In the 21st century, one of the most controversial yet essential resources is the continuously shrinking leisure time of an average worker. While employers and big company founders talk about working 17 hours a day or spending up to 70 hours a week at the workplace, some governments are striving to improve the work-life balance for the average worker.
Recently, Australia passed a piece of legislation known as the “Right to Disconnect.” Under this law, employees now have the right to ignore work calls if they are not at the workplace, with certain exceptions for emergency services like healthcare and police. With this law in place, employers no longer have the legal right to punish employees for ignoring work calls or messages outside of working hours.
Australia is not the first country to introduce such a law. France, Italy, and Belgium have also enacted similar legislation to protect employees’ leisure rights. A few years ago, in India, NCP MP Supriya Sule drafted a Private Member’s Bill on the Right to Disconnect in 2018. Although the bill ultimately failed, the reasoning behind it was similar to that of other countries’ laws. The bill argued that while technology has introduced new and liberating ways of working, such as remote jobs and hybrid jobs, it has also played a significant role in eroding the boundaries between leisure and work—boundaries that, at least before the advent of smartphones, used to exist.
As a result of this blurring of lines, workers are experiencing increasing rates of burnout and frustration, which not only affect their health but also ultimately impact the company’s profits and overall performance.
If employees take time to rest and engage in recreational activities alongside their work, the labor force could become more productive and creative. For example, Iceland’s nationwide trials from 2015 to 2019 revealed that when working hours were reduced without cutting pay, workers not only experienced less stress and burnout, but their productivity remained stable or even improved.
