According to research by CIPD, 40% of people admit to checking their work emails at least five times a day outside of working hours, with almost a third saying remote access to work means they can never fully switch off.
This percentage rises even further when looking at email checking during annual leave, with 60% of people refreshing their work inbox while on holiday, according to a poll by YouGov.
With the rise of remote work post-Covid and the constant connectivity available to us through technology, it’s not surprising that many employees find it challenging to switch off from work outside their regular working hours.
The Right to Disconnect: A Global Trend
Recognising this issue, Australia has recently announced its intention to adopt the ‘Right to Disconnect’ policy, joining countries like France and Spain to give employees the right to unwind after work. This move has reignited the debate around work-life balance and its impact on employee mental health and wellbeing.
What is the Right to Disconnect?
The right to disconnect prevents employers from contacting workers beyond their contracted hours, with the aim of establishing clear boundaries between work responsibilities and personal time. This ensures that employees are not subjected to unreasonable expectations and obligations, allowing them to fully detract and enjoy their downtime and private life. The legislation imposes sanctions for those who breach the legislation.
The concept of the right to disconnect has proven successful in countries that have already chosen to implement it. Many have reported seeing improved morale, productivity and overall employee wellbeing among those who can effectively separate their personal and professional lives.
The Benefits of Promoting Work-Life Balance
While it might seem beneficial to an organisation to have employees working outside of regular hours to meet deadlines and address queries promptly, this can actually be very damaging. Employees who are unable to de-stress properly after work and continue to carry the stress of work outside of office hours are at risk of burnout, decreased productivity, and dissatisfied in their roles. This can lead to issues with retention and negatively impact morale, which can ultimately harm the organisation.
The Employer’s Role: Establishing Clear Guidelines
From the HR perspective, the concept of healthy work-life balance has long been a priority for businesses. The first step to achieving this is to establish clear standards and communicate them to employees.
More specifically, the onus is on organisations to create a set of guidelines for work-life balance and ensure these expectations are regularly communicated to staff. This includes ensuring that employees do not work beyond their agreed hours, that they use their full annual leave entitlement, and that they feel their workload is manageable.
Promoting a healthy work-life balance not only benefits employees, but also strengthens the organisation’s employer brand and employee satisfaction.
Workload plays a key role, and it should also be required of managers to ensure that a suitable balance is struck. This may mean taking excess work off people’s plates, helping them prioritise tasks, and encouraging them to take time off, even if they don’t have specific holiday plans. Often, employees will be quietly reluctant to take holidays, or feel compelled to work beyond their contracted hours, for fear that it will set them back and their performance will be negatively scrutinised as a result. This can quickly lead to burnout and can be easily mitigated by taking a more diplomatic approach to output expectations.
Encouraging Employees to Take Breaks
In many cases, reaffirming that it’s okay to take a break can actually boost productivity, as sometimes having too much on can be lead to nothing being done at all. It will also enable employees to leave work at work, recharge and come back refreshed, rather than working themselves into the ground.
Before rejecting annual leave requests, managers should carefully weigh up whether this is worth the potential impact on the employee. It might not always be possible to accommodate a request, particularly during busier periods, but this is sometimes all the more reason to ensure employees take the time out they need to decompress.
Keep an eye on those who have a build-up of unused holidays and encourage them to take them; even if the current circumstances mean they have nothing particular planned, this can do wonders for overall wellbeing
Managers Should Lead by Example
Aside from communicating the organisation’s stance on work-life balance, managers should also be urged to comply with the standard themselves and resist the temptation to contact employees during evenings, weekends and holidays.
Often, managers will continue to delegate tasks and send resources to employees when they are out of office, with the expectation that they will acknowledge it when they return. But the digital age we live in renders this a flawed approach. With employees able to access platforms such as email, Slack and Microsoft Teams from their smart devices, these communications can act as a source of stress, and ultimately have a negative effect on work-life balance.
If these provisions are firmly in place, and that is made clear to the employee, it is far more likely that they will feel comfortable switching off outside of working hours and during holidays.
