The Conservative progressive government has said that the law on the right to disconnect aims to protect the privacy of workers in the midst of technological advances in the workplace. Emilio Morenatti / The Canadian Press
Employers in Ontario who are now legally required to have a right to disconnect policy have become accustomed to developing it in a broader way, rather than providing specific mechanics of how and when employees can stop working, according to advisors which have helped to design them. documents.
Late last year, the province introduced legislation that required Ontario-regulated employers with more than 25 employees to develop a written policy by June 2 on how to ensure their employees are not harmed. engage in “work-related communications” after work. hours. (The law excludes federally regulated employers, such as banks).
“The majority [employers] They start with very generic policies because people are still trying to mentally understand how all this works, “said Bettina Burgess, a labor and labor law partner at Gowling WLG. Ms. Burgess said there was a general consensus among her clients that they could not have a single policy on the right of employees to leave their jobs.
The Progressive Conservative government has said that legislation on the right to disconnect aims to protect workers’ privacy in the midst of technological advances in the workplace, given the rise of remote and hybrid work. However, when the law was first passed, some criticized it for being “impractical” and lacking in detail, as it had only a couple of paragraphs and lacked information on how to implement a policy.
Since then, the province has expanded its guidelines, with some details. For example, the law states that a policy should clearly describe employees’ expectations regarding communication during days off or after business hours, and that the policy should apply to managers and executives. a company.
The development of these policies has also raised questions about communication with employees if there is an urgent work-related situation.
“The legislation has forced employers to start thinking about what an emergency is,” said Stephanie Little, a consultant for Toronto-based human resources consultancy Bright + Early. Ms. Little said her clients have included language that encourages employees to disconnect, but they are careful not to explicitly order when that disconnection should occur.
“We work mainly with startups and they want to maintain a degree of flexibility. They don’t mean “absolutely, please disconnect during these exact hours.”
One of the actions that Ms. Burgess has told his clients to start attaching frequently asked questions to their policies.
“What if you’re in IT and you have to sign in at 3am to fix a problem? Pose these scenarios so employees know what to expect,” he said.
Lawyers say Ontario’s right to disconnect policy is “impractical” and lacks detail
Richelle Pollard, a partner at KPMG Law LLP specializing in labor and labor issues, said she was full of questions from employers about how they would implement the right to disconnect before Thursday’s deadline.
“Employers certainly wanted to keep their policies rather broad, but I think the key to include is that employees will not be retaliated against if they disconnect outside of hours or weekends,” he said.
Toronto-based technology company 1Password, which employs about 800 people in six time zones, has designed a one-page policy that focuses on how employees can tell their colleagues and managers when they are available or no.
The policy, seen by Globe and Mail, tells employees to use communication tools such as Slack and Gmail to indicate the time zone where they work and when they are online, offline, out of office, or even when they may be late. to answer. for a personal appointment. It also asks employees to clearly indicate a response time to a request.
“If the recipient does not know the time of the request, they may feel that they must respond immediately,” the policy states.
Erin Bury, co-founder of Willful, a do-it-yourself real estate planning platform, said her company introduced a right-to-disconnect policy despite employing fewer than 25 employees because it was very important for her to create a healthy office culture.
“Startups are often the worst offenders of their employees’ overwork and can be toxic jobs, ”he said. “I was surprised that the legislation did not include employers with less than 25 employees.”
Willful’s policy, that Mrs. Bury shared with the Globe, includes language that explicitly states that employees are not expected to respond to any type of work communication outside of work hours.
“We ask all team members to ask the following questions before sending an out-of-hours communication: Is it timely? Is it important? Is it work-related?” political states.
Because Willful employees work in three time zones, the company has set a four-hour window from 12 to 4 pm ET where all employees should log in.
“These are the only hours we dictate. Everyone is expected to work 8 hours, but you can figure out how to work those hours according to your personal schedule.
But creating a culture where employees feel comfortable disconnecting completely from work is complicated and will take time, Ms. Burgess.
“Ultimately, employers should not want their employees to work excessively and should ensure that their workload is manageable,” he said.
Ontario is the only province that has formally introduced legislation on the right to disconnect. Quebec played with the idea last year through a defunct bill. The federal government has convened an advisory committee to discuss the pros and cons of introducing new legislation into the Canada Labor Code, but progress is stalled due to substantial disagreement among committee members over legal implementation.
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