The coronavirus has brought us a lot of trouble, but also the pleasant side effect that you can work from home more. If you feel a little ill, you do not have to immediately report sick, because you can simply work from home and do not have to board the train again. Or if a package is delivered, you don’t have to bother your neighbors. However, there is also a disadvantage to being able to work anywhere: you can work anywhere. And so people think that they always have to be online.
Right to disconnect
In the past, work life and private life were much more clearly defined: on the one hand you have your private life with your family, sports, friends, and on the other hand your work. You are in work mode for 40 hours a week between 8:30 AM and 5:00 PM, but you don’t have to be in work mode all the time around that. You take off your computer or your work clothes and you are a free man. This has changed enormously, partly due to the arrival of smartphones, but also working from home. In some companies it has become very normal to bombard colleagues with questions at 11 o’clock in the evening.
This suits one person better than another. While some people flutter through the day and successfully adapt their work to their lives and vice versa, some people certainly feel the need for a more well-defined working day. In some countries, the law even stipulates that people have the right to be offline occasionally. In this way, governments hope to reduce the number of burnouts and strikes, among other things. Always being on is not seen as something positive there. Spain, Ireland, Argentina, Mexico and France, among others, have this type of legislation. California will probably get it now too: the right to disconnect.
No online requirement
The idea isn’t so much that you can just outzone and then invoke your right to be offline: it means that all employers in the state must communicate exactly what a person’s working hours are. They also may not require employees to respond to work communications outside those hours. If a company does not comply with this, there will be a fine of at least $100.
