The European Work Right to Disconnect
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 มิ.ย. 2024
- For all of the connectivity and access that our digital age has ushered in… it has also destroyed work-life balance. Can "Right to Disconnect" laws be the solution? Let me know what you think! Go to ground.news/ashton to see what mainstream media isn’t showing you. Subscribe through my link for 40% off unlimited access this month.
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:54 What is the Right to Disconnect?
04:58 A Great Tool for Balanced Research
06:57 The Major Health Impacts of Work-Life Balance
10:05 California's Controversy
13:35 A New Human Right?
Episode No. 148
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Go to ground.news/ashton to see what mainstream media isn’t showing you. Subscribe through my link for 40% off unlimited access this month.
I had a dispute with one of my employers here in the UK that caused me to take legal advice. It turns out that, if you're paid an hourly rate (which I was) then outside the hours you're paid for, employers cannot dictate what you do with your time. If however, you're paid for your position and that pay is unrelated to the hours you work (such as is the case for things like board members) then that's a different story.
Furthermore, if you are paid an hourly rate and a clause in your contract dictates what you can do in your own time, then that clause is unenforceable. There are exceptions, such as use of privileged information obtained from your employment. This may prevent you from working for a competitor in your own time. We also have working hour limits (such as driving busses or Heavy goods vehicles) that may make it illegal to carry out other work in our free time, if it results in violating these laws.
If you are paid by the hour, even disciplinary hearings have to be scheduled within your normal working hours. So if an employer asks you to turn up for a disciplinary hearing at the end of your shift (or during your break), you have every right to refuse, as overtime cannot be compelled. Any hourly paid worker has the right to just walk out the door at the end of their shift and have no contact with their employers until the start of their next shift. This can be more complicated where the working hours are not fixed.
This was the state of the law when I had my grievance (back in the 1980s) but as far as I'm aware, is still current.
Populism in advertising alert:
False dichotomy/false dilemma/false binary
Populists present things as if there were only two opposing positions. In this way, they "force" the opposing side to choose between two constructed extremes, instead of discussing the many possibilities in between.
@@to.l.2469 Some things only come in two varieties. Flip a coin. Sometimes it's heads, sometimes it's tails. The EXTREME case is when it's neither of those.
@@KenFullman Correct, but a tautology. And completely unsuitable for my criticism.
You can't build anything meaningful argumentatively with tautologies. But they often serve as a substitute for missing arguments for those who would otherwise resort to false dichotomy/false dilemma/false binary. This would make the circular argument perfect and all those who don't want to or can't think about manipulation with rhetorical fallacies would be influenced unnoticed.
If my boss wants me to be available 24/7, he can pay for it 24/7.
I have probably shared this before, but at my old job in the US, we always had a "24 hour email policy". If a student or faculty member emailed us, we had to reply within 24 hours. Even if they email at midnight on a Friday, we had until midnight on Saturday to respond.
@@TypeAshton Hm, just "respond"? Set the mail-app to "auto-answer" with a nice text like "Thank you for your email."
It has usually been the case in my experience that if you're higher in the company hierarchy you are not measured by how many hours you work. You are likely to have compensation baggage which comes with the assumption that you mostly adapt to the needs of each situation and are always available. If you're the CEO or at executive level or closer to it, the chairman of the board and others can call you anytime.
@@just42tube Correct. But how many of these persons work on an hourly wage and at minimum pay?
I don't how it is in other countries, but here in Germany, in my old job I had an extra clause in the contract about 24/7 with +1200E. It didn't worth though and that was the reason I quit
Availability 24/7 IS slavery. I do not owe constant accessability to a company who pays for my work for 40 hours a week (or 38 or 45...). Full stop.
depends on the term of your contract, I guess. but my work (in Canada) has pretty clearly defined right to disconnect rules. if you're on call for some reason, it is 24/7 but it's for a week only before somebody else takes over, and you get time off in lieu if you're called out. the one time it's happened to me, I got the following Friday off. there's a reason my emergency contact number isn't the work-provided cell phone: that gets turned to do not disturb at 4pm.
It seems the US figured out that telling your employees they are free while still working them into the hospital (combined with feeding them crap) where you can then present them exorbitant bills to the point they have to get a loan (or go bankrupt, but that'S obviously not the aim) is better for GDP.
Which reminds me of how the first lesson in economics when I studied was to criticize teh concept of GDP by saying car accidents are great because they create jobs for mechanics and doctors, thus boosting GDP.
@@taragwendolynIf you are on call the should already be working time. Does not matter if you get called or not.
...and I even forgotto mention the College scam as entry condition...
@Warrior6350 It very much does. I get (depending on what sort of on call it is) up to 50% of the actual work hours per hour not worked and full time per hour actually worked during on call.
there's a big difference between working 8+ hours on a Saturday and a paranoid customer asking for just-in-case on calkl where you know they 99.9% won't call. Getting full time in teh latter feels like defrauding the employer. It has to be fair for both sides, after all.
@@Warrior6350 that’s true because you’re always wondering if you’re going to be called or not
Greeting from a lazy Europoor enjoying their long weekend having free on Monday since it's Pentecost.
I wish I could say I planned this, but funny timing on a long weekend, right? 😂
Shouldn't that be "Europoorean"?
Too lazy for the extra letters? 😆
Kind regard
A EuroISHean.
I don't feel so EuroPOORen.
Greetings from Switzerland. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@Zurich_for_Beginners just showing off your incredible talent to be born in a very rich country, are you? 😉😉
As a Swed i find this crazy that this even a thing. All the companys i've worked for don't allow you to access your work e-mail from home and the boss don't call you when you not working. This is not a law here, it's just common sense.😊
Thank you for amazing videos!😃💪
Glad you enjoyed the video! Thanks for watching!
I completely agree 👍 I wish I was in Sweden! 🇸🇪 so sensible and compassionate 😊
But the owner of the business or a customer or partner can take contact at all hours. Of course you can prevent it happening, but it can have consequences.
Yeah the cosecvence is probebly on the caller not the employer. @@just42tube
Agree totally, as another Swede.
My Swiss husband started a trend at the job he used to work at in Miami. My husband wouldn't answer texts before 9 am (he would look at them because sometimes it had information about traffic, police traps, and draw bridge issues). After 5 he clocked out he would not look or answer texts during the week (he sometimes worked overtime). During the weekend, he wouldn't look or answer texts on the weekend. His boss tried to fire him for this, but the owner of the company wouldn't allow it. He said "no where in the contract does it say that he needs to be available 24/7."
I'm working at the place he used to work at and I do the same and so do 90% of the employees. The bosses tried changing the contracts to where you have to be available 24/7, but 90% of employees put in their 2 week notice. The bosses changed the contracts back and we revoked our 2 weeks notice.
Yes, agreed, it's also a matter of what you accept and want to change as an employee, but there's a strong power imbalance that often makes it required for the employers to be bound by law,, Employee wellbeing simply most often is not helping managers to reach their bonus targets and green KPIs. It's a systemic issue.
CEOs and other Boss types need to realize that they are not what makes their company profitable, it's their workers, and if the workers don't have time to refuel their batteries, they will perform worse.
and we are not machines that we can fix in an instant. I broke the bone in my hand, 30 days of plaster plus 30 days that I can't make any efforts (since the company only has heavy work) I send the illness file for the 30 days where I have to do physiotherapy, not even 10 minutes he calls me back saying "You can't take so many sick days, then when the contract comes up for renewal we might not renew it due to these absences". A year without taking leave and/or sick leave for more than a week and this is the result? Italy, where there is the right to disconnect...
Just look at the team that made the Space Shuttle software. They had strict regulations against overtime and such. They knew how to have workers who were really fit and made less errors.
If you think about it even the tiniest bit, "Work is a Virtue" is only a miniscule step away from "Work sets you Free".
Are you referring to the _arbeit macht frei_ motto promoted by a certain bunch of highly motivated and dedicated Germans a little less than a century ago?
@@allanmason3201 im pretty sure that was intentional yes - which is unsurprising, since the rich have often be good friend with authoritarians... capitalism is an inherently authoritatian economic system - after all... the owner of a company is intended to be the lord of their domain under capitalism
Ouch, but I agree. 🫨😵💫 Greetz from a German in Hamburg.
@@allanmason3201 That is one of the most flattering descriptions of Nazis I have ever seen (and yes I get the sarcasm).
@@michellemaine2719 I'm always wary about TH-cam's AI censorship hammer coming down when certain words are used in a post.
I worked for 10 years in a small business with a boss who would contact me at all hours of the day. It was completely crazy. I absolutely hated it. We now live and work again in Germany and I even completely ignore the informal WhatsApp group from my new job. I will never ever be caught in this trap again.
I am German and my husband works as a contractor for USAID in Africa. We are six hours ahead of the US East Coast and he regularly has phone conferences with the home office of his company in VA at 9, 10, 11pm our time. Nobody even thinks about not contacting him at odd night hours. And then he is expected in the (African) office early in the morning to start his regular day. Me and my German brain suggested that all the zoom calls could be in the morning hours in the US - that would be afternoon for us. My husband believes this to be an imposition. My brother and sister-in-law, working for Mercedes Benz and at a school in Germany, are not only always on vacation (so much vacation! my husband has 20 days), but they seem happier and more relaxed. I always tell my dual citizen kids to never, EVER, work for US companies. (Although it is now better than when we were in Central Asia and had a 9 hour time difference!)
I am working in Germany and the company made it clear they would only contact me out of normal work hours if it was an actual emergency. For instance if the building caught on fire they would call everyone to make sure they are safe. Outside of that I am free to ignore any message or not even check until I get back to work. Since I work in an international group I can get emails and other work messages at any time on my work laptop but I have no obligation to check those at any time I am not working.
This has made my life MUCH less stressful. I really appreciate it and this should just be the law.
This is how it should be by default. It feels like common sense to me.
agreed - though i think this is already law in germany... at least i recall conversations with a coworker at some point where they mentioned that employers calling you outside work hours can be the basis for legal complaints
not sure how much of that is actually anchored in law though - never really checked, i just dont pay attention to work stuff after work
@@SharienGaming This is complicated. A call by a coworker, or even a client, can be private in nature. If it isn't, first thing to do would be to tell them in a nice way, that it's outside of work hours and that they please should only call you for work related things, when you're actually at work. If this still doesn't help, then start to not answer such a call. If this happens a lot, then install an app that blocks such numbers during your off time.
German law (as far as I'm aware) only says, that you can't be punished for not answering your phone, e-mail, etc. outside of working hours. You're only legally available for your job while on the job. This is getting a bit more serious when considering vacation time though.
In my experience, most companies actually want you to use an official business-phone with its own number, that you use to make calls, e-mails, etc. and you are supposed to never give them your private phone number (except you want private contact for private reasons, obviously) in the first place. This phone is then supposed to be turned off outside of work hours. Problem solved.
This is how it is with my current job. But I refused to take an extra phone (don't want to carry around multiple smartphones plus an extra normal phone sitting on my desk) and wished to do this with my private phone instead. And had to file multiple papers to actually set this up.
German, too. I think I got called twice outside of work (obviously not counting the occasional 24 hour on call duty, considering I am in IT and that *is* work.) in over a decade, and that was by workaholics that ended up with burnout.
Aside from that, the worst we have is some customers being extremely spontaneous with requesting on call duty... and not in emergency cases. Workers council isn't amused, but it's not like we can sue them for it. And most of teh time, it's also just a request for daytime on call, which is a LOT less annoying anyway.
@@walkir2662 I think the case where I talk to people outside of normal work hours is when I am traveling internationally. I let my boss know the status of my trip as I go just in case something happens. At least then if a flight is missed, a train is late, etc. then I have someone that is aware of what is going on and can quickly help resolve the issue.
US is run by and for corporations, Europe struggles sometimes, but the aim is it’s run for people
nah, its run by corporations too, but people actually had some self respect and fought for their rights 50-150 years ago. without early communist activists, we wouldn't have anything here at all and it would be just like the US. So I thank anarchists, communists, socialists, social democrats, and the youth of '68 for fighting for our rights. unfortnuately too few people here know that. they actually think the government cares about them, and granted them all of those rights because they're such good people, wich is just not true in most cases. People literally DIED fighting for these rights.
The USA preaches individual rights but in fact, they have taken them away. No rights at work or how long you work, making voting harder and harder to do, no rights to your cell phones, they load and spam your phones and computers. You DO NOT HAVE ANY RIGHTS IN AMERICA ANY MORE. CORPORATIONS HAVE MORE RIGHTS THAN THE HUMAN DOES. Just try joining a Union and all your elected officials and big corporations will fight you and make sure you do not. Just look at the recent UAW organization in Mercedes in Alabama, they interfered with an union formation from the start.
Corporations and Elected officials HATE Union because they want to keep their Right TO Work for LESS status because it makes the employee in a modern slavery situation. While they rake in MILLIONS and laugh all the way to the Bank. They do not want employees to have RIGHTS.
@@carlosmarx2380 It could just as easily be the culture in Europe didn't accept the corporate overload mentality and that's why communism etc rose to prevent it. I doubt Europe and the US had the same culture and mentality but it was just luck that communism appeared in Europe and not America.
@@carlosmarx2380 your name says a lot, but for others reading, communism has nothing to do with rights really, people in communism didn't have any more rights and it's not an implication, and looking at communism and communistic regimes today, people there have less rights (work rights included), if anything.
Fighting for one's right is definitely an important factor. But Europe is years ahead of the US reagrding wortk and culture. America - from how I see it - is like a broiler chicken for companies. Fairly new land with loads of resources and ground to play around for companies and a skewed political system on top tolerating all that or even enabling it in the first place. Europe had severe exploitation in the early industrialization as well, without functioning regulators. Many strikes or even revolutions took place in that time, people were founding unions and putting pressure as a community on companies and regulators to pass laws. Nowadays though, staying quiet is the way to go for any person it seems, only spreading their thoughs on the internet or on twitter or in their bubble, and barely working towards a common goal collectively, The black/white party/opinion split which is being pushed onto americans by media and their surroundings helps to keep the fight among the people, thus preventing it from being directed at the organisations responsible for the situation. I wonder if america can ever escape this work-a-holic toxicity now in this digital age of irresponsibility, silence and false rage. Or, the world just commonly agreed that the US stays a work a holic place for people who want to get rich and those who want to live go to the EU, but thats hardly what most americans think. They probably just want better regulations if i had to guess. Hope things get better with time.
@@mmyd2405the person is most likely referring to Communist, Socialist and Workers parties in the various multi-party democracies working together with other progressive parties pushing the parliaments to implement more worker friendly laws and policies either through roles in coalition governments or harnessing broad-based public support for those policies.
My husband had his own company with a dozen of employees at its peak. We did service on plotters (printers for technical drawings/blueprints) all over Germany with 4h contracts i.e. a technician had to show up at the plotter's location within 4 work hours (Mo-Fr 8am - 5pm) or the company would face penalties. We never had to call a technician at the weekend or after hours. In case of emergency, my husband would drive there himself. The job was stressful enough for our technicians, they deserved their weekends and time off.
As someone living in Europe but born in Canada with many American friends, no wonder things are so tense on that side of the pond - work culture in N America is so outrageously overburdened to individuals yet also pitifully remunerated. When my brother told me about how long he's expected to work every day for so few benefits it makes my low-paying but also low-stress job in the UK seem like paradise, and the UK is the America of Europe! I really hope you fight for a better system over there, because it seems so desperately needed by everyone from there who I talk with. LIke, it's actually hard to fathom how a person can survive such a demanding system, and things aren't exactly easy over here.
I`m from sweden & I have absolutely NO planes on settling in the US or even visit it. I`d freak out if I`d have been born there & try to get the hell out! ANY place even Brazil would be better for me than that fake smile country.
@@HanzBergman Same, between mental & physical health issues (not to mention the societal baseline itself) I literally couldn't survive the system in the US. To be clear, however, I'm not lording this over anyone, I truly hope they fight for the reform they so desperately need because no one deserves to live with such intense pressures just to survive in a supposedly wealthy country.
And bear in mind, some of these overworked, nervous wrecks are walking around with guns on their hip (and maybe even a badge).
Trust me you would love to visit US is exceptionally huge and beautiful country, just because there is problems there its still worth the visit also NEW YORK to me looked very European
That’s the most depressing phrase UK is the America in Europe. I am British and I don’t see anything American in myself at all. I am absolutely European.
I worked for a huge multinational here in Northern Europe for 15 years. Laws and the union was the only thing that prevented us form working to death. Talking overtime from 07 to 23 at times.
There is certainly a connection here between union (or lack there of) and work life balance in the USA.
I got my first mobile because my boss wanted to be able to reach me all the time (during working hours) but was allowed to use it privately as well. So I actually had it with me all the time. In the next 15 years (between 1990 and 2005) I was called three times outside of working hours. Once by a customer who was not able to reach our support, once by a sales rep that did not know about my vacation and once by a colleague who knew about my vacation but had a really big problem he could not solve by himself (and had explicitly been allowed to call me in a situation like that). That seemed and seems acceptable to me. Everybody simply considered it bad manners to contact an employee, colleagues or boss outside working ours for "normal business".
Seems like Americans need "rights" where Europeans are taught to behave well (Excluding people like Ashton, Hayley, Lauren etc. from this generalization of course)
In our company only a few people have company phones. The private numbers are that - private. Some friends/colleagues know it and my boss who is near a friend (we were on vacation together with 2 other colleagues). But giving it to other people is very rare. There must be a damn good reason for that. I never was called on vacation, just a few times when I already left and they needed some quick info.
I can read my company email from my private computer but I only do that when I'm sick at home and just out of curiosity not that I would work. On vacation it wouldn't cross my mind. If they have a problem they would need to ask a friend to mail me privately (never happened).
On the other hand my boss and his boss aren't in the office at the weekend or after hours because they also want their free time. So there generally is nobody there to mail me. If they work(?) they don't try others to participate.
You know that you can manually change your status in teams right? Just change it to away, busy or offline or something like that
@@jensumayer I used to go around that by selecting the status "offline" in Teams when i just wanted to finish some work quietly. But with the last update the offline indicator has some green accents when you're logged in and red accents when you are in a call. So that solution no longer works.
@@SD-ed8is with the latest version even the offline mode has color indicators. Green accents when you selected offline but are logged in, red accents when you're in a call. If you know a way around this I'm very interested.
@@SD-ed8is We also use teams and the status is changed by the system if we are not using the computer for some time. On the other hand it also shows active meetings if I just have something in the planner. Not very intelligent.
But that is no problem as we only work with a company laptop which can login to the system. We have very strict working hours set for home office. More strict than the flexible office hours.
A lot of bosses want control not productivity
no productivity ? that will shut a business down and you will be out of a job 🤣
Here in Italy as soon as April starts, there are a plethora of long weekends due to National holidays, but we also have paid time off that we are forced to take in order to rest. I argued many times with Americans calling us lazy and telling that they work so much in the US to support us as well. My mind is blown every time.
the last week was the only week in may without a holiday^^ (at least in may state of germany)
Haha, if it‘s true what those Americans say: THANK YOU dear Americans! That‘s so nice of you! 🫶
@@klarasee806 it's obviously bs, invented in particular by the republicans who need to get people to believe they should be proud of being enslaved.
I'm German and I see that difference in work culture compared to a good American friend all the time. She works insane hours at her middle management job in the U.S.. She does make more money than I do here in Germany, but I hear her complain about exhaustion much more often than I myself feel exhausted with work. They own more stuff than I do, even their new house looks to be twice the size as mine. But you pay a price. And that price is what this video is about.
Yeha... Americans might be more rich than europeans, but at what cost...
I work for an American company in Switzerland which has translated the same corporate culture as in the US.
I sometimes have to work late hours, be available all the time and sometimes due to workload even work on weekends...
I have never worked this much in my life / my quality of life is significantly reduced/am looking for a new job
Before quitting, just stop working late and responding to messages outside work hours. Most companies will take whatever they get. Fundamentally it's your decisions to be available outside work hours and work overtime and the company just letting you at it, since it makes them more money for no extra cost. If they keep pushing you, just say your doctor recommended doing that as an alternative to taking a few weeks of stress leave. If you go to the doctor describing the usual symptoms of overwork (Stress, poor sleep, poor short term memory etc.), very few would refuse to sign you off on stress leave, and because it's not the US, where they discovered that paying a token amount while having no obligation to their employees well-being at all can often work out cheaper than keeping actual slaves, you literally can't be fired for it. Swiss employment law applies if you're working in Switzerland, so any company working there has to follow those rules.
There are limits in Swiss law as to how long you can work, and when. Some employers may not be aware of them. www.seco.admin.ch/dam/seco/de/dokumente/Publikationen_Dienstleistungen/Publikationen_Formulare/Arbeit/Arbeitsbedingungen/Broschueren/Arbeit%20und%20Gesundheit%20-%20Arbeits-%20und%20Ruhezeiten.pdf.download.pdf/Arbeit%20und%20Gesundheit%20-%20Arbeits-%20und%20Ruhezeiten.pdf
So, the Americans proud of their bad workers' rights, who say "why should employers be forced to pay PTO?" should be all for this, right? After all, why should employees be available while not being paid?
You would think, but the idea that they can "ignore their boss" then that's seen as lazy/entitled behavior to many.
@@TypeAshton Almost as if this was, like you said in the video, modern slavery. All the power for the company, none for the employee.
@@TypeAshton being forced to reply/react to work related thing in your free time is lazy/entitled behavior by your superiors. get your schedule right, plan ahead and use your brain properly and you wont need to annoy your workers in ther free time xD
The Thing is. When you make a Work contract they behave Like they own you. But in the end its X amount of my time For X amount of your Money. And when my time is spend iam Not obligated to be available. and sorry For my Bad english 😂
@@TypeAshton Seems corporations have done a thorough job brainwashing Americans straight from the cradle
From many years working in the Private Sector, I've become very wary when Employers use the word "Flexibility". From numerous experiences I have discovered that this means that the Employee is ALWAYS "expected" to Bend over backwards at the whims of the corporation. Meanwhile, Employers are NEVER "flexible" when Employees need extra time off or arrive late to work.
Furthermore, Out of Hours contacts are NEVER paid, whereas if an Employee needs an unscheduled Day off, that will ALWAYS be docked from their Salary.
"Flexibility" is very akin to another Corporate favourite "Loyalty" - Employees are ALWAYS expected to demonstrate both "Flexibility" and "Loyalty" to their Employer, while the same Employers ENJOY Shafting their Employees...
When i worked at an Estonian agency, my boss made it very clear once its past working hours and its not something extremely urgent, i have to stop working and rest, you can always continue tomorrow or on monday. And that seemed to be the work culture all around that agency, never had people contact me or respond to me after working hours. It was incredibly relaxed and people were easy to get along with probably because of it.
Why is it legal to not pay overtime? Especially in a culture where overtime is expected to such a degree that it can negatively affect your situation in terms of keeping your job. I did my job, I did my hours, if you still have work to do, then at the very least pay me, and if you don't want to pay for overtime then hire more people so all the work can be done within hours. How hard can it be?
I'm totally pro the right for disconnecting from work, but let me throw in some critical thoughts from the perspective of a German, having lived in the States for a year.
I doubt that Americans in the States get more done than over here in Germany within their 24 hours, because their work ethic is so different from ours. It is common to do video games, Facebook, answer private messages, chitchat while at work, and this not during lunch break. They disconnect from work always. Therefore I struggle with the statement that Americans work harder, they only work longer hours... yes, but how much do they REALLY get done during this time?
From my perspective I think we work a lot harder, because during the 8 hours at work, we are focused on work only. Here you'd get fired for doing video-games, social media, extended chitchatting, not working during work hours. We are very work focused during our work hours. Emails aren't mashed with work related and private stuff... we strictly divide private and work related things. That's why we are so efficient, and I really prefer having a strictly structured, focused workday, with the right for a well deserved Feierabend over such a mash of work, leasure, private stuff. 🙂
I'm not sure if this German work ethic will fit the American culture, because Americans like to chitchat throughout the day, and mix private things into work. So expecting a certain task to be done during 24 hours, no matter the time they spend for this at work, might be the only way to be able to get things done that would get done within 8 hours over here. - In my opinion you cannot demand the right to disconnect from work, and to get more money, without the duty to only stay connected to work during work hours, which means to eliminate all private, fun, leasure activities during work hours. I really doubt that our German work ethic fits into American culture, so what are they willing to sacrifice for being able to disconnect that is the question not I can answer but the American society.
I sure hope that they will find a good solution for both parties.... Employees and employers. 🙂
That is irelevant to this video in my opinion.
Just because you are not an efficient worker, doesn't mean you're not _at_ work.
After coming home from your job, you feel like you've had a 9 to 5 day, no matter what you were doing that day. You expect to turn of and stop thinking about your obligations.
If your boss randomly messages you in the evening, then that pulls you right back into the work mindset. THIS is what the video is about.
I agree, to me it seems that people working long hours generally get less and less efficient - in the sense that one cannot be focused or active for long periods of time without doing something else. Attention spans and physical ability are limited in time.
I also tend to think that most measurements of productivity are pointless, because they measure productivity by the value produced by workers. This completely depends on what kind of goods and services a country has, but it doesn't mean that workers and companies do not do their job inefficiently. A developer producing low-quality non-essential software at a snail's pace could very well be measured as "efficient" if he charges a lot, while a farmer working long hours for tons of vital produce can be paid a barely living wage and labelled as inefficient. Thank the markets I guess.
@@christophfischer2773 Well it is in so far relevant as an efficient working workforce doesn't have to do overtime and doesn't have to be contacted after work hours, because the work is done for the day.
You can't say Americans. It's your younger generation that does what you mentioned. A lot of your "old" Millenials (1981-1990) are busting their asses at work. They don't socialize, they don't text, they don't play video games, etc. I'm an American and I haven't done what you said at all unless an emergency. Having a kid at school I'm going to have to take phone calls while at work. Also I had a leak in my apartment and the landlord was texting and calling me about time frame foe getting things done, how long my family and I were without 1 bathroom, etc. I do play video games, but this is during lunch break and I can do whatever I want with my time within reason (no drinking alcohol and no drugs besides marijuana. Smoking marijuana is legal where I'm at). I know Gen X doesn't do what you said during work hrs.
@@XynxNetthis all depends what your job is. I work in a Cat shelter and they have 600 cats. The work is never done. The litterboxes need to be scooped morning, afternoon, and evening 365 days a year. The cats need to be fed and watered 2x a day 365 days a year. You need to clean up vomit, poop, and pee from the floor, walls, shelves, cat run, beds, etc pretty much 24/7 365 days a year. We are short staffed because for some it's a disgusting job, some end up being allergic to cats, and some can't handle the smell (when you first start the ammonia smell is overwhelming). Since this is the case we work overtime. Cats aren't going to clean up after themselves nor feed themselves, nor scoop their litterboxes just because we are short staffed. The job is a fair pay $25 an hour and has fair benefits (health insurance, dental insurance, 4 weeks vacation, 2 weeks sick leave, and retirement plan.
In Austria, there is something called “Rufbereitschaft”, “readiness to be called”, and … you get paid a certain amount of money per hour for the time you are on call.
In the US, some professions like doctors have this, but only because legally they have to have a physician or specialist available after hours.
@@TypeAshton - Well, I hope they get compensated for that. In fact, here in Austria, if you answer E-mails or the like if you are on vacation, your co-workers will disapprove - and for good reasons. You work, you get paid, you don't get paid for something, you don't do it. I mean, imagine what would happen if you just took something from a shop - you'd be a shoplifter and end up in jail. So, why work for nothing?
Only controversial to greedy employers, like those who run restaurants but require customers to subsidize the employees’ wages.
Just last week, the workers at the Mercedes-Benz factory, in Alabama, turned down the offer to unionize. Unbelievable!
The Capitalist have the workers in such a state of fear.
The USA system is very different from Europe's.
The unions are often not company connected, but national.*
Any individuals over 18 (they don't even have to work) can become a member of a union of their choice.
They do have to pay member fees, but if they work, their employer has to pay them back.
*some large companies like the national railways do have their own union, but employees can still join other unions if they don't like the railway union.
I don't think it would matter much since, at least from what I saw during my time working in the US years ago, they have a very different view about what a Union is. Here in Europe it is much more efficient and Unions and Corporation work together most of the times. And Unions, at least here in Switzerland, aren't just for one company but often a whole field (like construction workers Union is widespread here over hundreds of company for example and include many different kind of jobs all connected to the general field of work). See the backlash the Actors and writers guild got during their strike recently. They negotiated for just actors/writers respectably.. while more or less screw up all other entertainment jobs who simply got blocked from work (and therefore income) during the strike
Propaganda is a powerful thing.
@@Robbedemthe system is not different in any noteworthy sense. What you describe fits first world union reality very closely, alltho here the minimum age of 18 is just for founding an union, not a limitiation to membership. We too have a mix of national, regional, profession-bound, industry-bound or company-bound unions (alltho those are called differently and require a moddest minimum size of the company).
... the only real difference lies in the willingness to unionize due to the difference in indoctrination, everything else is simply a consequence of not unionizing ... like the freedoms of the companies to retaliate against workers who unionize or simply play with the thought.
In the end noone needs to complain in the US, all that worker exploitation is just self-inflicted misery and a consequence of refusing to use the freedoms given. Americans got access to all the necessary information and they got the rights to create/vote the representation of their choosing, no matter if its in politics or worker representation for the duels with the company ... cant really blame the "evil" companies for actually using their freedoms and privileges, after all those freedoms/privileges are given by the working class.
@@diedampfbrasse98 ok, didn't know the USA had a national or state unions.
I think especially the state unions need to up their game, because they would be best placed to improve worker rights and working conditions.
If freedom means : 'The employer has the right to demand you'r availability 24/7 ' , I'd rather be less free ;)
Seriously though. I can't even imagine having to tell my employer where i'm going ,or having to be stand by. Not being able to just go somewhere for a weekend. Sounds like a nightmare. No wonder there's so much work related stress.
You can easily just say "yYou have the freedom to make that demand. I have the freedom to deny it."
The only thing that needs to change in the US is "at-will employment"
@@christophfischer2773 This whole 'having the right to deny 'Or the good old 'You have the right to work somewhere else ' sounds great in theory. But as it's now common practice there no real choice besides :accepting shit is or not working at all .
No laws are neccecary in Denmark, it is part of the culture.
The problem is when foreign company, like Tesla, create subsidiary in your country expecting to follow the US culture, not the local culture... That's when you need laws to reflect the local culture.
@@frederichardy8844 We have Unions for that
This is why Walmart failed here
I work in a hypermarket and they would call me via PA or the phone in the break room. I'd stopped that soon with: "If you want to pay me for being stand-by, then I will stand by. But as of right now, I am clocked out and thus I don not earn a single cent, so you don't get a single of my worktime". I think this explanation is what gets them to realize what BS they ask from me by saying I "must" answer those calls during my break... At home, I don't answer calls because I am at work 5 days a week 8 hours a day. That's enough to talk to me. That also works^^
This really is a good thing, but as a German, I have never thought of this as necessary. I don't know anyone (other than Owners and CEOs) who feels the need to always be available. "Oh, I was busy with my own stuff" or "I didn't have my phone on me" are perfectly valid reasons to not answer a call in your private time.
That's what private time means. I choose what I do with it.
well, as a german, i got fired for not picking up my phone 3:00 in the fucking night! i worked at forrestation back then!
@@dantemcedgelord9331Also Arbeitsgericht, nehme ich an. Muss ja unrechtmäßig gewesen sein.
@@dantemcedgelord9331 And this is illegal, unless you agreed to "Bereitschaftsdienst", this call occured during such agreed hours and you got compensation for it. Otherwise you should easily win a legal fight.
Pay your employee fair/good wages. Respect there off time. And if there is a situation where overtime is needed, pay accordingly. If most workers have to work overtime regularlly in a company, you have not enough employees. OT should not be the norm but an exception. Happy worker, happy employer, that is the way it should be.
When I started working as a young man (software development), we often did a lot of overtime. BUT we never were asked to do so, it was our own decision. I remember Sunday nights when colleagues would call into the office from the train station (around midnight), asking whether they should come in and help with any problems. And yes, they did. And I remember the boss coming into the office in the morning (9am) and asking whether we were early or still there. He paled, when he heard, we were still there. Didn't wait for us telling him, that all problems had been solved and we were going home to catch some sleep.
On the other hand, the boss usually invited us (and spouses) every year for a weekend in the Alps or somewhere else, all expenses paid. And there were yearly checks of the wage paid, taking into account the quality of work and the overtime done, often resulting in raises between 5-10% every year. And of course, we were bitching about how things were done, but we never felt exploited. Things got worse though, when the old boss sold the company (because of his age). Caused many people to leave as well.
Well motivated people won't mind necessary overtime during busy times if they also feel respected and adequately paid. Most of the people I know can not really turn der brain off at a certain time and turn it back on at 8am the next day.
$100 per violation ? On American scale, 1 week revenues would be more appropriate. As for flexibility, CCTV should be tied to investors and employers to make sure they work at least 23:30 a day, 364 days a year to justify why they disturb their employees at anytime.
I also thought the 100 dollar fine was quite laughable.
A better way would be a full days wages to the employee per violation, and the employee cannot be laid for any reason at all for a full year, multiple violations do not overlap but will be counted consecutively. so 5 violations, unfirable for 5 years.
@@vrenak Better one in US case, yes.
@@Belaziraf Because the problem isn't as big in Europe, for instance the few times I've been contacted outside work hours boss has both been apologetic, and also made sure to compensate appropriately, and if I was incommunicado, that would also have been totally fine (not good for business of course, but it wouldn't ever damage our relationship or my job). And it wasn't something that could wait I was contacted about.
@@vrenak In Europe, even the most lawless employer still have some level of respect or at least consideration for his employees. Some are completely shameless but try to keep it under burnout as it would cost them more than the pitiful joke of $100 per violation.
I only once worked (briefly) for an American Company, in the UK. The US attitude of having to fit my private life around the needs of work was pervasive. When one clown at head office decided that, as the factory ran round the clock and senior managers were only in the daily meeting Monday - Friday, there would be a telephone conference at 1pm on Saturday and Sunday. Add in being required to be available whilst on holiday and a few other factors, I would NEVER work for a US company again.
In the early days of a software startup I had a boss announce that everyone would need to be available 24×7 for customer support.
I said no. If we needed to provide off-hours customer support, which we did, we needed to staff it and schedule it. That I'd be perfectly happy to provide on-call support on rotating basis, but I would not commit to being available 24×7 in perpetuity.
We here in Germany have something called "Bereitschaftsdienst", that means, that you are getting payed, for the possibility to be reachable in case of emergency. Basically you can sit at home, or sleep, be paid for it, but you have to answer instantly in a case of emergency.
Everything else can wait for the next work day. No one I know, answers anything work related, if they are not paid to do so.
The problem are those employers that insist in employees to be on side during „core working hours“ and are restrictive as well distrustful on employees working at home or any other place than the office but expect and demand loyalty, after work availability and flexibility to their requirements.
“Hard work is good for the soul.” Wasn’t that the welcoming sign to some concentration camp, somewhere?
"Work sets you Free"
if working hard is so good for your health why don't we put all the hospitalized people to work?
Again from Sweden, it is so weird for us that this is an issue. In Sweden, your working-hours are managed by your employer. And your off-hours are managed by you. So simple.
"Ah, but what if the employer threatens to fire you for not making yourself available, or gives you bad work performance reviews, or brands you a 'non-team player' for not being available outside of the employment contract stipulations?", someone might wonder
Four little words: *see you in court* . The labour court will not tolerate that an employer sticks their nose into hours that do not belong to them, and even such indirect attempts at pressuring employees to be available counts as unlawful interference.
Usually though, we just answer "So... you are ordering me to do overtime? Sweet!" and happily take the overtime pay for it.
Controversial in the US maybe! Europe always seems to be leading the way in workers rights. I am pretty lucky at my job, but it's very clear that a majority of US workers are not so lucky.
As a German healthcareworker, overtime pay is just not worth it. It's still taxed, and it doesn't replace the time I didn't get to spend with my loved ones. I'd rather overtime was compensated in time off. Which happens once in a blue moon because of staffing issues. The overtime just adds up and collects dust.
Thankfully, my job doesn't really come with workplace communication off the clock. On call shifts notwithstanding. Those are terrible, too.
Bereitschaftsdienst is work time. Not free time.
"On call shifts notwithstanding" This is something that should be banned. They should figure out how to organize their staff with them actually being at work, not through calls during their off-time. I get this might be complicated with people calling in sick last minute (or other urgent matters) and finding a replacement for them quickly, if they couldn't call you during your off time. But then this technically is "Bereitschaftsdienst" and requires compensation and a ruleset attached to it. Otherwise you don't have to answer such calls. Forcing you to answer such calls is illegal.
@@dnocturn84 On-call = Bereitschaftsdienst. It's simply the English name for it.
What you're talking about is a wholly different situation.
@@Llortnerof If they call you in your time off, to ask you to switch your shift for some reason or to help out and take a couple of additional shifts, because someone got sick or whatever, then you should not answer to such a call. You did your job as previously agreed upon and if they want to change things around on-the-fly, then they should be forced to ask you when you're at your job anyway - not call you while you're off. If they need to rely on doing this through calls during your off-time, then it needs to be a paid on-call solution, or people working in this field should simply not answer such calls by their employer. You're not forced to do so, unless you agree in your contract somehow. But even this should be banned, unless compensation is paid. And the time when they do so must be strictly limited. Many employers in this field do this without real consent with their employees and without paying anything.
I see two distinct types of working beyond your contracted hours.
On the one hand, there's the situation where you have peaks and troughs in the workload, and some weeks there's just more work than others. As long as the organisation is reasonable about it, I have no problem working extra hours on those busy weeks if I then get the time back in the quieter weeks ... especially if they are willing to reciprocate when _I_ want _them_ to be flexible.
That's different from when there is more work than you can fit into the week _all the time_ ... because they aren't employing enough staff for the workload (or sometimes because other staff are off long-term sick, which may not be their fault and may not be quite as easy to remedy). In that situation, they can't really give you the time back because then the work will just build up again, so it can only really be dealt with by paying overtime ... I would be very reluctant to do that for any great length of time, and I would make it clear that I was doing it for them as a favour short-term to give them time to hire more staff.
As technician I have every 5/6 weeks a duty week to cover the 24/7 service. I get extra pay for being available and when the phone rings overtime starts, but when I have to work at night I don’t start in de morning and still get paid those hours.
I used to head the PR department of the German subsidiary of a French company. It was expected that I would be available any time, which means that for 13 years, my phone was only ever switched off when I forgot to charge it. Which means though that I did get to forget to charge it. Apart from journos calling me while I was on holiday (legit in their case, because they had my number but weren’t supposed to know that I was on holiday), my “favourite” nuisance was people from Paris HQ bugging me while there was a German bank holiday they ignored. On the other hand, any attempt to reach them in an emergency on May 8, July 14, November 11 and so on was usually fruitless.
I can say that my salary at the time was proportional to what was expected of me, and I accepted it. But the job in itself wore me out, and having an electronic ball and chain tied to my foot 24/7 was a large part of it. I was eventually fired for incompatibility with a new general manager, and probably because for economic reasons, middle management above a certain pay range needed to be thinned out during a financial crisis. But it was in some ways a blessing, because it took me years to learn to react to the simple sound of a phone ringing while I was at rest, without getting a fierce adrenaline rush.
I have a much humbler and less paid job today, which was difficult - you need a few years in the wilderness to get one of those with the word “director” or “head of something” on your resume - but I feel much healthier and happier, because I can work from home, and when I switch off in the evening, I can relax.
The right to disconnect is the LEAST U.S. employers can do for their pitifully paid minimum wage workers.
What those complaining about that California law forget is that if nobody sues, there's no judge. If those start-up employees really like that "flexible culture", why would they sue? This law only protects those who don't like it. Those who do can just not sue their employer and go on not exactly knowing what their employer's policy is, because that's all this law does.
At my workplace in Germany, there has been a similar instance of a workers' rights law not being in favor of what we employees want in that specific situation. Said law is the employer's duty to have some sort of system to automatically track the hours worked by employees. We do it the old fashioned way: when we work overtime, we tell the boss and he changes it in the spreadsheet that generates the time sheets for payout. Sometimes, we leave early and I really like that it's up to us to decide what is written down and what is, in a frame defined by trust. Having my hours tracked automatically would feel like surveillance to me and we all just wouldn't like it. So what do we do now that this law mandating an automatic system has been enacted? We just quietly keep doing what we have always been; if nobody complains, it doesn't get changed. Easy as that.
The right to disconnect is controversial, but the “right to work” laws in the US are not?
I dont understand your comment, but it seems interesting. Could you please briefly help me understand what you mean ?
Why would the “right to work” laws in the US be controversial ?
@@The-Cat The "right to work" laws mean employees should be able to join a company without being forced to join a an union. The controversy is that its agenda is to weaken unions. My personal opinion is there are some shitty unions in the US that mostly benefit the leadership or older members and use newer members are source of member fees. Maybe that is less of an issue in Europe. I feel unions should benefits all their members on an equal basis.
@@The-Cat Because these laws provide no protection to the workers in the US. This means that everyone can lose their job at any time with no more than "your services are not expected in our company anymore" line.
Great video about an important topic. However, just like your German examples, the rules are complicated in many European countries. The map of Europe you show reflects more on the traditional use of labor laws vs. trade union agreements than on which countries have limitations on the right to disconnect. In my country, Denmark, for example, most employees would be entitled to between 30 and 60 minutes of pay (including overtime pay) (possibly even twice the overtime pay) for just being contacted in any way. The exact details of this right are regulated by trade union agreements, adding another layer of complexity to the issue.
The reliance on trade union agreements makes comparisons across the EU almost impossible.
Same here in CZ, no one expects employees to respond to emails or messages after work hours or during vacation.
A friend of mine usually work on vacations for like one or two hours, remote IT work.
We told him that he doesn't have to do this and his answer was.
"When I am not doing it, Boss jr. will do the work. And Boss jr. is a jack of no trades and will mess up and I have more work after the vacation"
When he left the company Boss jr. actuallly called him, a few days later because he messed up a clients server and did not know what to do. ^^
3:09 I live in Germany. The Work Time law (Arbeitszeitgesetz) states that employees have to have a daily rest period of at least 11 hours. To my knowledge, that means if my boss calls me in the middle of the night about something, that means my rest period restarts. If he makes me come in anyway, I can report him and he gets into trouble.
Not in all cases.
Example: you ended your working day at 5pm, and you get a call at 4:30am then you already had 11 (actually 11:30 in this case) hours of rest.
In this example, you should show up at work as per your normal schedule and can not claim that you need 11 hours of rest starting from 4:30am.
@@massimogiussani4493 I usually work much later. We have flextime, I get in some time between 9 and 10 and leave around 8pm. So, if boss calls before 7, I'd get a day off. Things would get interesting, though, as I don't know the legalities WRT flextime here. If I don't forget, I'll check next week.
Until our retirement for the last 30 years, my wife has practised a 24/7 connectivity being a middle manager or being her own boss. There has been virtually not much difference working in Denmark or in Luxembourg for the European Union. She just could not help it because she wanted to be on top of her work.
She was not told to do it, but she always brought herself into situations where she should act. Her work partners knew she would react, so when a problem came up in the evening or during holidays, she was always willing to make decisions.
Sometimes, I hated this. For 35 years, we were never sure when a holiday started or when it was almost ruined by incoming work.
The main reason for this was that she had no problem taking responsibility for her decisions.
While working for the European Commission, we were on a vacation to Bodensee, bringing our pedelecs, but of the 5 planned days, she worked 4 of them for 2 to 5 hours, so I was cycling alone most of the time.
Of course, it was not always this bad, but when I wanted to be of grid in a tent in the middle of nowhere, she insisted on proper Internet connections, so most camping was off😢.
I was never in a paid managing position, but I understand her feelings of responsibility, like when I cancelled our 25th anniversary of living together due to an urgent meeting in the board of a sports club for which I was chairman 😔.
Now we have both retired, so I can not complain anymore 😊
"like when I cancelled our 25th anniversary of living together due to an urgent meeting in the board of a sports club for which I was chairman"
Ouch, payback is a bitch.
Hello from the UK, where I can take my annual leave and just fall off the face of the Earth as I am not paid on-call 😎😎😎
Sipping my coca-cola while lounging on my chair in the garden… 5 minutes away from work and I am in a work group chat. Trouble at work but no one dares to message me 😂😂😂
Awesome isn't it? We were shocked when my husband started his new job in Germany and they have a rule that employees MUST at least once a year, take 2 full weeks away (in addition to the other paid time off days). Otherwise they can't fully rest and recover and the body needs a lengthy time away to achieve that.
@@TypeAshtonwe are encouraged to take time off and I love it! Every 3 months the manager would remind us to take our days off and even book us 2 regular days off friday then monday (not annual leave) to have long weekends as short holiday. 🎉🎉🎉 Total win for me!
@@TypeAshton and this is not a company rule but it is in the law itself (at least that there should be the opportunity to do so)
@@TypeAshton my manager took me aside for a stern conversation because it was september and I had taken only 6 days off (we get 5,5 weeks a year). I showed him that I had taken time off using my overtime hours, but he was not having it. He told me that using overtime hours is not vacation but compensation and he expected me to take a real vacation of at least two weeks before the end of the year.
My employer regularly requests me to do stuff outside of work hours, but at the same time, doesn't bat an eye if I walk the dog for an hour while on the clock. The balance shifts in either direction on a weekly basis. Sometimes I work more than required, sometimes less. Neither party has a problem with this, and this is why I've worked for this employer for more than 15 years now.
I think some issues started with "bring your own device" policies. In our company everybody has a company laptop, but nobody takes it home normally. We record every work hour and have to compensate the overtime hours by taking time off, instead of financial compensation. Emergencies happen, long hours into the evening as well, but these are not the norm. In a company i worked before, everybody used their own laptops and their own mobile phones. Sometimes I got emails at 10pm and I still saw them because I was using my laptop for private reasons. It was sometimes difficult to resist reading the mail and "switch off the head" for good and go to sleep. In my current company I'm more relaxed and feel more productive.
As a European civil servant I must say I was surprised by how many times colleagues and bosses work overtime or on weekends since overtime work is not paid in our case (you can recuperate up to two days of overtime as days of each month) and if done on weekends oftentimes even not recognised as such. Not even one year in I have done it too on several occasions if the need arose. However my employer still puts a lot of emphasis on wellbeing, a good work-life-balance and does only accept overtime work of up to two hours a day as not to incentivise unhealthy work habits. When you are off work someone else needs to step in, you shouldn’t be irreplaceable and should be able to take off. Which is why starting in mid July to the end of August not much happens and gets done and you can “work off” some of the overtime gathered over the previous months
Both my wife and I have been working for the European Commission and know the problems of "récup" and for years, my wife struggled to get all of those 12 or more missing days of holidays postponed to the next year.
What sounds good on paper is not always as good in real life. "In the Commission, there is overtime."
We could easily work an extra 30 to 40 hours up to Christmas, but only 16 or later 20 hours were accepted to be transferred to the next month. The rest you just lose 😮.
@@gubsak55 I know all those issues and I am not a fan of it either but I think it's more a hiring issue than an incentive issue. The policy sets the right incentives for a good work-life balance, but for lack of staff in certain services the system fails itself as there is too much need for overtime work...I have had my fair share of overtime not even counted as such myself...
I use a company owned laptop as well as a company cell phone for business. So after my work hours both are switched off. For real emergency reasons, my direct boss does have my private cellphone number and I explicitly offered him to call me if there is a real emergency. And I got contacted twice during my vacations - during a timespan of the last 10 years. Once for a real emergency where they needed some information and once as my boss wanted to inform me about his leave (job change) and he wanted to let me know it directly from him before I got news or rumors by other sources.
That real emergency is/was probably a legitimate reason, the other one was not really work related but personal/private, so twice in ten years is a very acceptable score.
@@apveening That's what I wanted to get across with my comment - two contacts in 10 years is not an issue at all.
I know what it is like working without a day off as a nurse I started to get red spots on my face I was so drained . I was realy looking forward to days off.
Or I worked 2 shifts and had little sleep to start the next day.
If you are a nurse it is hard to live alife with work life balance. The patients arnt only sick in hospital for 4 days. At the moment we have to much to small amount of nurses. I am a baby boomer so I do not have to work for so much loonger .
Dear Ashton keep going I enjoy your intressting weeklys .many greetings Christiane from Berlin 😊
I’m based in the UK. I work from home and I know I work too much. However apart from a few colleagues work does not have my smart phone number. I out right told them that if they wanted to be able to contact me out of hours they would have to buy me one. Also I have a work laptop which gets shut on Friday evening and not opened until Monday morning. I’m a contractor and my client has explicitly set work hours and I cannot charge more than that anyway and my employer will not contact me for non chargeable work out of hours. I’ve have signed a working time directive waver that says I may have to work more than 48 hours in a week but I have only ever done this when trying to ship a product and it’s near to launch day. I have also told my employer that over time must be a rare exception and if it become the norm I will walk. Since clients specifically ask for me my employer has to comply.
If on emergency duty is needed and employees have to be on on-call-duty, in case a server might break down, those people get extra payment to be "on-call" and that usually last only for one week and than another one is on-call.
And in case you have to go into action, you will be additionally paid therefore and you still have to have 11 hours of rest until the next day.
So on-call action at 23:00 at night results in starting works the next day, not before 10:00 o'clock, as it would be against the law.
If the right to disconnect is a human right, is violating this right a kind of subsidization of the own companies, other countries are blamed for, like China?
To me, as someone living and working in Germany, the idea of my boss requesting something after-hours AND me HAVING to not only check my work e-mail, but also reply, is SUCH a foreign concept.
Not sure what would happen, were I to ever move to the US and have THIS expected of me. Hahah.
"Labour Laws" in the USA are more likely to protect the employer, rather than the employee. There might be some reciprocity, but even then, the employer usually has the upper hand.
There's some changes to that going on, but it's basicly 100+ years after worker's rights were established in Europe.
Work hours are established in a written contract. And if you're a "reactive" manager, rather than a "proactive" one, you're not a good manager. Americans are richer than Europeans but don't have the time to spend their money on family, travel and vacations. Kind of a Catch 22 situation. So they buy "stuff" and, hopefully build up a pension and previsions for expensive health related emergencies.
In Germany, there is no right to be unavailable via real time communication, but the opposite is true: the employer can only demand availability during working hours or when the nature of the work makes this absolutely necessary.
A definite disadvantage of this approach, however, is that it favors employees who are constantly available (by making them appear more "valuable" to the company).
I recall a German supermarked chain arriving in Denmark mid 80'es. Like MANY foreign companies, they thought they could work a round the unions.
They "pestered" their employees, when they were off sick. They were told not to check up on people like that, so they changed strategy. When an employee had phoned in sick, they brought them flowers with well wishes. They were told they could do that, but NOT deliver the flowers themselves 🤣
Try making an appointment with a Dutch person. There's a lot of planning involved. Dutch people love to be busy in their free time.
And that's not a good thing?
Yeah, Dutch association culture is huge. Almost everyone is fairly active in their free time with something (often multiple things). Just doing nothing is quite rare (so rare that when we do have it, we tend to even block it in the agenda. It might be 1 evening every 2 weeks). Don't expect someone to have time in the next 2 weeks. If you are making an appointment with 5 adults, expect the first available time for everyone to be 3-4 months in advance, if it exists at all.
Being busy with stuff that is not employment is quite popular here. Volunteer work is extremely common. And it tends to be stuff that is fun to do and much lower stress levels. And of course things like sports and cultural association membership. Almost everyone is a member of something that only exists by the virtue of volunteer workers. Whether that's a football club, a book club, or a music group.
Hi Ashton,
I’m viewing your channel and really enjoy it and appreciate your factual view on the topics especially when it comes to this cultural differences between Europe and the US.
I’m German, working as a workplace consultant for an American company, Paralympics around the globe.
And, people are not so different when it comes to their essential needs, but culture and company culture.
Your actual video displayed how modern employers should tread their employees. Not just to be come an attractive employer but at first to secure the own capability to innovate.
Thanks for your videos!
Schönen Sonntag und Grüße an die Familie.
I once worked at a company in Germany that has a special software. You log in and a counter starts, linked to your user. After 10 hours of worktime, the system shuts down and won't be able to restart until 11 hours have passed.
That is the maximum work-time each day and the down-time defined by law.
If an employer requires work outside of working hours it's obviously a request to hire the employee as a consultant. Send an invoice 🤔
Interesting that Austria is not yellow on this grafic. Because here (I´m from Austria) it´s the other way arround. There is no law and no private contract, which can force you to pick up the phone or edit emails off the hour. So, that´s really not a topic in my country. When you off duty, you are not reachable, period.
In the UK, we don't have any legal protection around this. I'm lucky in that (since I quit teaching) I've always worked for bosses who have respected those boundaries and not expected me to be available outside work hours or to work extra - although that is at least in part because I've stayed at a relatively junior level, I see those same bosses working long hours and that has put me off any aspiration to climb the career ladder. But I've got a lot of friends who aren't so lucky, and are expected to work well over their contracted hours for no extra pay.
I live and work in Poland, when I've been starting to work for my current company, my boss tried to make me work overtime for free. I simply said no, bcs I value my time and health. After few years I asked if I could work 6 hours instead of 8 for the same money (instead of a rise I was offered). My boss said we can try and see if that works out. After a year we are both perfectly happy with a result and we decided to continue on. 6h per day 5 days a week. In 8 years of working for this company I kinda changed the way my boss looks at her business and employees XD
This is crazy to hear that this must be a law, i know that some people dont have it that easy like when somebody is a CEO, it can be hard to turn off. But for me as a programmer, i do work from home and i never had problems with this, we still sign in start and end of our work time, we do report what we was working on and how long and all this times have to be matched and then i have to explain why i was working on something that long... This way i still work 8 hours a day, i cant fake my work time and after a 8 hours i sign out and turn off everything and nobody is expecting me to answer anything. But if i want to work i can, its all on my but overtimes are paid only when they specifically allow it.
But people who have to be on an emergency constantly have it really hard, their only hope is to get used to it and dont be under constant stress that something may happen. I will never be able to do this, big respect to this people.
As a German, I see it like this: the employer rents a certain number of hours of my lifetime, no more and no less. As soon as I finish work, I am definitely not available to the company.
The right to fair pay.
Meanwhile service workers in the US receiving tips to survive their dismal salary.
Thank you for this. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I've been without a manager (I'm the assistant manager) for over 3 weeks now and have been doing both positions working 12-16 hours a day. Yes, I've had help, but the fact still remains that I'm doing the work of 2 people without the extra pay. Luckily, a new manager arrives on Tuesday, and he's big on work-life balance. I'm hoping to transfer to Germany next year with the company I work for (they're a global logistics company), and can't wait for the better employment laws. But even if I don't transfer with the company, we're still moving!
US laws dictating overtime are really important, and interestingly, often get overlooked when discussions about raising the minimum wage come up.
At its inception the FLSA set the minimum wage at one-half the median wage and the overtime threshold at three times the minimum-an amount equal to 1.5 times the median wage, a level high enough to cover about two-thirds of salaried workers. Over the next few decades, thanks in part to these strong labor standards, real wages at all income levels broadly grew in lockstep with growth in worker productivity. Year after year as the median wage grew, both the minimum wage and the overtime threshold were regularly adjusted upward to maintain the FLSA’s intended 0.5 (minimum) to 1.0 (median) to 1.5 (overtime) ratio. For more than three decades overtime pay was the norm; most American workers expected to be paid 150 percent of their regular wage for every hour worked over 40 hours a week, and most employers expected to pay it. And since time-and-a-half gets expensive fast, employers were strongly incentivized to hire more workers in order to avoid routinely incurring the added cost.
But sometime around 1975 the prosperity of working Americans was dramatically severed from that of the economy as a whole. Entranced by an emerging free market neoliberal consensus, both Congress and federal regulators quietly abandoned the historic 0.5 to 1.0 to 1.5 ratio, allowing the overtime threshold and the minimum wage to be relentlessly eaten away by inflation.
Today’s $35,568 overtime threshold now stands at only 67 percent of the already diminished median wage and covers only 15 percent of salaried workers, compared to over 60 percent in 1975. If you earn more than $35,568 a year (and 85 percent of American workers do), chances are you’ve been misclassified into an “exempt” position that does not receive any overtime pay at all.
In The Netherlands we don't really have the "right to disconnect" fixed in our laws, but we do have a right to a minimum set of uninterrupted rest hours in which a boss is not allowed to contact you on anything work related. However, a lot of employers do give their employees a right to disconnect in the terms of agreement of a work contract. So even though it's not actually in our laws, we do have a form of "right to disconnect".
Great video again!
As usual, a well structured topic with lots of information.
From the first video that I watched, all your videos are of a great quality. To show my appriciation for your videos, I would like to comment, but...
because your videos are so well structured, I can never ADD something. I can only say: Thanks again :-)
In Germany, there is a law that regulates pretty much exactly how long you can work and how much break you MUST take.
In summary, the maximum working time is eight hours per working day. In exceptional cases, it can be extended to up to ten hours (then an average of eight hours per day must not be exceeded within 24 weeks). In my case, such "exceptions" take place regularly. But to be fair, I have to admit that at my employer, every extra minute is compensated by time off (or money).
Furthermore, the law says that work MUST be interrupted by predetermined rest breaks (> six hours: at least 30 minutes, above that at least 45 minutes). There must be an uninterrupted rest period of eleven hours between two working days, during which the employer shall not contact you. This is somewhat simplified and there are professions with special rules.
Only for extremely well-paid employees (upper management) the law can be circumvented by means of contracts.
Well: Some employers want to soften the law also for "normal" employees, on the grounds that working hours should be more flexible nowadays with all that fancy new normal tools. Other employers are simply breaking the law.
Overall, I can live with my current situation and hope for the unions to withstand the employer's requests.
Oh, BTW ... I do turn off my company smartphone when I leave office and do not check for e-mails outside of work time. I was called maybe ten times in my time off in the last 25 years by colleagues that needed help - and that is absolutelsy fine with me. I cannot remember ever being called by one of my bosses on a weekend or in vacation.
In Benedictine monastries the fundamental rule is "ora et labora" (pray and work). However, praying includes times of contemplation and meditation and resting is seen as a method to refresh your soul and your body. In that sense the Roman-Catholic confession seems to have stayed closer to its Jewish origin, particularly regarding the status of Sundays.
In contrast Calvinism and Puritanism seem to be more inclined to regard wealth as an indicator of strength of belief.
I'm work shift work. That includes a 7 day stretch once a month with time off. This week I decided to keep my phone on do not disturb and only take calls and texts from my family. I will say my boss never really calls unless it's really bad and no one can cover a shift. Which is rare. My boss is way younger than me and actually understands time off is needed to reboot and decompress. But other departments that have bosses that were abusing work hours to their employees and forced them out on days off.. Thankfully that is no longer in effect due to new upper mgnt who saw that and forced the bosses to stop that practice.
For me as a software engineer in Germany with a team of 6 I am more relaxed knowing everything is working fine. When I am on vacation or after my workday I answer my phone but it is rarely needed so just spending few minutes on free time saves me hours or irreparable issues later on
I think it is important to differentiate based on position/responsibility within a company. I am in a position of “leadership” and reachable 24/7 for my company, and my employer knows that. In almost 10 years, this has involved three emergency calls after Midnight from IT and one call during my holiday (vacation) from the CEO.
In these cases, IT just presumed I was interested and available (because they are IT and always live these strange hours), they were/are right - but hey, no one thinks about IT's night work! The CEO call during my vacation started with an apology for “invading” my private time and space. Therefore, regardless of what time or when that man calls my phone, I would pick up, because if he calls me on my vacation or IT calls after midnight, there is an issue that only I can deal with, and they do not expect, but respect me making time. The important thing is that I am recognized for my availability, and if it happens, I get to stay in bed the next day :-) Give and take, or as the Germans say, “one hand washes the other.”
You said germany doesn't have a specific law for the right to disconnect, which is technically true. However there is the "Arbeitszeitgesetz", that says between the end of a workday and the start of the next generally has to be a rest period of at least 11 hours. So if you answer a work call or mail at 11pm, you cannot start working earlier than 10am on the next day (there have been rulings to this already that ANY type of work will count for this). This has the same effect to some degree. And interestingly this 11h rest period even goes back to the year ~1900.
I've never understood this whole subject. Been in the 9to5 workforce for over 15 years in the UK. I _never_ had any issues with not working outside of business hours. My employer does not know my personal phone number or email, I close my work laptop at exactly 5pm, and never open it until 9am the next day. None of my employers have ever had any issue with this. When I go on holiday I don't even take my laptop with me, and I never check my work email... Neither any of my colleagues (who specifically didn't want to do it on their own for some incomprehensible reason)
I work as maintenance technician. So not much work I can do outside of work.
As our business (Railway-rolling-stock) runs 24/7 there come in some organizational
message come in from time to time. We usually don't need to answer before we
back at work but it can be useful to know it when things change.
Very important video! Great job Ashton!
Of course, as an employer, you have a responsibility to ensure that your employees can continue to live a good, well-rested and dignified life by having time for their loved ones, hobbies and interests, and to be able to fulfill their lives. Many countries have already proven that this can go hand in hand with productivity. But it's far from enough. That's why I highly recommend that you watch the video "Will wirklich keiner mehr arbeiten? Bye, Bye Hustle Culture" from the channel "Brust raus" if you have the chance.
Personally, it just annoys me how people define themselves by their income, status and profession. Judging each other as if they had the right to do so. This actually only proves one thing, namely that these people have complexes and, in my experience, the lives of these people are not characterized by real happiness and often there is only a show behind it. So why keep going like this? For a bigger driveway at the expense of everything else? Not my world!
I worked for a multinational firm in the 70's thru early 90's. We had pagers and then cell phones. Actually we never considered it a problem.
I grew up in a society and work environment, where there were no thing like email or even computers. In my twenties there was a typewriter on my desk and in daily use. With that, I grew up in an work environment where working hours were strictly limited to the time you were at the office or on site. Since there were no smartphones either, bosses simply didn't have a means to reach you outside of work hours besides landline telephones - and those could easily be ignored. Outside of grave emergencies no boss would ever call you at home on evenings/nights or weekends/vacations.
Having worked in such an environment for two to three decades before email and smartphones became a thing, this simply was not a problem at all. And when it became prevalent and a possible source for such problems, I - and everyone else I new in my age group - simply ignored that. We simply haven't (and still don't) granted our bosses the right to contact us without serious reason outside of work hours. And I've never met a boss who complained about that or made it a problem to us.
I think this became a problem, because the young ones started to accept such calls and reacted on it. Simply don't do it. At least in Europe, I'm convinced your boss would very quickly stop to contact you outside of work hours, and without creating any problems for you. They all know, that you signed a contract for 40 hours a week or less, and that everything more than that is heavily regulated. They know very well, that they ought to not do this at all.
When I worked at an office even though I did crunch a lot, doing 50 to 60 hour weeks for a couple of months at a time. When I was out I was free. I did have some OnCall time in one company, but it was a week at a time that I had to be available and received extra money to be available and extra money every time I needed to answer. Also the phone would really ring. I received emails out of the office, but I was never expected to answer immediately.
The work law in US is crazy. In Poland, we don't even think about it, because it is obvious that you are due to work 8 hours and not a minute longer. There is a limit of how many hours you can work per day. There are situations where sometimes those lines are crossed but only as an emergency, not for regular things. There is no "right to disconnect" only right to work a sane amount of hours and an obligation to pay for that extra hours. You get the same wage or higher in some cases.
Even the exemption in the California proposal is a no go. You forget the time before and the time after of the disturbance - in general we calculate with 25-30% extra time for each.
I am studying Mandarin in Taiwan for almost 9 months. No work life balance here. Don’t even have much days off in the year. I recommend researching Taiwan in terms of work culture. Many moms don’t get much pay leave for having a child. Many people work so much. Don’t get paid overtime. This information I gotten from the news here. Even sound living US be little better than Taiwan for work life balance. Still Europe is way better in work life balance.
I've been asked a couple of times what my mobile is at work so that I can be contacted. I refuse specifying "I don't have a company phone. I won't use my personal mobile for work purposes because the company isn't paying for that use". I can do that because my job is entirely internal and I don't need to provide support for the technical systems I'm expert in out of work hours. The principal is, in my opinion, the same.
I wonder about using a personal phone for work; if you are terminated or laid off and the company demands all of their property back would you be obligated to turn your personal phone over to the company’s HR or IT department to ensure it is clean.
I understand why people would use their personal phones for work but I don't think it is appropriate and as you're implying it opens up legal issues too.
Being from the Netherlands, you're spot on again!
Nice presentation. You are good at researching subjects. Good job! 😎
...listening to this as I am scheduling a work meeting for Monday. It is 11:30 on a Sunday night. Getting the mind ready for the workweek and sure will be thinking about it as I fall asleep. On the other hand, I enjoy the flexibility to take care of some minor family matters or be available as a volunteer in my fire department during "work hours" and catch up later.
Having to work outside of official hours is proof of poor management. I remember that when I was interning at IBM EMEA (40 years ago...) my manager explained to me that if an employee had to work overtime it was because the manager had not made a good estimate of the workload or the ability of the employee to achieve it. Likewise, if an employee must be reachable outside of his working hours, it's a proof that the working period is poorly defined by the manger.
In my opinion, applicability of work day limits very much depends on the type of job. It might be difficult to do so if one runs an own business. But also when being employed and doing a, say, scientific job which needs a lot of brain work. I cannot leave my brain at the company, it is always with me, and if there is a pending problem it's stuck in the head and one keeps on thinking about it outside working hours, even unconsciously.
Contacting employees outside working hours is stealing from them. I haven't sold my time 24/7 to my employer, just 37.5h/week. The rest of my time is my own.