By Terry Nisbett
Emails and phone calls after work can lead to overtime pay in Brazil. The country has introduced a law that gives workers the right to claim payment for responding to after-hour emails and phone calls. Some companies elsewhere have instituted measures to reduce the time their workers spend on answering emails.
Volkswagen in Germany has decided to shut off servers and stop sending emails to workers 30 minutes after the close of their shift. Persons in senior management positions are not included in this rule, however. Thierry Breton, chief executive of Atos, a technology services firm, says he will ban internal emails in that company by 2014. Mobile technology especially has given companies and customers instant access to workers on a 24-hour, seven days a week timeframe. Employees often receive requests on their mobile phones for information and even action after the workday is over. The line demarcating the workday is becoming increasingly blurred. More and more, the work place is creeping into the home and family area.
Is the overtime pay fair? Apparently workers in Brazil had already been filing lawsuits against their employers to get paid for the after-hours work. That shows how strongly they felt about the way work was encroaching on their private time. Some may argue that workers would bring work home anyway. This, however, was their choice. Getting a call or an email from their boss after work on the job-issued Smartphone is like an order. It is not work the employees chose to bring home, but rather work sent home for them to do.
Like the Brazilian workers, Chicago policeman Jeffrey Allen has filed a class action suit against the Chicago Police Department to claim overtime pay for work done in his off duty time. The court papers indicate that the sergeant and others in a similar position "were issued personal data assistants (PDAs) such as Blackberry devices that they were required to use outside their normal working hours without receiving compensation for such hours." This would probably serve as a test case to see whether the old laws can apply to modern situations. An interesting observation, in response to these claims for compensation, is whether workers will compensate their employers for time spent on the job on their personal emails, instant messaging and online shopping. It seems there is room for negotiation in that regard.
In spite of that, there is no denying that many workers are finding that more and more work is being done after hours, primarily because of the new telecommunication technologies. In the case of Volkswagen, the unions were concerned about the well being of workers rather than the compensation. The constant keeping up with calls, text messages and emails at all hours can wear down workers. "Mobile communication devices offer a great amount of freedom, but also embody the risk of no longer being able to switch off," says Deutsche Telekom which has introduced a Smart Device Policy to help workers switch off. Switching off will not be appropriate for all industries, however. There are still many sectors which need workers to be on call, such as providers of electricity, water, telephone and medical services. In these cases, the newer phones and other devices are only modern equipment for accepted industry practice.
There are social consequences for the increasing intrusion of the workplace in the off duty life of the worker. Spouses, both male and female, can feel neglected or even become resentful at the frequent interruptions to family occasions. A spouse constantly on his or her mobile phone cannot give full attention to the rest of the family. Work calls reach employees even on vacation, at the child's music recital or sports event. This partial attention can cause stress and conflict in a marriage. In fact, the Smartphone has been jokingly referred to as the third partner in the marriage. Clearly, there are more important considerations than getting overtime pay.
The goal should be to achieve a balance between work and social life. Many claim that no one is forced to keep his devices turned on all the time. That is true. An employee can turn off the laptop or Smartphone while he is at home and give full attention to other people in his life and to home related tasks. But the worker who is anxious about missing a message from his boss may be disinclined to switch off. When a company provides an employee with a mobile device, he feels more obligated to respond to all messages no matter the time and location. That seems to be the intent of providing the device in the first place. Such an employee may not want to seem tardy or indifferent to a request. He could compromise by switching off then setting time later to check on any messages. That brings us to the companies mentioned earlier. Their actions seem to indicate that the companies will have to help the workers get free of the after-hour intrusions. Of course, if the laws, like those in Brazil, give the workers compensation rights, one may see a reduction in the practice of keeping employees on the job 24/7.
Salaried workers are not likely to receive compensation for answering work-related emails and phone calls at home, for hourly paid wage earners are the ones who usually qualify for overtime. But as more workers test the system with lawsuits, employers everywhere may have to reduce their demand on workers during their spare time, switch off, or pay up.
