"C'est la vie", "Oh la la!" or even "Vive la France". Headlines containing these expressions have flooded even reputable news servers and websites focused on expert articles from the world of work and technology in recent hours. The sites include the BBC, The Times, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Fastcompany, Mashable or CareerBuilder. All of them wrote about a new legally binding agreement between major French trade unions and employers' federations which bans sending and answering work e-mails before nine o'clock in the morning and after six o'clock in the evening. The document with the agreement itself has been published e.g., in the article here (in French).
The ban applies to about a million employees in the sectors of digital technology and consulting services. These are employees of the French subsidiaries of Google, Facebook, Deloitte or PwC. Employers agreed to end working with both emails and phones after 6 pm. They also agreed on not being allowed to force employees to stay online until 9 am. Employees were asked to stop working at the specified time. In addition to the 35-hour working week, the French have now been given another 133 hours a week that are intended solely for recreation.
No information source has been able to report what the possible penalties will be for employers or employees failing to comply with the ban. They only quote Michel de La Force of the French Confederation of Managers who said that some after-hours emails could be used in "exceptional cases". There is speculation about the impact of this regulation on communication in international companies operating in different time zones.
Do you think this will work? Would you support introducing a similar measure in our country?
How do you fight against the urge to be constantly online?
-kk-