RIGHT TO DISCONNECT: JUST SAY NO TO AFTER-HOURS MESSAGES

If you are an employer with more than 25 employees as of the first day of this year, you should have published a right-to-disconnect policy by June 2.

This is a policy mandated by the provincial government. They do not tell you exactly what wording they want you to use. They generally want you to have a policy that employees have a right not to engage in work-related communications, including emails, telephone calls, video calls or sending or reviewing other messages, during non-work hours when employees are supposed to be free from the performance of work.

The Employment Standards Act already requires employers to pay workers for time they spend working if the employer allows it to happen. That means that if management or even coworkers are sending employees emails or messages in off hours, they are consenting to the employee being paid for the time it took to read the message and respond. That is long-established law.

The problem is that, especially with so many people working from home, the difference between work time and personal time tends to get conflated.

If you took an extra 10 minutes walking the dog at lunchtime, you are probably not going to docket the 10 minutes it took to deal with a message at 7 p.m. Most employees understand

that it is a two-way street and don't nickel and dime employers. Unfortunately, there are always abusers out there on both sides; employers who think that everyone should be working all the time, and employees who don't work a full day but are loath to deal with work issues after their day has stopped.

The policy does not have to set down any absolute right to be free from communications after some set work hours. There are always exceptions. The policy should try to describe what those exceptions may be and what level of urgency needs to be met before employees should be disturbed after hours.

It might refer to the provisions of the Employment Standards Act setting out the maximum hours of work in a day and a week and required eating periods. It might set out the act's provisions with respect to vacation and public holidays. You will want to make it clear that employees on vacation should only be contacted in the most urgent of situations. Of course what is urgent to the anxious manager is not urgent to the more laidback manager, and you could not possibly describe all potential situations.

In a way, what the government is asking employers to do is to turn their mind to this issue and set out some sort of plan and parameters.

I predict that once everyone has their policies in place, they will be duly ignored by 90 per cent of the workforce. Employees who enjoy flexible working hours will continue to do work when they want to outside of routine hours and will have no complaint. Employees who like a more structured work-life balance can take some comfort from the policy and at least have something to point to if their boss complains that they were incommunicado during the boss' anxiety attack.

The reality is that some employers can be abusive through endless demands and communications. On the other hand, employees can be their own worst enemy. They simply cannot bear to turn off the company phone or not look at the company computer after hours. My advice is "just say no." If you are using the company cellphone or company computer for your personal messaging, get your own device and stop. You deserve a break every day.

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