Examining the Right to Disconnect: Benefits, Drawbacks, and Case Study

This essay delves into the concept of the 'right to disconnect,' examining proposed legislation in North America that aims to protect employees' time off by limiting work-related digital communication outside of business hours. It explores the advantages and disadvantages of such policies, noting that while some employees may benefit from disconnecting, others thrive on constant connectivity or may face social pressure to remain available. A case study of Volkswagen's initiative to stop after-hours email delivery illustrates a practical implementation of the right to disconnect. The essay also includes a personal reflection, questioning whether mandatory disconnection is always beneficial and suggesting that it may not address the underlying issues of work-life balance and employee well-being, ultimately arguing that the right to disconnect is a legal solution to a personal problem and that companies should address the root cause of employee burnout.

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Concept of right to disconnect
There is growing discussion in North America of possible legislation that would give
employees the "right to disconnect" once they leave the office, to prevent them from being at the
mercy of their phone 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Working world experts, however,
believe that the digital requirements of 21th century must be a vigorous discussion, and that strict
rules are possibly not the right solution. Recently, a city councilor from New York City
suggested that it is illegal to force an employee to access "electronic work-related
communications" from home, unless it is an emergency (Bolden-Barrett, 2018). Employers
should indicate in writing what are the hours of work and what are the times off, and they would
be prohibited from punishing an employee for refusing to view his emails or social networks
related to work outside of his office hours. Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois of Quebec Solidaire recently
introduced a private member's bill to ensure that employee time off will be respected by
requiring employers to adopt a policy of disconnection outside of business hours (Oliveira,
2018). job. His proposal provides for fines ranging from $ 1,000 to $ 3,000 for companies that
refuse to adopt such a policy or reevaluate its effectiveness and relevance each year (Oliveira,
2018). Nadeau-Dubois lamented that people are leaving work, but they are still working. He
further argues, “This was not the case for my parents' generation. In their time, when you left the
office, you left him. This is not true for my generation. The separation between professional life
and private life disappears. " (Oliveira, 2018). The federal government has also shown interest in
exploring the right to disconnect, which attracted attention last year when France passed
legislation to protect workers' free time (Moulton, 2018).
Based on the above-mentioned ideas, the right to disconnect can be described as the
obligation of companies with union representatives to include, in their annual negotiations on

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gender equality and quality of work life, provisions on the "modalities of full employment"
exercise by the employee of his right to the disconnection and the setting up by the company of
devices of regulation of the use of digital tools, with a view to ensuring the respect of the rest and
leave time as well as the life personal and family ". Failing agreement, the employer will have to
draw up a charter defining the modalities of the exercise of this right to disconnection and also
providing for the implementation, for all, of training and awareness actions for reasonable use
digital tools (Samuel, 2018). The right to the disconnection could thus be summarized as the
"right for the employee not to be connected to the server of his employer during his periods of
rest and leave".
Advantages and disadvantages of right to disconnect
This debate about a disconnection of employees is not trivial insofar as digital tools allow
a significant porosity between professional and personal life. And there is evidence that a
permanent connection to the work environment is a stressor. For some employees, the workload
is such that it requires a connection outside normal working hours (Stulberg, & Steve 2017 p.
87). For others, addiction to permanent connection is pathology. For others finally, the
connection everywhere and all the time is consubstantial with the freedom they have in the
organization of their work and what is a source of frustration is that they cannot decide for
themselves when and how to disconnect.
It follows from the above that disconnection is both a right and a duty for employees, and
that it is a legal issue, but above all a managerial one that comes from pedagogy, training and
user empowerment. Whether it is an agreement or a charter, it is about developing and
implementing rules of etiquette and management in an environment where digital is always more
present (Stinson, 2010, p. 73)

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The major disadvantage is that the right to disconnect will not assist all employees. Some
employees are deeply used to digital environment even at work and disconnecting may not be a
solution. This is because the right to disconnect is designed in such a way that the only possible
way out, to avoid working for free for digital platforms, is to disconnect completely. As it is not
accompanied by sufficiently protective measures for the individual, it will endanger the
companies that play the game (Carter, 2017 p.57). The principle of paying to enjoy a freedom
will de facto introduce an even greater inequality between those who can afford to do a digital
detoxification treatment in a remote camp in the depths of the Amazon and others who have not
ways. The disconnection is here censitaire (Gryna, 2004, p. 101). In the end, it will only protect
the privileged. Another disadvantage is that the concept of right to disconnect is not applicable to
all companies. This means that it is hard to make it universal law.
Case study
The case study selected for the purpose of this paper is found in the article entitled,
‘Volkswagen turns off Blackberry email after work hours’. The case clearly focuses on
Volkswagen company. So far, Volkswagen company is among the few companies that have
implemented the right to disconnect initiative. In the article, it is revealed that Volkswagen was
prompted to stop its Blackberry servers sending emails to some of its employees when they are
out of duty after complaints from the employees (BBC 2012). The article however admits that
the idea of disconnecting from work is not suitable for all employees. The article further added
that some companies such as Henkel and Atos are beginning to implement the right to disconnect
(BBC 2012). This move, according to the article reveals that companies are beginning to realize
that emails sent after work are not good. The article emphasizes the importance of downtime. For
example, Will Hutton asserted that, ‘You do need downtime, you do need periods in which you

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can actually reflect on something without needing instantaneously to give a reaction.’ (Secunda,
2018) The article also revealed that right to disconnect can improve the wellbeing of the workers.
However, what is stressed in the article is that firms should not just follow what Volkswagen did.
Instead, firms should consult first. The article revealed that other organisations will need
different solutions and what works in VW may not work elsewhere (BBC 2012). The article
ended by stating that the success of such policy is only possible when executive sit with
employees and determine how the policy should work.
Reflection
Today, you can check your emails almost everywhere and all the time. The boundary
between your professional life and your private life is now much more permeable than ever
before. The "right to disconnect" was set up precisely to give employees the possibility of not
being reachable and being able to "cut themselves off" from his messenger outside working
hours. stated purpose of this legislation is "to ensure that employees' time off and leave as well as
the personal and family life" are respected (Johnson, 2018). For a psychologist, this legislation is
relevant if it helps to preserve the well-being of employees. However, to my knowledge, there is
no evidence that a connection during rest and discharge is harmful to health. Conversely, one
could even make the following hypothesis: does preventing an employee from processing his e-
mails on his personal time could not, in certain cases, be harmful to his health? In reality, the
question is complex and requires a detailed analysis (Dubrin n.d. p.73).
I believe that the right to disconnect may not help much. Take for example the employee
for whom it is beneficial to take advantage of his free time and his family and who wishes not to
be asked outside of his working hours. In the context of a negotiation with his company, he could
therefore see his right to disconnection materialized, for example by configuring his mail so that

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e-mails sent to him on weekends are only received on Monday. If we stick to this simple
analysis, we could think that a right to disconnection is a priori a good thing for him, because it
would avoid stressful constraints potentially harmful to his health (popular notion of " burn -
out"). But things are not so simple (Mankins & Garton, 2017 p. 123).
First of all, it must be considered that the individual is also influenced by his social
group. Thus, even if some employees who are not very motivated to stay connected outside
office hours will have the right to disconnect, they will still have to endure what could be called
the "pressure of the norm" (Savage & Staunton 2018). To know that some of his colleagues do
not exercise their right of disconnection may sometimes be badly experienced by the employee
(Hesselberth, 2018 p.1995). The latter may for example feel guilty not to respond quickly to
solicitations, or think that to be seen by his superiors or colleagues, it must be responsive, etc ..
And if this "pressure of the norm" is too strong, then some of these professionals will want to
evade it by giving up their right to disconnect, even if they would have liked to spend time with
their family (Stinson, 2010 p. 57).
Secondly, there are professionals who, on the contrary, see a direct benefit in staying
connected: the race for bonuses, the feeling of doing well , the need for social recognition or the
bait of competition, for example, are motivating factors. the employee to stay connected. There
are also those for whom the profession is experienced as a "passion" and who find more interest
in working rather than doing something else (we meet more willingly these profiles among the
liberal professions). For these professionals, it is therefore difficult to "pick up", and for them the
question of a right to disconnect is no longer necessary because, in a way, they prefer to exercise
their "right to connection". Finally, there is one last factor that can also undermine the free will
of the professional.

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Conclusion
Work-life balance is fundamental to employee well-being and it is clear that the company
plays a central role (Phillips & Gully, 2013 p. 121). To escape a problem or compensate for a
temporary loss of efficiency, some employees may enter a vicious circle of "loopholes" at work.
In this case, the company could be, not the cause, but at least the amplifier of a fragility or a
malaise coming from the personal sphere. If not understood, this lack of performance is too often
interpreted as a loss of motivation or a lack of skills. And even when a personal difficulty is
mentioned, the employer, often supported by other employees, prefers to invoke the respect of
privacy to absolve them from taking it into account. However, there is a huge gap between
interfering with the private life of its employees and taking it into consideration in order to
defuse a critical situation that will ultimately hurt the company as a whole (Toor, 2017).
To respond to the growing abuses of society (and companies), and create the protections
necessary for the health of employees, a "right to disconnect" has been considered one of the
labor laws in countries such as France. But from my point of view, the right to disconnect is a
legal solution to a personal and individual problem. Therefore, far from protecting, this law
rather allows companies to relinquish the problems that their employees face, "after all, if it
burns out it's not my problem, it was only to "disconnect" since he has the right! " (Tornone,
2018)
To hope to be able to partition staff and professionals so easily seems to be a caricatural
solution that does not solve the fundamental problem of knowing how to detect upstream
problems, be they professional or personal, so that they can be settled before the employee and
the employee business suffer. The company is defined as a sum of individuals, and no longer as
a whole. Its performance therefore depends on the well-being and the individual performance of

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its employees. But how to take into account each individual in a society that has hundreds or
even thousands? How to respect the social equality of employees while taking into account the
individual constraints of each? How to support some employees, without braking others? How to
act and accompany the employee without taking himself for a therapist? These are issues that
business leaders face on a daily basis.
One of the solutions would be to favor networks and internal relays that are more
important than the hierarchy. They make it possible to detect the factors of depression, burn-out,
isolation, before they are amplified and especially to sensitize the employees to alert if they
notice such signals in their colleagues. Make everyone aware that reporting is proof of
benevolence and not treason. It is not in company’s interest to assume the problems of their
employees, whether personal or professional, especially if they impact the organization. On the
contrary, leaders should take the problem head on, generate a real collective awareness of the
risks associated with certain abuses and focus primarily on the collective while individualizing
monitoring. To detect, it is for the company, to understand, to accept and to accompany
temporarily a loss of performance rather than to risk to sanction it by ignorance and clumsiness.
Human Resource Management is an investment for the company. Safety and training are
generally pretty well handled, but health, well-being and trust are lesser known levers of
performance and in my opinion it is this set that is the foundation of a caring company.

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Bolden-Barrett, V (2018) NYC Considers a Right to Disconnect. [Online]. Available from:
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will-he/521797/ [Accessed 9/8/2018]
Carter, L 2017, 'Emotional Disconnect', TD: Talent Development, 71 (12), pp. 56-61, Academic
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Johnson, C. (2018) Text of the Proposed Amendment and Bill. [Online]. Available from:
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Mankins, M. C., & Garton, E. (2017) Time, Talent, Energy: Overcome Organizational Drag and
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Moulton, D (2018) The problem with a 'right to disconnect' law, The Lawyers Daily. [Online].
Available from: https://www.thelawyersdaily.ca/articles/2859 [Accessed 9/8/2018]
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Phillips, J. M., & Gully, S. M. (2013) Human resource management. Mason, Ohio, South-
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Samuel, H. (2018) British firm ordered to pay €60,000 by French court for breaching employee's
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Toor, A. (2017) France’s ‘right to disconnect’ is a nice idea, but it’s also pretty vague. The
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