The right to de-connection for your employees: what do you need to know about it?
May 2023 – In 2022, the federal government concluded the much-discussed labour deal. One of the measures in this deal is the right of deconnection for employees. Since 1 April 2023, companies with at least 20 employees must put compulsory agreements on paper. What do you need to know about this?
The past Corona pandemic caused a definitive breakthrough in structural teleworking and the use of digital communication technologies. These new forms of work increase efficiency in the workplace, but at the same time put pressure on work-life balance. In the fight for a healthier balance, legislators are invoking the mandatory right to disconnect.
Concrete
The right to deconnect means that from now on, your employees have the right not to be connected to digital tools for work outside working hours. Every company with at least 20 employees must put concrete agreements on paper about this.
If this right to deconnection is not regulated in a national or sectoral collective agreement, you must do so at company level. The deadline for such company-level collective agreements was 1 April 2023. This was the deadline to deposit the collective agreement at the registry of the General Directorate of Collective Labour Relations of the FPS WASO.
Were you unable to conclude a company collective agreement? Then you had to amend the labour regulations by 1 April.
What action point(s) should the collective agreement or work rules contain?
It covers the following points:
The practical modalities around the application of the right to deconnect after the applicable hourly schedules for your employees.
The guidelines on the correct use of digital tools (such as laptops and mobile phones) so that the employee's rest periods, leave, private and family life are safeguarded.
Training and awareness campaigns for employees and managers around the wise use of digital tools and the risks associated with the lack of deconnection.
What in companies with fewer than 20 employees?
Of course, employees in smaller companies are also entitled to a healthy work-life balance, with the right to be disconnected from work outside working hours. For these companies, there is (for now) no obligation to include these agreements in a collective agreement or labour regulations. However, this does not prevent you from making concrete agreements with your employees on the right to be deconnected and these can also be set out in writing, whether or not in the labour regulations.
In any case, this labour decree measure is a great opportunity to make this subject discussable in your company, in order to give the psychosocial well-being of your colleagues the necessary attention.
