‘right to disconnect’ for staff outside of office hours.

According to the Independent, trade union Prospect shared that the measure is vital to “safeguard workers’ health”. This comes after a recent survey revealed that one in three people have struggled to “switch off” since the move to remote working.

In its call to action, Prospect said: “Remote working has accelerated the trend towards longer working hours, significantly increasing the risk of stress and burnout, and digital technology means that it is easier to be contacted and reminded about work out of hours.”

Duty of care

In a blog post from earlier this year penned by David Sheppard, an Employment Lawyer at Capital Law, he shared that employers have a duty of care when it comes to contacting staff out of hours.

He wrote: “Under common law and under health and safety legislation, employers owe a duty of care towards their employees to ensure a safe working environment, which by extension would include the level of demands and expectations to deal with emails out of hours.”

Sheppard noted that if an employer breaches this duty of care and an employee suffers a physical or psychological injury as a result, they could bring an injury to work claim and potentially resign and claim for constructive unfair dismissal.

Should ‘right to disconnect’ be considered in the UK?

With countries such as France, as well as Spain and Italy, all putting in place rules around contacting staff out of office hours, it is certainly something that the UK should consider too, particularly as employees look set to continue working remotely in some form post-pandemic.

Stephen Moore, Partner and Head of Employment at Law firm Ashfords, reflected on this with regards to mental health, “An increased awareness of employee mental health and the undue pressure often placed on staff by employers is crystallising some of the practices people adopted whilst working from home.”

He noted that while this encouragement from the union is not necessarily an imminent legislation change, it works more as “simple awareness-raising”. With this in mind, he echoed Sheppard’s notion when it comes to a duty of care from employers, stating that “employers have an obligation to provide their employees with a safe working environment”.

When it comes to contacting employees out of work hours, he referred to an initiative his own company has put in place to deter staff from doing so, something that other employers could replicate in order to tackle the ‘right to disconnect’.

“Many employers are already acutely aware of this and have systems in place to manage any issues.  Some companies, including our own firm, have warning systems in place that are connected to emails. When an employee tries to send an email out of hours, a warning comes up on screen, encouraging them to send it within working hours. Simple solutions like this can be very effective,” he concluded.

Jade Burke, HR Grapevine

4 June 2021