As I sat relaxing in my pyjamas, catching up on The Great British Bake Off on a Wednesday evening, I heard an email alert ping from my laptop. I looked over at my makeshift desk – our dining table in the days before Covid-19 – and sighed. Further alerts followed, and despite having already worked a long, exhausting day as a shifting freelancer on a national publication, I got up from the sofa and sat down at my desk to read the emails. My boyfriend rolled his eyes and started his almost daily, “you should keep your laptop closed in the evenings” speech, but the anxiety of being the only one on the team to not reply was too much for me to ignore them. Even when I’d tried putting my laptop away I’d found myself constantly refreshing emails on my mobile, knowing that my editor’s preferred time to send emails (with questions), was between 8pm and 10pm.
And I’m not alone. The rise of remote working has blurred the lines between work and personal time, with a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts finding that during the pandemic, the average workday has extended by 8.2 per cent – that’s an extra 48.5 minutes. The same study, which collected data from 3.1 million workers across Europe, USA and the Middle East, also saw an increase in the number of internal emails sent and received. The truth is, we’re working longer hours and it’s having an impact on our mental health. A poll by worker’s union Prospect found that 30 per cent of remote workers reported working more unpaid hours than before the pandemic, and 35 per cent of remote workers said their work-related mental health had got worse during the pandemic, with 42 per cent attributing it to their inability to switch off from work.
It’s a shift that Dr Omara Naseem, a specialist counselling psychologist, is seeing first hand. “Working in the NHS, we’ve seen a massive rise in referrals for mental health services for people presenting with symptoms such as anxiety, depression, stress, and burnout. This has a lot to do with Covid-19 and working from home,” she explains. “Part of this is because we’re working beyond our limits now – we're constantly switched on, we’re in hyper arousal all the time.” She goes on to comment on my personal situation. “If you’re relaxed, and then quickly switch back on again, you enter a fight or flight mode that’s going to lead to chemical imbalances, disrupted sleep, chronic stress due to a build up of the stress hormone cortisol, and at some point, burnout.”
It’s not just mental health that’s affected, a World Health Organisation study published in May concluded that working 55 or more hours per week could mean a 35 per cent higher risk of a stroke compared to working 35-40 hours a week. But there could be an unlikely solution; the possibility of new legislation that could see the sending of internal emails outside of work hours being banned. It might sound a little radical, but it could happen under reforms to the Employment Bill this Autumn. Prospect is calling for the “right to disconnect” to be recognised as part of employment law, proposing that companies be legally required to negotiate with their staff on when they can and cannot be contacted for work purposes.
Andrew Pakes, deputy general secretary and research director at Prospect, believes our new normal means legislation is more necessary than ever to make sure we don’t work ourselves to the point of burnout. “I think everyone's been working extra hard to keep their jobs and to help their companies keep going, and we’re all frazzled,” he explains. “The ‘right to disconnect’ is about the culture of work, it’s about workloads, and it’s about working people and their managers having serious conversations about how we make all these things balance. We’re not going to go back to nine to five for many people – we’re all working different hours and we’ve got to be really careful about what the digital and email culture is like. I think there’s a danger of creating a form of digital presenteeism.”
So how would this “right to disconnect” work in practice? “What we’re calling for is an obligation on companies with 50 employees and above to talk to their workforce, and agree local plans, so it isn’t always about one size fits all, it’s also about individual workers and bespoke plans,” says Pakes. “It’s not about not answering emails at two minutes past five on a Thursday, but if your normal working patterns are say, 7am to two o’clock, then you shouldn’t normally be expected to still be working at three o’clock.”
And this obligation to negotiate model is already working abroad. “France is the most famous example and that’s the model we prefer,” explains Pakes. “Which is the obligation on companies to publish an annual plan. So to negotiate with their workers, so they can have it tailored to different jobs and departments, but the company has to demonstrate that it spoke to their staff or their trade union, and to come up with an answer. It’s creating a culture where people feel they don’t have to answer emails when they’re not working, but also encourages people to respect other people’s working time as well.”
Other countries already taking legal or “code of practice” models on board include Germany, Slovakia and most recently Ireland. Companies such as Renault and Telefónica have agreed on global “right to disconnect” agreements, and dating app Bumble made headlines last month by announcing it was closing all offices for a week to give all staff a paid week off work in order to switch off and recuperate.
The benefits of new legislation could benefit employers, as well as employees. “We think it makes for better, more productive workspaces which benefits employers,” says Pakes. “In, the year before Covid-19, the UK lost 18 million working days due to stress and people being off sick, that could be a lot worse coming out of this pandemic. The right to disconnect should reduce absenteeism by giving people the space to improve their wellbeing, which makes people much more productive. Plus you’re going to keep the best talent if you have flexible working.”
So what can we do to disconnect right now? Dr Naseem has some tips. “Create a schedule for your day, mapping output of exact work and meetings, coffee and lunch breaks and what time your work day finishes, set alerts to remind yourself to do them,” she advises. “Then, unplugging from technology is key, turn off notifications on your phone or specific work device, and separate your work and home space by totally removing or covering up laptops and notebooks etc for the evening – out of sight out of mind.” But what about the guilt? “Speak to your team and come to an agreement about staying off emails, and also seek out a mentor who has already worked through disconnecting,” she suggests.
On a personal level, I spoke to my boss and the wider team about our issues with evening emails, and we came to an agreement that even though my boss would continue to send emails at the time that best suited her, the rest of us would not reply until the next day. I also removed work emails from my personal mobile and have set up my spare bedroom as an office – and I close the door on it at 7pm at the latest… Most days.
