Britain’s new Labour government is watering down ambitions to give employees a legal right to ignore work demands outside office hours, favouring softer rules that had a limited impact for workers in Ireland.
Rather than seeking legislation for the “right to switch off,” ministers instead will push for a code of practice for businesses, according to people familiar with the matter. The government is modelling its approach on Belgium and Ireland, which have guidelines on out-of-hours communications, and in contrast with France and Portugal, where the right to disconnect is enshrined in law.
The softer tack is part of prime minister Keir Starmer’s effort to assure executives Britain is a good place to invest, and is a setback to union leaders who have pushed for tougher measures. With the economy set to slow and productivity lagging, the government is keen to keep businesses comfortable with its agenda.
An Irish-style code of practice would be weaker than had been expected when deputy prime minister Angela Rayner first set out the plans as a shadow minister in 2022, when she pledged “workers will have a new right to disconnect from work outside of working hours” and not be contacted by their employer outside of working hours.
A law would enable people to claim compensation if their right to disconnect was violated, while the code of practice serves as guidance on how managers should behave. Guidelines have no legal power on their own but can be used in court as evidence for separate charges such as unfair dismissal or discrimination.
Siobhra Rush, partner and head of the Dublin office at law firm Lewis Silkin, said the effects of the changes in Ireland had been limited. “The biggest impact that we saw here was, you’d see the footer at the end of an email saying, ‘I’m sending this outside my own working hours, but unless I’ve marked it as urgent, I don’t expect a response’,” Rush said.
A third of Irish workers were not aware the code of practice existed, with numbers relatively unchanged since the right to disconnect came into effect three years ago, according to a survey conducted by consultancy HR Buddy in April. Less than 10% reported they noticed a difference since the policy change in 2021.
Labour has pledged to introduce legislation on workers’ rights in its first 100 days in power, including tighter rules on zero-hour contracts and making workers eligible for sick pay from the first day on the job, which will then be consulted on with businesses and trade unions before becoming law.
Flexibility remains the main appeal for businesses of an Irish-style code-of-practice, according to Ben Willmott, head of public policy and public affairs at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. This means companies can tailor out-of-hours rules to their sector, as well as to individual preferences.
This softer-touch approach would also prevent extra cases hitting Britain’s clogged courts, which already face record backlogs.
Workers in companies without a right-to-disconnect policy were more likely to experience issues like headaches, stress and anxiety, an EU-backed survey of employees and HR managers in Belgium, France, Italy and Spain found. Those working for employers with right to disconnect policies also reported having a better work-life balance than peers without access to such policy.
Still, there are limits to what a right to disconnect can fix, regardless of its form.
“It’s not a panacea,” Willmott said. “It won’t necessarily deal with underlying issues around toxic work cultures, managers who aren’t very good at managing people or excessive workloads.”