The mobile phone has become a habitual bed companion for more than half of the Spanish population. This is not surprising, considering that there are more mobile lines than people (56 million times 47). A link that has raised the degree of connectivity in the work environment, becoming a problem for many workers, who find it impossible to disconnect from their tasks when they are on their break time.
“Sometimes it’s not even the bosses, but the colleagues themselves who send you messages at night or in the morning to talk about planning for the day,” laments Eneko, who works as a teacher in a Bilbao school and accumulates screenshots of different conversations. Some of them, at eleven o’clock at night. He does not want to give his real name for fear of retaliation at his workplace.
This forced hyperconnectivity took off with the pandemic and is still in force, especially in environments where remote work has been maintained despite the return to offices. Although companies are required by law to develop internal policies that prevent addressing an employee after hours, the reality is that most of them still do not establish them. An anomaly that has led to the sanctions for violating working time multiplying in recent years: in 2022, the Labor Inspectorate filed fines worth 13.7 million euros, twice as much as before the covid.
Eneko’s case is not different from that of thousands of workers, who are regularly contacted outside working hours. An Adecco study concludes that 59% of them continue to check their email even after they have finished work, and that they do so, on average, four days a week. An overload that has led to the progressive increase in days off due to mental or behavioral disorders, which between 2015-2021 grew by 15.42%.
“I have complained to my bosses and they have not cared, because they are the ones who promote this behavior. If I’m on my day off, they should respect it. Unfortunately, the ones I’ve had were married to the company and for them their entire lives revolved around work. I don’t know how they can live like this”, laments MA, who has carried out recruitment tasks in several companies in recent years. There is, she says, a generational gap that sustains this type of behavior. “Many people, in high positions, see work as what gives meaning to their lives and prefer that everything revolves around it,” she reflects.
firewall
The right to digital disconnection was incorporated to the Workers’ Statute in 2015, was framed in the Law on Protection of Personal Data and guarantee of digital rights of 2018; and it was reinforced, two years later, in 2021, with the remote work law. A legal shell that has wrapped the universal right of everyone “to restto the enjoyment of free time, to a reasonable limitation of the duration of work and periodic paid vacations” —recognized by the UN in 1948—, whose violation in Spain is typified with sanctions of between 751 and 7,500 euros by the Law on Offenses and Sanctions in the Social Order.
Oriol Cremades, professor of Labor Law and Social Security at the Rovira i Virgili University, believes that one of the reasons why some companies ignore this rule is that some employers believe that “the worker is a productive resource more”, regardless of the fact that they have an employment contract, “with rights and obligations for both parties”. In addition, he maintains that, on the side of the employees, “competitiveness in the job market to advance professionally or, simply, to keep the job” are other factors that affect the lack of digital disconnection.
To force change in companies, other regulations have been added, such as the obligation since 2019 to establish a time record that delimits the working day. However, there is still no Community legal framework, despite the fact that the European Parliament has passed a resolution that urges the Community Executive to address it legislatively. “The right of workers to disconnect is crucial to protect their physical and mental health and well-being, as well as to protect them against psychological risks,” the text states.
As reflected in the results of the actions of the Labor Inspectorate, both the number of infractions and the economic volume of the sanctions imposed in relation to working time and overtime – the breakdown of the actions does not distinguish those that have been expressly applied for violating the right to digital disconnection, but these are framed within these two categories—, have been growing in recent years. Taking a significant leap in the last financial year: in 2022, 11,000 fines issued with 8.5 million euros were registered, the highest amount in the last decade.
In the opinion of Ana Ercoreca, general secretary of the union of inspectors SITSS, that certain jobs require availability that exceeds the normal working day is not an excuse for a violation of the right to rest. “For this, there is recognition of this need through a plus in the contract,” he points out, and in an alternative case he proposes the following solution: “If a 24-hour shift has to be covered, three people are hired to do eight each.
“You end up having the feeling that you have to live with your phone on you,” confesses Carlos (not his real name), who for years felt the pressure of having to be permanently connected in an audit company. “Before the covid things were more normal, but when we all had to go home things got out of hand: they called you on your personal phone if you didn’t answer your work phone, customers called on Saturdays and Sundays at any time… We all assumed that with the return to normality this would stop happening and it was not like that at all ”, he adds.
no consequences
The obligation to develop internal policies that serve to preserve this right established by law is one of the cornerstones of both regulations. However, none of them detail the consequences that their refusal to carry them out would entail for companies. “Although the legal structure is sufficient for any worker who feels that their right to rest is being violated can denounce it with guarantees, the reality is that many companies still do not have a protocol that serves as a firewall so that these situations do not occur”, explains Epifanio Alocén, labor lawyer at Pardo Abogados. “In all this time I have not seen any company that has a defined plan,” acknowledges this lawyer, who recalls that the presentation of emails or telephone messages is sufficient proof to initiate a lawsuit.
The absence of a sanctioning regime in the form of an administrative infraction has allowed companies to have a grace period in which many have continued to stretch the days by going over this instruction. “It has not been paid much attention during the pandemic and in the period after, but now there is beginning to be a reaction, because the exhaustion presented by many workers is causing us to start taking it seriously,” acknowledges Jesús Torres, president of the Spanish Association of Human Resources Directors (AEDRH) and Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) of Food Delivery Brands (Grupo Telepizza – Pizza Hut). “Until now there have been more declarations of good will, but from the association we are giving more and more courses on good practices, because in many companies the workers are returning to their face-to-face jobs and are being told that they cannot continue the same,” he adds. .
Productivity and well-being
In Generali Seguros they took action on the matter at the end of 2020, when they agreed, with the unanimous support of the union representation —one of the obligations dictated by law—, the implementation of a plan that would serve as a barrier against the violation of the rest time for their workers. “We have placed the fundamental axis on the managersbecause they are the ones who have to manage the day-to-day life of their teams”, details Alberto Ogando, the company’s Chief People & Organization Officer.
A “vital” awareness process, especially since they decided to implement teleworking by 50%. “We believe that it is essential to establish the necessary filters for efficiency, productivity and in defense of the mental well-being of our workers and their families”, adds Ogando. For years, emails have included a message that reminds them that if they receive it outside of their hours “they are not obliged to respond to it.”
In the last Agreement for Employment and Collective Bargaining (AENC) that unions and employers signed at the beginning of the month, not only emphasizes once again the need for companies to recognize this right for their workers, and to guarantee its compliance; Rather, some good practices are defined for a better management of work time, such as the “delayed sending” of communications for these to be carried out during working hours, or the “scheduling of automatic responses” in periods of absence.
“Even though they try to control it, in many sectors it will continue to be very difficult to prevent these practices from continuing to be reproduced in the future,” says IM, an engineer and project manager at an international consulting, engineering, and architecture services company. “Even if the companies give in, in certain positions it will continue to be impossible not to answer the phone after hours or respond to an email that a client sends you. It is a very big cultural change that involves a lot of people, ”he stresses.
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