Labour’s proposal to introduce a ‘right to disconnect’ for UK Workers

As part of the Labour government’s ‘Plan to Make Work Pay’ initiative, the Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner, is expected to introduce a ‘right to disconnect’ from work outside of a UK worker’s contracted hours.

Under this proposal, employees will have the right to refuse to respond to emails or to handle any work-related tasks outside of their agreed working hours.

With the importance of cultivating a healthy work-life balance increasingly in the public eye, Labour’s proposals follow in the footsteps of similar models implemented in Australia, Belgium and Ireland with the goal of encouraging employers and employees to work together constructively and create bespoke workplace policies that can boost overall productivity and fend off “burn-out Britain.”

Unlike some of Labour’s other incoming employment shakeups, at this point it’s not overly clear how the ‘right to disconnect’ will materialise in practice. The most popular theory suggests it will be implemented in the form of a code of practice, as it was in Ireland, rather than in statute, as it was in Belgium. This means that employees would not be able to bring a standalone Employment Tribunal claim based on a failure to uphold the right to disconnect but could receive an uplift of up to 25% in compensation upon successfully bringing another employment related claim.

It is also possible that Labour’s plans could be implemented as some kind of hybrid model between the Irish and Belgian models. The new right could be enacted through a code of practice but with a formal obligation then imposed on an employer to negotiate and enter into a binding workplace agreement documenting approved contact hours.

The government has said they do not expect this proposal to be a ‘one size fits all’ solution, particularly with such a wide variation in business and workload sizes up and down the country.

It’s possible that a threshold will be set to allow smaller businesses with fewer employees to be excluded from the plans in order to allow them to keep operating under their usual practices.

With so many unanswered questions surrounding these proposals it can be difficult to plan ahead with much precision. Until full details of the ‘right to disconnect’ are revealed, here are some steps that employers can take right now to stay ahead of the curve:

• Encourage staff to avoid checking their emails or taking calls whilst on holiday. Where possible, staff should prepare a handover note of the work they are leaving behind. Teams can work together to pick up any redirected emails on behalf of their colleagues. This is a great way to encourage your staff to make the most of their well-earned holiday breaks and can help them to return to work feeling refreshed rather than burnt-out
• Speak to your staff about their experiences with remote or hybrid working and whether they need any support with ‘switching off’
• Provide training to all staff so that they are clear on what is expected of them. Managers should be trained to monitor and recognise unsociable working hours within their teams. Communications outside of normal working hours should be treated as the exception rather than the norm
• Arrange regular catch-up sessions with your staff. This is a great way of monitoring their workload.

Keep your eyes peeled for further information from the government on this interesting proposal to reform employment law in the UK.