Right to Disconnect: Emails After Hours? | Eden Scott

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Right to Disconnect: Can You Escape Work Emails After Hours?

right to disconnect
 
 

Do you ever feel like you can't disconnect from work?

In today's digital age, it's more important than ever to establish a healthy work-life balance. But with many countries already having "Right to Disconnect" laws, the UK is lagging behind.

This episode of the Recruitment and Beyond podcast explores the growing conversation around the right to disconnect and how it can impact your productivity, stress levels, and overall well-being.

Hosts Ewan and Natalie discuss:
  • The current state of work-life balance in the UK
  • How other countries are implementing the right to disconnect
  • The challenges and limitations of such legislation
  • Practical tips for businesses to promote healthy boundaries
  • The importance of leadership setting a positive example

Listen to this episode and learn how to achieve a better work-life balance, for yourself and your team.


Episode Transcript

Ewan (00:07):
Hi, and welcome back to the Recruitment and Beyond podcast. Joined again by Natalie from Beyond HR. Morning. Natalie, how are you?

Natalie (00:13):
Oh, good. All good. The sun is shining. It's going to be a Scorcher this weekend.

Ewan (00:18):
What a beautiful day. I came in a jacket today. Absolutely. It's me, my goodness. I know Sunshine will be here for the weekend and then gone by Monday. So standard Scottish weather. Have you had a good week?

Natalie (00:34):
Yeah, all been all been really good. All very busy. Busy as

Ewan (00:37):
Ever.

Natalie (00:38):
Yeah. But all good. Can't complain. What about you?

Ewan (00:41):
Yeah, back to more events this week. We're at Scottish Edge this week, so there's lots going on there. Lots of exciting companies coming up with great ideas and yeah, just a vast array of just entrepreneurial talents from Scotland really. We've got some great companies coming out. So yeah, lots happening in busy as ever, but I think this week we are going to talk about the right to disconnect, which is obviously a growing topic now that a lot of people are working from home and a lot of people are doing, not intentionally doing different hours, but doing hours that fit in with their lifestyle, I guess, and that that's the discussion now, isn't it? That nine to five is kind of, is it gone though? Is nine to five a thing in the past or is that something that needs to be reminded that that's in fact the hours of work now, whether it's nine to five, half, eight till half, 5, 6, 8 till six, whatever it might be. Is there an issue with people or businesses forgetting that people have a right to disconnect and get away from work, that really important time that you're not working?

Natalie (01:41):
We're talking about the whole kind of culture piece, the whole work life balance piece, the whole, this hits so many spots, doesn't it? In terms of people's, I don't know what your thoughts are From what I see and from what we hear and what beyond HRC is that people's personal life are a lot more protected to than never.

(02:04):
Covid changed that, but people do want to and we are encouraged to have a life outside of work and the evenings, particularly in nicer weather to be able to switch off. Is anything really business critical at that time? Different thoughts? There are different things that happen and we'll talk about that in a minute. There are different things and you might have a phone call at 10 o'clock or whatever that might look like, but I think there's a big emphasis this year on engagement on work-life balance on mental health and wellbeing. So does a lot of that actually impact these things as well? And the answer is probably yes. Do people have proper time to switch off at nighttime once the laptop, whatever time that is, but once the laptop is switched off, do they have nice uninterrupted time to forget about life and get back to their family and switch back to you and as a person rather than you and as a business person, isn't it?

Ewan (03:03):
Yeah, I think it's interesting to hear a lot of people talk about your work doesn't define who you are, it's what you do.
(03:11):
To some people it very much as a core part of their life. But I think as to perform your best and to perform as well as you possibly can, you need that separation. You do need time away from work and it might not be the case for everyone. It might not be that you need as much time as other people, but there's certainly a case that says, and the research suggests that people getting time away from work will help their performance, their productivity, and when they get back to work and when they get back to doing what they need to do.

Natalie (03:38):
We're probably quite behind. There are loads of countries doing this. I think France was the first walk, 2017, France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Ireland, Portugal, Germany, India, Canada. We probably are behind the times maybe with just our work ethic and the way that we work. Who knows? We are slightly behind in all of this, but it's something that is being talked about and talked about more, but there's differences isn't there. If your travel arrangements for the next day can change the right to disconnect, do not contact me. We might be seven o'clock in the morning flight and something's happened or in every industry. Those are on call, every industry, every sector. What do you think it was so different?

Ewan (04:24):
Well, it was interesting you mentioned the other countries actually, and that's something that I wasn't fully aware across. The new guys have a better understanding of the kind of legal and the HR side of this, but looking at the other countries and what they've done, they are steps ahead of us. They really are. They've taken this on board. It's interesting. That is a lot of European countries and there's perhaps a feeling that in Europe there's a different approach to work-life balance, and that would certainly be the case or looking at the legislation that many of these countries have introduced. It would suggest that they are taking it seriously because as you suggested, it started in France and this was pre covid. So it's not like it's a covid reaction or anything like that. This is something that they've made a conscious decision to look at and it maybe is certainly, and this is purely anecdotal, but it seems like there's a different culture in Britain to work that we've always had that.

(05:17):
I think looking at the working hours that some of these places have as well, some of these countries have are lower than we have here as an average in this country. So looking at that, I think we are behind where a lot of these countries are now. It might be that businesses are doing this on their own, they don't need the legislation to do it. And certainly it seems like that might be the case for some companies, but I don't think it's the case right across the board. And I think, I mean I find this that it's the same with anything. Your rest is just as important as the productivity, sorry, just as important as what you do in work. And so actually taking that time away is massive for your mental, but it's massive when you come back to work and you're going to perform.

(06:00):
So things like your mental health and your wellbeing, I mean the suggestion is look, if you take that time away, you're going to reduce the cases of things like burnout for instance. How do we break that connection with work and get away? Because if we take flexible working as a case study, flexible working can mean different things to different people. And I can work a wee bit later at night. Should I be sending emails to colleagues beyond that time or should it be about how I phrase that, how I send that? Is it to say, look, I'm not looking for a response but I'm sending this email because I know you'll pick it up during working time. Is that the sort of thing, is that the sort of approaches that maybe you've seen in other countries or other companies taking,

Natalie (06:47):
You're seeing lots of that now on email signatures, aren't you? Like I work flexibly, so if you received this email at whatever time, but a lot of people are missing the check of obviously the schedule signed as well. So if you don't want to interrupt other people in the evening, then just schedule it to send at nine o'clock in the morning. So it's the first email that they get if it's really important that are tools available, aren't they? And there's definitely things that business can do to help support and that might be where you are out there, the listeners might be thinking, might guess, I get you, but how do we do this as well, isn't it? How do we actually do this?

Ewan (07:27):
Thinking about the legal side of things then, and again, you guys will have better insight than us, but what does that look like then? So if we don't have that legislation in place right now, what are the legal aspects of that, right, to disconnect right now for British companies

Natalie (07:44):
Right now? Or what would it look like?

Ewan (07:46):
Well, right now, what's the level of expectation right now?

Natalie (07:50):
Yes, we've got our working time reg, so we've got our, obviously we shouldn't be working or we have the option not to work more than the 47 hours a week in the evenings if you're sitting. But some people, do they count that as work or are they doing be bit of research and it's for the own development, it's so blurry, isn't it in the nighttime what people are doing with their time and is it expected as well? In some businesses it might be expected or in other situations, is it just people taking it outside of the workplace to do a we bit of research or whatever that looks like will be different everywhere. What that would look like is would there be some kind of legislation in terms of right to disconnect and would you be able to opt out of that same way that you can opt out of the 40, I would opt out agreement as well, right? There could be a chance to opt out. So people say, yeah, I hear you, but actually I want to, or my job doesn't allow me not to disconnect, et cetera. So how would that all fit in as well?

Ewan (08:52):
So is that an individual has the right to opt out of that legislation and say, look, I'm happy to get right

Natalie (08:59):
From what they're looking at. That could be, or I guess there would be certain industries, the usual, the armed forces emergency services, you probably would not be able to opt out of that. Any business operating on call as well as how does that, because someone might be on call, but they might need to and they're paid to be, but they might need to get the manager's attention if there was an emergency that happens. It brings up a whole, whoa, doesn't it brings up a whole, butwe're reading the buzzwords at the moment are stress, burnout, engagement, culture. So if we want to do this right then the right to disconnect is probably part of all of that process as well, isn't it?

Ewan (09:36):
Yeah, yeah. I mean the challenges and limitations around that are really interesting. As you point out, if you're a healthcare worker, if you are on call, how do you mold that legislation to make sure that it represents all these different industries? And I think different sectors, as you point out, there's different requirements. If I'm working offshore for instance, I can't get away from my work. I'm at my work for two weeks, what do I do? And so it must be a complicated area to try to try and solve. But I think at a basic level, when we're looking at companies where people are desk bound or they're working flexibly, they're working from their office, they're working from their house, is there a responsibility on businesses to make sure that people are taking some time away from their desk? Is there, if you see an email come in from a colleague that comes in at midnight or 10 o'clock at night or seven o'clock at night, is there a responsibility on managers to say, now listen, that's great. Thanks so much for doing that. Thanks for pulling that piece of work together or whatever, but we'll give you some time back tomorrow because you can't be sending things like that, is it? You can't be or I wouldn't expect you to be. Is there an approach that people should be taking?

Natalie (10:57):
Yeah, it's difficult, isn't it? It's probably at this moment Intel, right? Disconnect comes in seeing that as well. There might be people that fall under the radar though and you don't know what we have had on occasion, a couple of clients saying, I've noticed that we've got someone working at two in the morning for example, but when they chat to this person, they are working at two. It's their most creative time. They want to work at two in the morning,

(11:20):
But during the day they've maybe taken a couple of hours off so they can go a long walk or walk their dog or go for a swim or do whatever. But that's the whole duty of care burnout. Is the person going to be the most productive for me? 2:00 AM in the morning, absolutely no chance. I don't know about you, but for maybe the creative brains, maybe that is good or bad, but what do you have in place to monitor that? It's easy for an email. You can see what time it comes in unless you are obviously scheduled sending, but yet finding out. A lot of what we see is it actually comes from the top and that's why the culture starts to ripple through. So if you are working at night, the rest of the team don't know you're choosing to do that. You might be a senior director in the business, that's okay.

(12:07):
But schedule send and or no expectations of your team that they will be coming back at that time or responding. Sometimes it's about just the way you communicate. Sorry, I do work at 10 o'clock at night, this is the best time for me. I take a couple of hours off to do pickup for whatever it is. There is no expectation you even reach that, nevermind. It's hard. We're in this world of quick feedback, instant feedback, getting things done. So sometimes that's not remembering that someone, it's their day off and do we need to just pause and think, do we need to send that to that person or can we create a list for them when they return? But some people want to just get out their brain and some people actually don't mind.

Ewan (12:51):
They

Natalie (12:52):
Can get more anxiety for some people not being able to receive things at night or know what's going on, it's so individual.

Ewan (12:59):
So I think then that takes us to the point where it's not necessarily about whether you do or you don't work outside hours, it's actually about helping manage your team's level of productivity and stress. And actually being that manager that takes that time to understand how they are as an individual rather than necessarily saying, well, I don't expect anybody to work beyond that. Because you're right. If you've got the technology that says, I'll schedule my emails to go at nine in the morning and I'll send a report with that and it'll detail this information, but my best creative time is two o'clock in the morning, then I have to say, that is not my most creative time. I do find myself working late, but creativity leaves me at that point

Natalie (13:44):
Not to see the same.

Ewan (13:46):
But it is about managers being more mindful of the performance of their team and understanding their health and wellbeing. I think we talked about this last week, really understanding the individuals in your team, really understanding how they tick and how they work and actually what makes them as productive as possible. Two o'clock in the morning might be for one person, whereas somebody else in the team, it's not So, I mean obviously the legislation will have to come in and it will have to look at a broad spectrum, but it's using that to the best of your company's ability, isn't it? To say, I'll manage my team in the best way and make sure that they're performing because there's lots of individuals there, isn't it?

Natalie (14:28):
I'm just laughing. Is it China? Where is it? What country is it? Is it China where there is a certain time that kids are only allowed to be on devices for, and it's a whole shutdown thing. It sounds so cyber, right? Just laughing at the middle. Your outlook just goes down, it cuts off at six o'clock at night. And that, how are organizations to manage That cuts off at six. You can't log onto your laptop and a big alert comes up, right to disconnect. You've just reached it. You're just laughing actually how it plays out.

Ewan (15:02):
Well, so we've done a bit of research on this or part of your team, one of your team did. And that highlighted exactly that was one of the suggestions was, look, your systems can lock down at this time. And you think that can't be a practical solution. Like you say, if you've got a meeting the next day or a presentation and you say, oh, my train's delayed, or things are going, I can't get on that train, or I can't be in that place, what do you do? I don't think that's a practical solution, is it?

Natalie (15:30):
I don't think so. I'm just thinking of the times where you maybe have before going to bed, check your phone just to see and you're like, oh, that means canceled tomorrow. And then actually you can get yourself into your can, get up in the morning knowing your new routine rather than getting up in the morning seeing it's canceled, being all over the place. But then in the flip, reading some research as well, checking your work emails in the morning before work is not a good move. Now how many people out there do it?

Ewan (15:56):
Absolutely. First thing you do, pick up your phone and as you point out and that the research suggests

Natalie (16:02):
The newspaper these days sometimes for people, isn't it? Instead of getting up and reading the newspaper, you get up and you quickly just check making sure nothing's changed. You need to be in your place at the right time. What's happened so difficult,

Ewan (16:15):
This is the balance between real life or reality and then the kind of ambition and what the legislation might say you, because you're absolutely right. That's reality for a lot of people. But maybe that's the problem. Maybe the problem is, well, we've created a reality for ourselves that isn't really that healthy. It's not healthy for people to pick up the phone, the first thing they do in the morning. But for a lot of people it's maybe their alarm. I know for me it's my alarm. So you pick it up, they turn the alarm off and then, alright, okay, I'll just check my emails. What am I doing?

Natalie (16:48):
Any notifications? They probably, they will be linked to burnout, various things. But all the popups you get as well, you've heard lots of people for their own sanity have turned off notifications because you get email notifications, WhatsApp notifications, teams, notifications, everything. But I guess even having that, it's down to the one person's discipline, isn't it? Even with workplaces given work phones, there is that separation there isn't there? And when we're talking about, obviously if people are working remotely where possible they have another room. And for me it is closing that door at the end of the day. That is that physical separation. The work phone might still be in the other hand, but probably the work phone needs to be in that room and the door closed.

Ewan (17:32):
But

Natalie (17:35):
On the flip of that, that can cause some people, some business owners a year know I take my phone with me on holiday, it gives me more anxiety being in a top drawer at home and it's out of my control. The whole, everyone is so, so unique.

Ewan (17:49):
Oh, definitely. But you're right, that closing of the door is quite a good thing, isn't it? But not everybody has that ability to have a spare room. And the work phone as well is a good, again, some of the research suggests that what you can do is make sure that people have work phones so that they can turn that off and they don't have the notifications of emails or whatever else it might be on their personal phone, which is not a bad thing. But again, just touching it, you've suggested there, it's a personal thing. So it's actually probably about training and development and making people aware of these things and saying, look, it is, it's important. I think with anything training and development, there can be a level of Yeah, that's fine. It's another training course, don't worry about it. But actually this training is just as important as the technical training you might receive for your job. This is really important to understand that we want our people, obviously businesses want their teams to be as productive as possible. That rest and recuperation and time away from your desk is just as important as your time at the desk.

Natalie (18:50):
Yeah, because you're not going to get the best person at that desk if they've been checking emails through the night doing extra work, et cetera. And that could be another kind of problem. There might be a resource issue or something that you need to get to the bottom of. So if you've got the technology to see, obviously monitoring those workloads, setting the boundaries, leading by example, having a work phone, having the conversations, understanding because there might be a really good reason someone did have to log on or they've worried that they've for forgot something in their to-do list and they're trying to prevent maybe a customer or client complaint as well because God, I forgot to send that, but does it have to go at eight o'clock at night? And then does that create other issues as well going at eight o'clock at night rather than during the day? And then that sets a whole presence. So if I'm open for business, it's eight o'clock at night. Need to be very careful.

Ewan (19:43):
That's absolutely true. And I think that I've been in roles where you know yourself, you've sent emails and you think I'm sending that because I'm on it. I want to show that client that I'm on it. Their work is important to me. It's really important that I send that and it's 10 o'clock at night, you think, am I doing it for my own personal benefit here? Am I doing it because I've ticked that off my list and I said, I would get it done today and it's done

Natalie (20:08):
And it may help you sleep better.

Ewan (20:10):
Well,

Natalie (20:11):
The bigger picture is at 10 o'clock at night, someone's then messaging saying, noon, why didn't you get back to me? You always got back to me at 10 o'clock at night. Why have you not got back to me on this one now? Sorry, I actually don't work at 10 o'clock at night. But you almost try and create this new I'm open for business at that time.

Ewan (20:29):
Oh yeah, absolutely do. Yeah. And actually setting boundaries. You touched on it there before. I think ensuring that your leadership team do that as well as the rest of your organization so that your rest of your organization see that, okay, my boss, my manager leader, they turn off. They don't answer emails at this time of night. That's great. I don't feel the pressure to do that. And actually then you're not receiving emails and communication from your own directors. I think there was an example in Australia where there was a case brought about this and the employee was being emailed and harassed when they were on sick leave, which seems somewhat ridiculous, but that's nonetheless that they won that case. And I think that's ensuring that the boundaries are set for your managers and your senior leaders as well as your employees so that people can see this. There's not a trend here. We're not in an organization where I expect you to be on 24 7. Yeah,

Natalie (21:29):
It's like the naming and shaming. Obviously you're hearing about fines. It's really difficult actually to get any fines that are out there. I think Canada's the only country that has a penalty. There will be obviously penalties or will it be more of a naming and shaming list like the National Women on Wage. Here's the organizations in Scotland and England and Northern Ireland that are not listening to this, right to disconnect and I guess it's a bigger picture in terms of reputational damage, any potential. And then does that lead health and safety in terms of the duty of care there as well and all the burnout, mental health, all the stuff that we're really pushing forward. It probably seems like a good reasonable step because the stats for work-related stress, et cetera, probably back this right to disconnect for certain roles for certain areas in a business, for certain industries. It will not be a blanket cover for everybody.

Ewan (22:23):
And so what are the timelines for this? Is this being looked at right now? Is this in the process right now?

Natalie (22:30):
Yeah, without being political, it's one of the things that someone wants to commit to do. If you come with me, I'll take you on this journey of right to disconnect. So that's what we're looking at. But if we look at all of the other countries we're behind, we're behind. We are behind.

Ewan (22:50):
So just as a bit of a final takeaway for this, then simple things that businesses can do just to try and just to try and deal with that and make sure the simple fixes they can put in without any legislation just to try and help their staff and their teams to keep themselves to building that right to disconnect. What sort of things could they do?

Natalie (23:09):
Setting those boundaries from the beginning, come out with line and what the expectations are. But don't just say it, do it yourself from the leaders, lead by example. Set those boundaries. Look at maybe the work phone so there is a separation and have those conversations and look at their whole wellbeing strategy in terms of burnout, tension, all of the good things, and encourage a life outside of work as well.

Ewan (23:40):
Yeah, yeah, that sounds good. Well, good. Well, fingers crossed there's something down the line in terms of legislation, but in the meantime, it seems like companies have got a good opportunity to try and help their staff and make sure that they don't get to that burnout point. So thanks again for your time, Natalie, and I'll see you next week.

Natalie (23:58):
See you next week. Thanks everyone for listening today. On the note of feedback, please subscribe and leave us a little review. That would be super. And tune in next week.
 

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