Right to Switch off

eastie17

Not sure if this is the right place to start this thread, please move if it isnt.

This "right to disconnect off" advisory - I cannot for the life of me see who this is going to benefit, except perhaps public sector workers who essentially have this right anyway.

Anyone working for a US multinational, respond to your bosses email at 9 at night with "I dont have to respond to you, look at this "advisory" we have in this country". Best of luck at your next annual review.
This is really just going to make some of our politicians feel like they are doing something about work life balance and something to show to their French colleagues when next in Brussels at an EU shindig

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/workers-will-have-the-right-to-disconnect-from-today-40263195.html

kirving

eastie17 wrote: »

I cannot for the life of me see who this is going to benefit[/url]

Maybe not, but that's a weak enough reason not to at least try to further improve workers rights. There are plenty of examples of politicians finding busy work trying to push for new legislation in their chosen topic, but this isn't one of them.

Working for a multinational, (French as it happens) and dealing with colleagues in Europe, the US and China, I can clearly understand the benefit of strong workers rights. Just yesterday I was on a call with Chinese and Mexican colleagues at the same time, a 14 hour time difference between them, and that's not unusual at all.

wench

We already have plenty of rights that the US don't, such as reasonable annual leave and not getting fired on a whim.
US Multinationals just have to suck it up and get on with it.

Basing what rights we should have on what the US would like is a terrible policy.

Victor

Two situations with friends.

1. Friend works in American office of a foreign IT company. Received and was expected to deal with a call at 10pm - while on holidays.

2. Friend working as an audit manager with a large accountancy firm. Received a call from his boss in the middle of his mother's funeral. The information was included in the memo my friend sent to said boss the previous day.

cobhguy28

eastie17 wrote: »

Not sure if this is the right place to start this thread, please move if it isnt.

This "right to disconnect off" advisory - I cannot for the life of me see who this is going to benefit, except perhaps public sector workers who essentially have this right anyway.

Anyone working for a US multinational, respond to your bosses email at 9 at night with "I dont have to respond to you, look at this "advisory" we have in this country". Best of luck at your next annual review.
This is really just going to make some of our politicians feel like they are doing something about work life balance and something to show to their French colleagues when next in Brussels at an EU shindig

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/workers-will-have-the-right-to-disconnect-from-today-40263195.html

The point is that because of this right, your boss should be less likely to email you in the first place.

dashdoll

As someone who has worked in a number of corporate law firms where I and many others have worked hours and weekends on transactions at the behest of the powers that be, I can't tell you how sickened I was today to see these firms posting about this guidance note on LinkedIn. My own experience is that these firms are some of the worst offenders in terms of toxic work culture and a total lack of work life balance......the irony of it all.

Rodin

Victor wrote: »

Two situations with friends.

1. Friend works in American office of a foreign IT company. Received and was expected to deal with a call at 10pm - while on holidays.

2. Friend working as an audit manager with a large accountancy firm. Received a call from his boss in the middle of his mother's funeral. The information was included in the memo my friend sent to said boss the previous day.

If work calls when Im on leave, I ignore it.

AndrewJRenko

cobhguy28 wrote: »

The point is that because of this right, your boss should be less likely to email you in the first place.

There's nothing wrong with your boss emailing you. The problem arises when you're expect to monitor your incoming mail and respond at all hours.

Email is designed to be asynchronous, so other people can send email at all hours.

ForestFire

Please note, I will respond to this thread tomorrow after 9am.

Thank you for your attention...........

eastie17

eastie17 wrote: »

Not sure if this is the right place to start this thread, please move if it isnt.

This "right to disconnect off" advisory - I cannot for the life of me see who this is going to benefit, except perhaps public sector workers who essentially have this right anyway.

Anyone working for a US multinational, respond to your bosses email at 9 at night with "I dont have to respond to you, look at this "advisory" we have in this country". Best of luck at your next annual review.
This is really just going to make some of our politicians feel like they are doing something about work life balance and something to show to their French colleagues when next in Brussels at an EU shindig

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/workers-will-have-the-right-to-disconnect-from-today-40263195.html

U.S. multinationals do have offices and staff in France and other E.U. countries and they live with the local laws.

Worked for a couple of U.S. multinationals, (still am actually) and never had any issues from not answering mails after hours.
Did have one manager ask me why I didn't, I told him I don't work for free, but if they wanted to arrange for overtime pay or time in lieu for me I would be happy to do so.

Seen plenty of folks being taken for a fool answering calls and emails out of hours. Didn't stop them being made redundant when numbers had to be cut, and they ending up with the same package as everyone else.

Funny that you should mention the public service, a friend joined them as an AO a couple of months ago. He is a bit bemused at the fact that he's ended up working more hours, with more responsibility at a third of the money that he was on when he worked for a company that used to do contract work for another civil service department.

Eggs For Dinner

I worked for a company where a good few gob****es used to compete with eachother as to who would send emails at the latest time of night or over bank holidays etc. The company itself loved this culture. They sent a circular one year saying that because the previous month's figures were so good, staff could turn their phones off on St. Patrick's Day.

cobhguy28

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

There's nothing wrong with your boss emailing you. The problem arises when you're expect to monitor your incoming mail and respond at all hours.

Email is designed to be asynchronous, so other people can send email at all hours.

That is the same as what I meant, I didn't think I needed to qualify it. I would of thought it was self explanatory since the thread is about having to read and respond. So your boss should not be sending emails that need to be responded to straight away.

They can send as many as they like whenever they like. If a person can’t ignore them out of hours then it says more about them than any legislation will fix.

zerosugarbuzz

I currently have a boss that likes to email on Weekends and during annual leave. Its like he resents you having time off. I figured out very early on to simply never check emails outside working hours, so there will be no change for me with these new rules.

Riodej1578

Is this actually in place now and what can you actually do about it if so?

I work with a US multinational and they are scheduling calls outside of my work hours and don't seem one bit bothered about it.

I'm relatively new to the job so I'm not going to say anything but it's turning me off the job and makes me want to quit.

Who can I turn to for this?

Seth Brundle

Riodej1578 wrote: »

Is this actually in place now and what can you actually do about it if so?

The code of practice is in place: https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/6b64a-tanaiste-signs-code-of-practice-on-right-to-disconnect/

Riodej1578 wrote: »

Who can I turn to for this?

Have you a manager?

Riodej1578

Seth Brundle wrote: »

The code of practice is in place: https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/6b64a-tanaiste-signs-code-of-practice-on-right-to-disconnect/


Have you a manager?

Yes, but the manager is one of the organisers of it. And I'm not entirely comfortable raising the issue

Seth Brundle

Where is your manager based?
What does your contract say in terms of working hours?