Right to disconnect

What it means

The right to disconnect is the right of an employee working from home not to be available to the employer outside working time. It means they need not read or handle work emails, answer calls or log into company systems during time off, weekends or holidays.

The Labour Code introduced it expressly in its rules on home working and telework, and states that exercising this right is not a breach of work duties. The employer may not penalise or disadvantage the employee for it.

The right to disconnect does not conflict with on-call duty. If the employer needs someone to be reachable outside working hours, it must agree this as on-call duty, which carries compensation, and pay any work done during it as work, for example as overtime.

How it works in practice

We advise clients with remote staff to set availability rules in writing, in the employment contract or an internal policy. It is enough to define when a response is expected and how urgent situations are handled, for example through agreed on-call duty.

Technical settings help too: scheduled sending of emails, an “unavailable” status in messaging tools or routing urgent matters to a colleague on duty. Managers should lead by example and not message the team at night expecting an immediate reply.

When recording working time at home, we make sure it captures the hours actually worked, including work outside normal hours. If an employee regularly works evenings, that is overtime to be recorded and paid, or a reason to reorganise the work.

What to watch out for

The risk is an unspoken expectation that a “good employee” replies at night too. An employer that rates someone worse for exercising the right to disconnect breaks the law and in a dispute risks compensation claims and a labour inspectorate check.

Take care with employee monitoring when checking availability. Tracking computer activity or location outside working time intrudes on privacy and is not permitted without a clear legal basis and informing employees.