Question

Should you have the right to electronically disconnect from your job? With today's ever increasing digital world- employees are working more during their "off" times, outside of regular business hours. Whether it is answering emails, responding to texts or phone calls, etc. work can seem to go on 24/7. In Germany, the companies Volkswagen and BMW no longer forward email to staff from the company's servers after the end of the work day. Some firms specifically tell employees not to check email on the weekends. Besides the moral and ethical issues of "work" outside of normal business hours, what about violations of overtime and Fair Labor Standards regulations. What is work in our modern era when you are responding to your boss's texts? Workers at a variety of companies have sued for unpaid overtime for smart phone useage- calls, texts, etc. after hours. What do you think? Should this type of "work" be tracked and paid? How would you go about doing it- tracking the time, etc.? If you are a salaried employee - and not subject to overtime rules, can you still sue- should you boss expect you to respond 24/7 to their texts and emails???? [FYI- Some old fashioned law firms still expect new attorneys to be in the office on the weekends and will plant mail in their mailboxes on Sundays to check.]

Answer 1

Ethically, a company must pay for the fraction of the off duty hours an employee devotes to the office work, whether on smartphone or on mail or in person. However, the challenge before the companies is to measure that off duty time which is actually devoted to the official work. Work done in physical presence can be easy to measure and compensate for, but the time spent on mail and phone is difficult to track. Claim of such time, if entirely left on employees without maintaining any checks and balance would be far from the actual figures due to obvious reasons, and the company would end up paying far more than actuals. It is always better to adopt the strategy of VW and BMW, but if the work is urgent, there should be a norm regarding volume of mail and verbal talks and should be paid accordingly. It should be an exception than norm, so the companies would not mind if they have to pay few extra dollars for the timely completion of work.

Rather than sueing a company due to a bad boss who wants to be on duty 24x7, the issue should be raised to company HR. If it is a company policy, it is always better to look for a better employer.