Every Sunday morning, Roland Perez gives us the keys to understand what our rights are everyday.
Here again this morning, a question about our rights that will interest more than one Roland, since it is about the use of the mobile phone at work and the possibility or not, for the employer, to forbid its use ?
This question should interest more than 25 million employees in France of the more than 50 million who have a laptop.
And the question is not simple. It's even a headache for employers who complain about the fact that employees consult their phones every day, most often to surf the social networks and not even to call. This is a scourge for companies, hence the question that keeps coming up and that is posed by companies to lawyers: can they legally prevent their employees from using laptops at work?
And the answer is no, employers can not!
It's as simple as that ?
In fact, employers can not oppose the individual freedom of employees, but they can still restrict the use of personal phones during working hours. This requires the employer to have a valid reason relating to the employee's working conditions. Example: we do not imagine that a driver or a carrier or someone who handles dangerous products, can use his laptop non-stop during his work.
The nature of the job and especially the safety of the employee and the company must justify the prohibition of use of the laptop. Same thing in an open space: an employer can ask his employees not to have personal conversations on the phone so as not to harm colleagues.
So, if the employee occupies an office alone, the employer can not prevent him from using his laptop?
Exactly. In fact, what the employer can do is supervise by the rules of procedure, which must be prominently displayed in companies, the possibilities of using the laptop by setting up, for example, vibrating or silent mode. for everyone, the fact of being able to call or answer outside the spaces where colleagues work and of course to have a reasonable use of their mobile phone anyway. Discretion must be the rule.
I imagine that justice has already had to judge this question?
Of course, and the courts have applied what the National Commission on Computing and Freedom (the CNIL) advocates has stated that if the use of the telephone and the internet in the workplace is possible, it is necessary that that this use is reasonable and that it should not interfere with the work of the employee. In other words, the employer does not have to suffer!
What amounts to saying that an abusive use by an employee of his mobile can lead the employer to dismiss him for a good reason, even if I grant you it, the proof is often difficult to bring.
Well, if I understand correctly, the use of the laptop still has good days ahead of him at work!
Yes ! I told you it's often a headache for employers!