After blurring the technology of the boundary between personal and professional life, some of Japan's leading companies oppose allowing employees to reject phone calls and emails during holidays. While others are grappling with ways to implement work-style reforms, some companies give employees the “right to disconnect,” a concept that has become legal in a number of European countries.

One of the leading companies that give this right to its employees is Osaka-based YRG; since 2011, its 140 employees have been encouraged to spend at least nine days off once a year, preventing company contact Through them either via phone, email, or social networking sites.

At the start of the Yama Gomori holiday, some staff wondered what would happen if there was a problem while they were away, but now they are all benefiting from the program. The company also applied a rule requiring employees to get approval from their manager if they wanted to reschedule holidays for work-related reasons, a move designed to make changing plans difficult.

Yuma Hiro, who works for the company's human resources department, spent a two-week holiday in Kenya and other East African countries in March. Before his trip, he created a peer document outlining how to handle about 50 tasks on his agenda. The 26-year-old, in charge of recruitment and sales, provided detailed instructions in the document and in meetings on how to handle individual correspondence with clients and applicants. He shared his clients' email addresses with colleagues a week before his trip, assigned them incoming and outgoing emails, and left his smartphone in Japan.

Great competition

"It is an opportunity to forget the work, once a year, and completely refresh the self," Hero said. Labor laws remain tough, with considerable competition at home and abroad. Since employees are unable to communicate with anyone from the company, during the annual holiday, they make sure that no problem is caused to their colleagues. The “Mountain Isolation” holiday helps combat fatigue and gives colleagues who are in charge an opportunity to learn about other aspects of the work.

The average number of employees on paid leave in Japan averaged about 20% in 2010. After the introduction of “mountain isolation”, the proportion rose to 47.3% in 2011 and 71.6% in 2017. According to a 2017 survey Fukuoka-based Systems Inc., in the 1920s and 50s, 44.8% of office workers take home work with them. In addition, more than 80% of those surveyed said they did not report “clandestine overtime” at their companies.

Delete mail

Since 2014, Japanese organizations have used a system that deletes all incoming emails during holidays, in accordance with procedures whereby the sender is notified of the deletion of the email and requests that it be resent once the person returns from the holiday; In your inbox.

In fact, experts say, making employees completely disconnected from their devices on a voluntary basis in Japan's work-driven culture is, to say the least, difficult.

“It is difficult to define the right to disconnect clearly in Japan,” says Nihon University professor Machiko Kameo, who specializes in labor laws. In Europe, the need for the right to disconnect has been a point of discussion for some time.

Health protection

Since 2017, employees in France, who work in companies with 50 or more employees, have been given the right to disconnect and stay away from work emails outside working hours, although the law does not impose any penalty for wrongdoing. A similar law was passed in Italy. However, these laws remain vague and take some time before they are fully implemented because they do not restrict contact with work after working hours, and only require companies to clearly negotiate terms with potential employees. Although there are no actual laws regarding the right to disconnect, German institutions have a history of implementing the rules in the same way.

In 2011, Volkswagen implemented a policy that would stop email servers from sending messages to employees' mobile phones between 6 pm and 7 am. Other German companies have similar policies to limit the amount of digital communications employees receive after working hours.

In 2013, the German Ministry of Labor prevented its managers from contacting employees after working hours as part of a broader agreement on teleworking. This was done to protect workers' mental health. In 2014, a program called Holiday Messages was included; employees can use it to automatically delete incoming mail while on vacation. This was done to allow employees to get a break and return to active work.

In 2014, Germany's Minister of Employment, Andrea Nals, sought to introduce “anti-stress legislation” in response to the increasing levels of stress and mental health problems in Germany. The legislation will prevent companies from contacting employees outside office hours. The Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has been mandated to issue a report on mental health in the workplace and the validity of legislation. The report was finalized and published in 2017.

negative effect

In response to the September 2015 report on the impact of digital technologies at work, which supported the right, the Government of France adopted the right to “cut off professional contact” in the Labor Code. The report was presented to the French Minister of Labor, Mariam Khamri, after the former minister asked for information on the impact of digital transformation on work. The report recommended such a procedure, which states that a proper balance between work and private life is essential to allow digital transformation to have a positive impact on the quality of life of employees, and that knowing how to dismiss is a skill that needs to be supported by employers. The report found that continued professional contact causes stress, and can lead to fatigue that negatively affects mental health and social relationships.

Excessive use

Jurists in Ireland said employees should not be obliged to answer work calls, emails, or engage in any work-related activity outside contracted working hours.

A report by trade unions, entitled “The Impact of Technology on Employees,” found that a large proportion of employees feel employers use technology to restrict or discourage employees for work.
She called on the government to introduce legislation on the right to disconnect from work, "which would force employers not to exploit contractual working hours and excessive use of technology."

Similar legislation already exists in a number of European countries, including France, Italy and Spain. Gareth Murphy, head of industrial relations and campaigns at the Irish union, said there was "a disease that engulfs the world of work and work-related tension is the main driver of this." One element of work-related stress is outside work hours and a “always connected” culture in many workplaces.

Employers do not seem to be doing enough to prepare employees for changes in technology, with just over one in three people surveyed indicating that the employer has not provided adequate training and development to help them feel ready for the impact of technology on their roles and tasks.

The report, which covered some 2,000 people, made many recommendations to employers, including that they pay more attention to improving workers' skills and that they ensure measures are taken to prevent excessive use of technology.

In addition, it calls for collective bargaining at the workplace level, to meet the challenges of workplace technology, including the impact on staff.

Tremendous effects

Harvard Business School professor Leslie Pirlo conducted a survey of 1,600 managers and professionals. In America, 92% of respondents said they worked 50 hours or more a week, including hours when they were in contact with off-duty work. A third of respondents said they had passed more than 65 hours. "Professional staff devote most of their waking hours to their professions," said expert Heather Boshi. When many people have long working hours, the effects are enormous and families pay the price. Long working hours can usually cause parents to face problems. A group of research suggests that children whose parents work long hours are more prone to behavioral or cognitive problems or are obese. Even parents who can provide nannies or day care are under intense pressure to provide thoughtful attention to their children, when they keep working in their desks after dinner hours.

80%

Respondents do not report “clandestine overtime” at their companies in Japan.