The Economist December 11th, 2021 pp64 |Finance&economics|"Work and the pandemic". "Only Disconnect". "The difficulties of policing remote work"
Read The Economist for all the details.
Summary by 2244
Working from home. Image from Steelcase.com
As the pandemic seemingly wanes it's obvious that some work from home (WFH) is here to stay despite the blurring of "the boundary between work and home life..."companies save on overhead costs and workers receive the benefits of WFH-no commute, flexible hours etc.
Recently Portugal has been in the news after banning "bosses...from calling workers 'after hours' and has ruled that "employers...[must]...provide remote-working equipment and reimburse electricity and internet costs, and must hold in-person meetings twice a month to help combat isolation."
Although not previously highlighted some european countries like France and Italy had "similar rules in place even before covid -19." These regulations have been allowing workers the "right to disconnect"-specifically to "ignore after-hours texts, emails and calls from their bosses without fear of repercussion." Ireland has followed suit and even in Japan "employers are responding to workers demands for better work-life balance."
Volkswagen has dealt with potential failings of voluntary compliance, workers tendency to answer calls etc. anyway and an unwillingness to report violations, over the "past decade...[by disabling]...the German carmaker's servers..." such that workers can't receive work emails on their phones between 6:15pm and 7am."