tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/work-hours-6858/articlesWork hours – The Conversation2024-02-07T21:51:58Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2227382024-02-07T21:51:58Z2024-02-07T21:51:58ZSmartphones mean we’re always available to our bosses. ‘Right to disconnect’ laws are a necessary fix<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574005/original/file-20240207-22-1r13kc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C377%2C5599%2C3215&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/incoming-call-boss-showing-on-smartphone-434730472">Me-and-Idea/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Australian workers are set to have the right to disconnect from their workplaces once they clock off for the day. </p>
<p>This will “empower workers to ignore work calls and emails after hours [from their employers], where those demands are unreasonable”, <a href="https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/workplace/business-fights-back-against-right-to-disconnect-from-work-20231220-p5esol">according to Greens Senator Barbara Pocock</a> who has been driving the change.</p>
<p>Last week, the <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Education_and_Employment/ClosingLoopholes#:%7E:text=Bill%202023%20%5BProvisions%5D-,Fair%20Work%20Legislation%20Amendment%20(Closing%20Loopholes%20No,2)%20Bill%202023%20%5BProvisions%5D&text=On%207%20September%202023%2C%20the,report%20by%201%20February%202024.">Senate committee</a> reviewing the “Closing Loopholes” amendments to the Fair Work Act recommended introducing a right to disconnect to support “the development of clear expectations about contact and availability in workplaces”. On Wednesday, the <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/lidia-thorpe-declares-support-for-right-to-disconnect-and-gig-economy-reforms-20240207-p5f2zn.html">Albanese government</a> indicated it supported the amendment.</p>
<h2>Why a right to disconnect is needed</h2>
<p>Last year, <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Work_and_Care/workandcare">the Senate Select Committee on Work and Care</a> drew attention to “availability creep” where employees are increasingly expected to complete work outside of work hours.</p>
<p>Smartphones have made it easier for managers to contact workers any time. The shift to remote working during the COVID pandemic caused the boundaries between work and personal life to <a href="https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/workplace/why-there-s-a-growing-push-for-the-right-to-disconnect-20230807-p5duko">disintegrate further</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/switching-off-from-work-has-never-been-harder-or-more-necessary-heres-how-to-do-it-211044">Switching off from work has never been harder, or more necessary. Here's how to do it</a>
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<p>According to a 2022 report by the <a href="https://australiainstitute.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Call-Me-Maybe-Not-2022-WEB.pdf">Centre for Future Work</a>, 71% of workers surveyed had worked outside their scheduled work hours often due to overwork or pressure from managers.</p>
<p>This led to increased tiredness, stress or anxiety for about one-third of workers surveyed, disrupted relationships and personal lives for more than one-quarter, and lower job motivation and satisfaction for around one-fifth.</p>
<p><a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/committees/reportsen/024963/toc_pdf/InterimReport.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf">Parliamentary inquiries</a> have highlighted the negative consequences of working outside scheduled hours for mental and physical health, productivity and turnover.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574008/original/file-20240207-20-d3fyzg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Man shouting at mobile phone" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574008/original/file-20240207-20-d3fyzg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574008/original/file-20240207-20-d3fyzg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574008/original/file-20240207-20-d3fyzg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574008/original/file-20240207-20-d3fyzg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574008/original/file-20240207-20-d3fyzg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574008/original/file-20240207-20-d3fyzg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574008/original/file-20240207-20-d3fyzg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Being contacted by employers after hours can increase workers’ stress levels.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/search/man-shouting-at-mobile-phone?image_type=photo">Yolo Stock/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Availability creep has led to <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Education_and_Employment/ClosingLoopholes/Report/Australian_Greens_Senators_additional_comments">significant unpaid overtime</a> which “takes workers away from a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay”. </p>
<p>The impacts are especially acute for certain groups of workers. Those on insecure contracts lack the power to resist availability creep. Those with unpaid care responsibilities are likely to experience intensified work/life balance.</p>
<h2>“Roster justice”</h2>
<p>The right to disconnect provides a solution to these challenges. The Senate select committee on work and care found such a right can provide workers with <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Work_and_Care/workandcare/Interim_Report">“roster justice”</a> by giving more certainty over their working hours.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---europe/---ro-geneva/---ilo-lisbon/documents/genericdocument/wcms_836190.pdf">Many countries</a> in Europe, Asia, North America and South America have already established laws or regulations limiting employers contacting workers outside work hours. </p>
<p>At least <a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;db=COMMITTEES;id=committees%2Fcommsen%2F27689%2F0002;query=Id%3A%22committees%2Fcommsen%2F27689%2F0000%22">56 enterprise agreements</a> currently operating in Australia provide a right to disconnect. This includes agreements covering teachers, police officers and various banks and financial institutions. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.tonyburke.com.au/speechestranscripts/2024/sky-news-sunday-agenda-with-andrew-clennell-sunday-4-february-2024">Industrial Relations Minister Tony Burke has indicated</a> the right to disconnect legislation will provide employers with “reasonable grounds” to contact their employees outside work hours. This might include calling employees to see if they can fill a shift.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574009/original/file-20240207-32-b9bkjr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Woman frustrated by man answering phone call while they are having dinner" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574009/original/file-20240207-32-b9bkjr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574009/original/file-20240207-32-b9bkjr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574009/original/file-20240207-32-b9bkjr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574009/original/file-20240207-32-b9bkjr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574009/original/file-20240207-32-b9bkjr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574009/original/file-20240207-32-b9bkjr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574009/original/file-20240207-32-b9bkjr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">As well as stressing employees, work interruptions in free time can be damaging to relationships.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/search/answering-phone-at-dinner?image_type=photo">iaginzburg/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>If enterprise agreements with existing right to disconnect clauses are an indication, the Fair Work Commission will probably be asked to determine what contact outside of work hours is deemed “reasonable”. This approach seems sensible given the long tradition of the commission being asked to rule on what’s “reasonable” in <a href="https://www.fwc.gov.au/valid-reason-relating-capacity-or-conduct">other areas of employment law</a>.</p>
<p>If an employer “unreasonably” expects employees to perform unpaid work outside of normal hours the commission may be empowered to impose a “stop order” — and potentially fines — to prevent the employer from contacting employees outside hours <a href="https://www.tonyburke.com.au/speechestranscripts/2024/sky-news-sunday-agenda-with-andrew-clennell-sunday-4-february-2024">according to Tony Burke</a>.</p>
<p>Unions including those representing teachers and police officers support a right to disconnect. <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Education_and_Employment/ClosingLoopholes/Report/Chapter_2_-_Key_Issues">According to the Police Federation of Australia:</a> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Not only do the police see that trauma, deal with the families’ trauma, deal with their colleagues’ trauma, have to investigate, have to go to court, and get media attention but they also have to go home and deal with their families […] The right to disconnect gives those officers that little bit of breathing space.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/workplace/why-there-s-a-growing-push-for-the-right-to-disconnect-20230807-p5duko">Employment law experts and human resource specialists</a> also believe there is a strong case for such a right given the negative impacts of availability creep on worker well being.</p>
<p>Employer associations are less supportive. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) told a <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=6677b6a8-90c7-4477-a9b2-1125eb0da94b&subId=749634">recent a Senate inquiry</a> a right to disconnect would be “a blunt instrument which will do more harm than good, including for employees”. They claim employers will be less accommodating of employee requests for flexible work arrangements during normal work hours if contact outside these hours is no longer allowed. </p>
<h2>A banana republic?</h2>
<p>According to ACCI chief executive Andrew McKellar, a right to disconnect would be <a href="https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/workplace/right-to-disconnect-casual-carve-outs-part-of-ir-talks-20240131-p5f1e5">“the final step in Australia becoming a banana republic”</a>.</p>
<p>But it must be remembered that workers effectively had the right to disconnect before the smartphone. Such a protection needs to be explicit now technology has eroded the once-firm boundaries between work and home.</p>
<p>As the nature of work and employer practices change, it’s essential for employment regulations to respond accordingly. Having a right to disconnect to protect workers from employers encroaching upon their free-time is a necessary response.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222738/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris F. Wright has received funding from the Australian Research Council, the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the International Labour Organization, the Australian and NSW governments, and various business and trade union organisations.</span></em></p>Receiving calls from the boss after hours stresses workers and can put pressure on relationships. But this is set to change with an amendment to the Fair Work Act.Chris F. Wright, Associate Professor of Work and Organisational Studies, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2150472023-10-15T12:27:49Z2023-10-15T12:27:49ZThe impact of work on well-being: 6 factors that will affect the future of work and health inequalities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553696/original/file-20231013-21-iobxz7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1140%2C729%2C4035%2C2661&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">If public health bodies and policymakers put greater focus on improving the work environment, it could achieve major gains in population health and reduce health inequities.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/the-impact-of-work-on-well-being-6-factors-that-will-affect-the-future-of-work-and-health-inequalities" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Work has long been considered a <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/health-promotion/population-health/what-determines-health.html">social determinant of health</a>. Like housing, education, income security and other matters of economic and social policy, work can be a key factor in creating, maintaining or exacerbating unequal health outcomes across different societal groups. </p>
<p>But if work is already understood to be a social determinant of health by regulators and policymakers, it has been underused as a lever to address health inequities. That’s the main case we — an international group of work and health researchers — have made in a series of articles on the relationships between work and health <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/series/work-and-health">recently published in <em>The Lancet</em></a>. </p>
<p>In these articles, we suggest that if public health bodies and policymakers put greater focus on improving the work environment, it could achieve major gains in population health and reduce health inequities. </p>
<p>There are historical examples that demonstrate this is possible — such as the <a href="https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_ILO_CODE:C001">1919 Hours of Work Convention</a>, where International Labour Organization member states agreed to limit working hours to improve health — but they remain infrequent. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Three construction workers in hardhats and orange vests seen from above" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553697/original/file-20231013-28-yirgbv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553697/original/file-20231013-28-yirgbv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553697/original/file-20231013-28-yirgbv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553697/original/file-20231013-28-yirgbv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553697/original/file-20231013-28-yirgbv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553697/original/file-20231013-28-yirgbv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553697/original/file-20231013-28-yirgbv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Not enough attention is paid to the role that work conditions and environments play in creating, worsening or even alleviating health inequities.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Instead, occupational health tends to be siloed from broader population health, and occupational health and safety activity tends to focus on visible work hazards related to injuries and illnesses. Less attention is paid to the role that work conditions and environments play in creating, worsening or even alleviating health inequities. </p>
<p>Yet, broader societal factors such as immigration, affordable daycare, education and training, and disability policy impact the availability and nature of work; and work conditions also have reciprocal impacts on these societal factors.</p>
<h2>Work and health</h2>
<p>The unequal distribution of diseases across occupational groups has been <a href="https://doi.org/10.2105%2FAJPH.91.9.1382">documented since the 1700s</a>. However, it wasn’t until the 1980s, with studies using large employer cohorts, such as the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyh372">Whitehall cohorts</a>, that modern research methods of epidemiology (causes and distribution of diseases and health) were used to break down the contributions of specific lifestyle, biomedical and work-related factors on differences in worker health.</p>
<p>The Whitehall studies on white-collar civil servants — occupations historically considered safe — highlighted that <a href="https://reflexus.org/wp-content/uploads/wii-booklet.pdf">factors such as low control over one’s work</a> were related to leading causes of disease. </p>
<p>In the decades since, research methods and opportunities to link data have evolved. Large multinational cohorts, including hundreds of thousands of participants linked to administrative health service data, <a href="https://doi.org/10.5271/sjweh.3485">are now possible</a>. </p>
<p>These advances in data and quantitative methods increasingly allow us to ask more policy-relevant <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/oemed-2023-109085">“what if” questions</a> about the broader health impacts of changes to specific aspects of the work environment. </p>
<h2>Factors that will affect work and health inequity</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Agricultural workers in a field" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553612/original/file-20231013-23-xynr1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553612/original/file-20231013-23-xynr1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553612/original/file-20231013-23-xynr1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553612/original/file-20231013-23-xynr1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553612/original/file-20231013-23-xynr1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553612/original/file-20231013-23-xynr1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553612/original/file-20231013-23-xynr1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Policymakers need to pay attention to the distinctive patterns of health inequities experienced by different groups of migrant workers and provide tailored protective measures for each group.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/series/work-and-health"><em>Lancet</em> series</a> includes a paper that analyzes evidence and provides recommendations on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(23)00869-3">workplace mental health</a>, and another that focuses on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(23)00868-1">labour market inclusion</a>. </p>
<p>In addition to these areas, we also prioritize <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(23)00871-1">six factors that will impact work and health inequities</a> into the future. These are: </p>
<ol>
<li><p><strong>Telework</strong>. The rise in telework or remote work can lead to reduced psychosocial support from colleagues and greater social isolation. It may also erode responsibility by both employers and regulators for ensuring health and safety of those working from home.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>International migrant workers</strong>. Refugees, immigrant and temporary migrant workers experience different labour market and <a href="https://doi.org/10.25318/82-003-x201900400001-eng">health trajectories</a> after arrival in Canada. Policymakers need to pay attention to the distinctive patterns of health inequities experienced by different groups of migrant workers and provide tailored protective measures for each group. </p></li>
<li><p><strong>Intersections between gender, age, race, ethnicity and social class</strong>. We need to pay attention to the compounding effects that different social stratifiers have on the types of jobs (and subsequent differences in physical and psychological exposures at work) available to different groups in society, and identify opportunities to address these differences. </p></li>
<li><p><strong>Precarious employment</strong>. With the continued erosion of full-time, permanent jobs and the rise of platform-based gig work, precarious work continues to spread across the global labour force. While precarious work is associated with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ajim.22535">greater workplace hazards and fewer protections</a>, there is no reason this needs to be the case. We need to develop and implement innovative approaches, such as portable benefits, to make this type of work relationship safer.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Long and irregular work hours</strong>. Working long or irregular hours is associated with higher risks of <a href="https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_792131/lang--en/index.htm">stroke and heart disease</a>, greater alcohol use and work injuries. Regulations on working time are a central theme of labour rights and labour protections, but the relationship between working time and worker health depends on social context. While those in secure and stable work may see health benefits from working fewer hours, for those in freelance, contract, self-employed and other similar arrangements, reduced hours means less income security. </p></li>
<li><p><strong>Climate change</strong>. The effects of climate change on work are difficult to predict, though potentially severe. While it is clear that increased ambient temperature, air pollution, ultraviolet radiation exposure, extreme weather and the spread of vector-borne diseases will directly <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15459624.2016.1179388">impact some industries and occupations</a>, the flow-on effects across the labour market are less clear. We need to ensure these effects are not disproportionately impacting those in the lowest-paid jobs, who likely have the least resources to withstand the challenges. </p></li>
</ol>
<h2>Reducing health inequities</h2>
<p>In the face of these emerging challenges, there is a need to develop and test interventions to reduce work-related determinants of unequal health.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People in white chef uniforms working in a restaurant kitchen" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553698/original/file-20231013-19-igp16f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553698/original/file-20231013-19-igp16f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553698/original/file-20231013-19-igp16f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553698/original/file-20231013-19-igp16f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553698/original/file-20231013-19-igp16f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553698/original/file-20231013-19-igp16f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553698/original/file-20231013-19-igp16f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Regulations about hazards at work have been the exclusive domain of occupational health and safety specialists for too long.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These interventions can target individual workers when appropriate, but to be most effective, they should focus more broadly on changes at the organizational level, such as workplaces, and at sectoral and societal levels, including provincial, territorial and national policies that affect workplaces. This will only be possible with greater collaboration across both research and professional disciplines, as well as provincial and federal ministries. </p>
<p>Regulations about hazards at work have been the exclusive domain of occupational health and safety specialists for too long. Addressing the broader aspects of work and working conditions that are social determinants of health will need greater involvement from other fields, including economists, legal scholars, and social and political scientists. </p>
<p>Occupational health needs to work hand-in-hand with other sectors — including but not limited to public health — to develop, implement and evaluate policy solutions that will help make the work people do, and the environments they work in, healthier and more equitable.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215047/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Smith receives funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, WorkSafeBC and the Ontario Workplace Safety & Insurance Board. The Institute for Work & Health is supported in part through funding from the Ontario Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Arjumand Siddiqi receives funding from the Canadian Institute of Health Research and the Government of Canada's Canada Research Chairs Program. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cameron Mustard receives funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. The Institute for Work & Health is supported in part through funding from the Ontario Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>John William Frank has only ever received research funding from public sector research funding agencies in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. - many millions of dollars over the last 40 years. All of that funding terminated in 2021, as he is now largely retired. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Reiner Rugulies is employed at the National Research Centre for the Working Environment, Copenhagen, Denmark (NFA), which is a Danish governmental sector research institute under the ministry of employment. Rugulies’s work at NFA is funded by several research grants from public funding agencies, including the Danish Working Environment Research Fund, the European Union Horizon 2020 Research Programme and the European Union Horizon Europe Research Programme.</span></em></p>The work environment is a social determinant of health. However, work has been underused as a lever to address health inequalities.Peter Smith, Senior Scientist, Institute for Work & Health. Professor, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of TorontoArjumand Siddiqi, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Population Health Equity, University of TorontoCameron Mustard, Professor of Epidemiology (Emeritis), University of TorontoJohn William Frank, Professorial Fellow, Usher Institute of Population Health Sciences and Informatics, The University of EdinburghReiner Rugulies, Adjunct Professor, Psychosocial Medicine, Section of Epidemiology, Department of Public Health, University of CopenhagenLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1983262023-02-02T14:56:47Z2023-02-02T14:56:47ZRemote working improves the lives of female managers - but at a cost<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506084/original/file-20230124-25-q2pruk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A woman working from home. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/afro-caribbean-woman-working-from-home-during-the-royalty-free-image/1253792493?phrase=zoom%20meetings%20africa&adppopup=true">Alistair Berg/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a question that would have been unthinkable a few years ago: do we really need to be in the office all the time? </p>
<p>At the height of the pandemic, working remotely was viewed as a safeguard, protecting employees from the spread of infections. Over time a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8834350/">consensus</a> has developed that working remotely has had benefits but has also raised <a href="https://theconversation.com/working-in-isolation-can-pose-mental-health-challenges-heres-what-anyone-can-learn-from-how-gig-workers-have-adapted-194712">health concerns</a>.</p>
<p>To provide some answers to the question, I did <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.949914/full">research</a> on the experience of working remotely from the perspective of 23 female middle managers working in the South African public service. </p>
<p>It was clear that remote work had positive and negative aspects. </p>
<p>On the positive side, working remotely offered flexibility. Employees could balance individual and work tasks. This gave them some freedom and autonomy. In essence, work-life balance was somewhat promoted.</p>
<p>One participant, a human resource manager, said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>During the height of the pandemic, I could spend more time connecting with other facets of my life outside work. I could read more at home. Do some gardening. Even connect more with the world around me. Yes I got to do some work but I also managed to do things I could not do previously. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>On the negative side, the women said they experienced a blurring of work boundaries and an extension of their office hours.</p>
<p>Based on the findings, I make three recommendations for managing the downside of working remotely. First, organisations may need to provide employee support; an important part of this is to trust their staff. Second, policy around remote working may need to be in place and reinforced. Such policy needs to strike a balance between getting the work done and respecting the individual rights of employees. Finally, a culture of open communication can be useful on both sides to achieve this. This includes setting goals and addressing misconceptions around working remotely.</p>
<h2>The upside</h2>
<p>The female managers in the study extolled the work-life balance that remote work can offer. </p>
<p>The managers praised remote working as cutting back unnecessary time spent in traffic while commuting to work. They could spend more time with family and pay attention to personal wellness activities such as going to the gym. </p>
<p>Remote working also had the potential to enhance the quality of relationships, thanks to the physical presence at home.</p>
<p>Another participant, an accounting manager, said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think remote working also saved my marriage. My partner and I are appreciative of being in professions where we can work remotely. This assisted both of us to work in the same room at home. Such time was just the bond we needed. Remember in a week we usually spent half of the week at the office before the pandemic. It was wonderful to work from home not just for the work aspect but also our relationship.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But the research also revealed that remote working posed some challenges.</p>
<h2>The downside</h2>
<p>Three main problems emerged. First, despite viewing remote working as a possibility, organisational will did not exist to see it through. There appeared to be mixed feelings in organisations, to support or not to support remote working. </p>
<p>Second, for some managers, managing people remotely was not a feasible option. This was largely due to the perception that for one to be an effective manager some form of physical presence was needed. The physical presence factor for these managers served as a form of surveillance, an ability to monitor that work was actually being done. Such a management approach created levels of suspicion and rendered remote working ineffective. </p>
<p>Thirdly, the managers in my study expressed concern around the extension of the working hours. Remote working distorted the boundaries of work and forced employees to be available at any time. This included receiving work-related calls at odd hours. Some employees felt that going to the office protected them from being bothered after work hours. </p>
<p>A participant observed:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The organisational structure within the South Africa public service is still that one of command and control. This works well within physical spaces. With working from home that command and control manifests in the excessive calls. Someone can call you late at night. That was salient nightmare for remote working for me.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>What should be done</h2>
<p>The findings of this research show there is a need for nuanced organisational responses to remote working. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/remote-work-has-made-developing-relationships-with-colleagues-harder-heres-what-workers-and-bosses-need-now-194883">Remote work has made developing relationships with colleagues harder – here's what workers and bosses need now</a>
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<p>First, organisations should seek to support employees where remote working is in place. They may need policies to guide such modes of working.</p>
<p>Second, employees have a responsibility to speak out. While there is a need to be productive in organisations, this should not come through violation of individual rights. There can be no flexibility to the expression of individual rights.</p>
<p>Third, the findings show the need for investment in training and support services around remote working. This may include psycho-social support for employees who may be struggling with dealing with aspects related to remote working. Further, organisations need to invest in hardware and software support that enhances the remote working experience.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198326/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Willie Tafadzwa Chinyamurindi receives funding from a) The National Research Foundation, b) The South African Medical Research Council, c) The Council for Scientific Industrial Research and d) The National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences.</span></em></p>Remote working policy needs to strike a balance between productivity and individual rights of employees.Willie Tafadzwa Chinyamurindi, Professor, University of Fort HareLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1941702022-11-09T19:00:07Z2022-11-09T19:00:07ZMorning or evening type? Choice of hours is the next big thing in workplace flexibility<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494335/original/file-20221109-24-noeyg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C640%2C3882%2C1944&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Are you a morning or evening person? Studies show we have strong differences in when we feel most creative and do our best work during the day. </p>
<p>These differences go far deeper than just personal preference. Whether you like to get up early (a “lark”) or go to bed late (an “owl”), and when you are more productive, is a <a href="https://academic.oup.com/sleep/article/21/6/569/2725974?login=true">biological predisposition</a> related to the settings of your <a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(06)02609-1.pdf">internal body clock</a> that synchronises your bodily functions with the rotation of the planet. </p>
<p>Research suggests <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1365-2869.2007.00580.x">genetic effects</a> account for about half of the variability between individuals. Environmental factors and age explain the rest. </p>
<p>Yet most workplaces take a cookie-cutter approach to time, forcing us to work standardised hours. There are clear organisational advantages to this, but the disadvantage is that you (and your colleagues) may not be working at your most productive times. </p>
<p>In the past few years we’ve seen a revolution in where we work. The enforced experiment of remote working during the pandemic has done much to overcome decades of managerial resistance to greater flexibility. Is it now time for a revolution in when we work?</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/even-google-agrees-theres-no-going-back-to-the-old-office-life-177808">Even Google agrees there's no going back to the old office life</a>
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</em>
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<hr>
<p>If done well, my research suggests, it could lead be the next big gain in productivity – but only if the downsides are acknowledged and competing needs balanced.</p>
<h2>Variations in chronotypes</h2>
<p>Differences in the human body clock are often referred to as <a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(06)02609-1.pdf">chronotypes</a>. </p>
<p>Chronotypes exist on a morningness-eveningness <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019188690100085X?casa_token=1Dn-A1lPQ5EAAAAA:KoMmLqt3BXswcN3bQkhmrkjyCgd0_N3CB7oTfiJ_hzUs7mQRFFnlhedPFrW0ZT5PrCG1U826Sw">continuum</a> but individuals are often broadly <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/07420528.2012.719971?casa_token=gFO7T7ForakAAAAA%3AarK5aCKAItp84XOJv5-OQUAlMCtsVK6aFNf8GMfWlH1iV4kLRDCeO_EhpwIcAJk2fzmk-ohlDvoR">classified</a> based on the timing of their daily performance peaks as either morning types, evening types or intermediate types.</p>
<p>Most kids are morning types. Most teenagers are evening types. In the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982204009285">working-age population</a> about 20% can be categorised as either morning or evening types while 60% are intermediate types. </p>
<p>Women are slightly more likely to prefer earlier hours than men up until menopause, when differences disappear. People who live <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/srep39976">further from the Equator</a> are more likely to be evening types. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Woman resting head on desk. Women are more likely to prefer earlier hours to men up until menopause, when sex differences in chronotypes disappear." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494303/original/file-20221108-14-ho3gjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C727%2C4500%2C2270&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494303/original/file-20221108-14-ho3gjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494303/original/file-20221108-14-ho3gjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494303/original/file-20221108-14-ho3gjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494303/original/file-20221108-14-ho3gjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494303/original/file-20221108-14-ho3gjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494303/original/file-20221108-14-ho3gjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Women are more likely to prefer earlier hours to men up until menopause, when sex differences in chronotypes disappear.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Chronotypes determine when during the day we feel energised and prefer to be active and perform demanding work. They also determine when we feel tired and prefer to work on less demanding tasks or to rest. So they are important to to productive you are.</p>
<p>If you’re a lark, you may be missing your best hours working 9am to 5pm. If you’re an owl you may be knocking off when you’re at your most alert.</p>
<h2>The pros and cons of time flexibility</h2>
<p>Could greater work-time flexibility be the next big key to unlock greater well-being and productivity? My research suggests yes, but only by acknowledging that increased work-time flexibility can also lead to negative consequences. </p>
<p>The downside – particularly if time flexibility is combined with remote working – is less interaction with colleagues, leading to greater <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2021/04/zoom-remote-work-loneliness-happiness/618473/">isolation</a> and lower <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/worklab/work-trend-index/hybrid-work">creativity and innovation</a>. </p>
<p>The benefits of “serendipity” – unplanned hallway and cafeteria discussions – are <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-death-of-the-open-plan-office-not-quite-but-a-revolution-is-in-the-air-140724">well-recognised</a>. The less time we spend with coworkers, the less likely we are to connect, make friendships and develop team spirit. </p>
<p>But these problems are no more insurmountable than the challenges of remote work.
There are comparatively easy ways to mitigate unintended side-effects through designing work-time arrangements that balance individual and organisational interests.</p>
<h2>How to manage chronotype diversity</h2>
<p>The key is for organisations to segment work time into four parts.</p>
<ol>
<li><p><em>Fixed on-site working hours:</em> during these times employees are expected to attend office and be available for in-person meetings, collaborative work and social gatherings. There is no hard-and-fast rule on how many days this should be, but surveys suggests employers generally want <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/best-day-return-office">at least three days</a> a week, while workers want less.</p></li>
<li><p><em>Fixed flexible-location working hours:</em> during these hours all employees can work remotely if they want, but work a set number of standard work hours – say 10am to 3pm. These hours will depend on the needs of the organisation and the degree of teamwork required. </p></li>
<li><p><em>Flexible working hours:</em> beyond fixed working hours, workers can choose when to work to make up their full hours.</p></li>
<li><p><em>Lockout hours:</em> it is important to prevent excessive, potentially self-harming behaviour by setting limits through “lockout hours” – 7pm to 7am, for example – during which employees are strongly discouraged from working unless absolutely necessary. </p></li>
</ol>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-many-days-a-week-in-the-office-are-enough-you-shouldnt-need-to-ask-166418">How many days a week in the office are enough? You shouldn't need to ask</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Increased work flexibility is one of the few positive outcomes of the pandemic. But revolutions are rarely smooth. We have to be conscious of the potential pitfalls to avoid them. </p>
<p>Through careful attention to unintended consequences, and developing new work structures, there’s no reason to think we can’t have more flexibility over where and when we work.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194170/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stefan Volk does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>More choice over when we work be the next big gain in productivity.Stefan Volk, Associate Professor and Co-Director Body, Heart and Mind in Business Research Group, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1745222022-01-23T13:45:28Z2022-01-23T13:45:28ZHow businesses can best help employees disconnect from work<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441642/original/file-20220120-27-1x11cqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4860%2C3237&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A pedestrian views his smartphone as he crosses a city street. Right-to-disconnect laws are aimed at improving the work-life balance of employees, but giving them more freedom over how they work might be a smarter approach. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Matt Rourke) </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A number of countries have recently introduced legislation giving employees the legal <a href="https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210517-can-the-right-to-disconnect-exist-in-a-remote-work-world">right to disconnect</a> electronically from work. Originating in France, right-to-disconnect initiatives mandate that organizations cannot expect employees to be available outside of their established working hours.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-right-to-disconnect-why-legislation-doesnt-address-the-real-problems-with-work-170941">The right to disconnect: Why legislation doesn't address the real problems with work</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This legislation has now expanded to <a href="https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/6b64a-tanaiste-signs-code-of-practice-on-right-to-disconnect/">Ireland</a>, <a href="https://www.hcamag.com/ca/specialization/employment-law/bill-27-right-to-disconnect-passes-in-ontario/318634">Canada</a>, <a href="https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/employment-law/pages/global-france-spain-right-to-disconnect.aspx">Spain</a> and other countries. </p>
<p>However, by maintaining a focus on a set of established working hours during which employees must be available, the right to disconnect simply takes the physical time clock off the wall and figuratively puts it into the cloud. Although an important initiative, a greater focus on employee autonomy is needed to maximize the benefits intended by these laws.</p>
<p>Although the right to disconnect may foster high performance by allowing employees to <a href="https://www.jamiegruman.com/boost">recharge their batteries</a>, the major intent is to promote employees’ work-life balance by allowing them to disengage from work, handle different responsibilities and ensure their well-being. Right-to-disconnect laws signal a greater focus on employee well-being, and a rejection of the idea that workers need to be “always on.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Hands are seen typing on a keyboard." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441743/original/file-20220120-9047-1n7v386.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441743/original/file-20220120-9047-1n7v386.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441743/original/file-20220120-9047-1n7v386.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441743/original/file-20220120-9047-1n7v386.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441743/original/file-20220120-9047-1n7v386.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441743/original/file-20220120-9047-1n7v386.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441743/original/file-20220120-9047-1n7v386.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The aim of right-to-disconnect laws is to enhance work-life balance. But is there a better way?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Limitations of the right to disconnect</h2>
<p>But right-to-disconnect legislation has limitations. It focuses on specific hours employees are free to disconnect and establishes a window during which they must be accessible. </p>
<p>However, establishing working hours during which employees must be available is a holdover from the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Industrial-Revolution">industrial age</a> when the value of employees was based on the inputs they provided — physical labour, for example. It fails to recognize that the value of today’s employees is often based on their outputs, including creative work.</p>
<p>However, when organizations implement policies that allow employees the freedom to choose for themselves when and how to disconnect, the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1359432X.2021.1972973">well-being</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.5465/AMBPP.2019.145">performance</a> benefits of disconnecting are maximized. </p>
<p>For example, someone working at home may choose to disconnect in order to go for a run at 2 p.m. and then work at 8 p.m., after their kids are asleep. Also, different people <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02643290701754158">operate more effectively</a> at different times of the day. </p>
<p>Similarly, an employee completing a series of intense meetings might want to take a break before re-engaging in work. Giving employees the right to disconnect on their own terms may be the best formula for promoting both performance and well-being.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man smiles as he talks to a woman seen on his laptop screen." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441745/original/file-20220120-8772-12uacaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441745/original/file-20220120-8772-12uacaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441745/original/file-20220120-8772-12uacaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441745/original/file-20220120-8772-12uacaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441745/original/file-20220120-8772-12uacaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441745/original/file-20220120-8772-12uacaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441745/original/file-20220120-8772-12uacaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">After hours of video meetings, employees often need to take a breather mid-day.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Unsplash)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Fostering autonomy</h2>
<p>These benefits can be maximized when work is designed to provide employees with an appropriately <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/001872678603901104">high level of autonomy</a>, which refers to the discretion employees have over how, when and, increasingly, where they complete their work tasks. Numerous classic and contemporary studies demonstrate the value of employee autonomy. </p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/hfm.20666">research shows</a> that employees who have the freedom to choose how to structure their workday and schedule their tasks (work-scheduling autonomy) have higher levels of work engagement and innovative work behaviour. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.5465/AMBPP.2019.145">Other studies</a> indicate that allowing employees to make decisions (decision-making autonomy) and choose for themselves how to perform tasks (work-method autonomy) reduces mental strain, increases work motivation and improves job performance.</p>
<p>Similarly, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0021886318764353">research shows</a> that when employees have the discretion to choose where to work (location autonomy) they select environments that promote both their productivity and well-being.</p>
<p>As these studies demonstrate, there are a <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/0021-9010.91.6.1321">variety of forms of autonomy</a>. Employee well-being and performance will be enhanced if greater autonomy, of various types, is built into right-to-disconnect initiatives.</p>
<p>In structuring work this way, organizations effectively separate work hours from work outputs and focus squarely on results rather than the time clock. Doing so also reduces concerns over how to manage employees remotely. </p>
<p>Overseeing an employee’s work behaviour may not, in fact, be necessary as long as workers are generating outputs on time, within budget and at an acceptable level of quality. As long as employees are meeting organizational objectives, when, how and where they work may be largely immaterial.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman sits on her bed working on her laptop with books and notebooks surrounding her." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441744/original/file-20220120-8772-31l3gp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441744/original/file-20220120-8772-31l3gp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441744/original/file-20220120-8772-31l3gp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441744/original/file-20220120-8772-31l3gp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441744/original/file-20220120-8772-31l3gp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441744/original/file-20220120-8772-31l3gp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441744/original/file-20220120-8772-31l3gp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">If workers are high-performing, it shouldn’t matter when, where and how they work.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Unsplash)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Limits to autonomy</h2>
<p>Different jobs have different levels and forms of autonomy they support. For instance, an emergency room nurse cannot choose to work from home or independently decide when to arrive at the hospital for a shift. The relationship between autonomy and work outcomes <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-011-9244-3">may vary depending on the nature of the work and the employer</a>.</p>
<p>Issues such as the nature of the work, co-ordination requirements, dealing with deadlines or crises, work standards and employee tenure should all be considered in deciding how much autonomy is warranted. But the general principle should be to provide as much autonomy as a job will allow and support employees in their exercise of it.</p>
<p>Additionally, work groups should have the opportunity to establish the parameters of autonomy themselves and revisit this issue on a regular basis.</p>
<p>The right to disconnect is an issue that has emerged due to technological developments that have allowed organizations to keep employees tethered to work 24/7. Implementing this right effectively requires overcoming the industrial age mentality that imposes constraints on employee autonomy that are unnecessary, and possibly counterproductive, in the modern age.</p>
<p>The best way to help employees disconnect from work is to allow them the autonomy to choose for themselves how, when and where to disconnect.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174522/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The best way to help employees disconnect from work is to allow them the autonomy to choose for themselves how, when and where to disconnect.Jamie Gruman, Professor of Organizational Behaviour, University of GuelphNita Chhinzer, Associate Professor, Human Resource Management and Business Consulting, University of GuelphLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1395872020-06-04T19:07:57Z2020-06-04T19:07:57ZThe day is dawning on a four-day work week<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339856/original/file-20200604-31187-zr8x3n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=53%2C72%2C4370%2C2301&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">During the COVID-19 pandemic, a window is opening for good ideas to move from the fringes to the mainstream — and that includes a four-day work week. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Simon Abrams/Unsplash)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Like any crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic is an opportunity to rethink how we do things. </p>
<p>As we near the 100-day mark since the pandemic was declared, one area getting a significant attention is the workplace, where a window is opening for good ideas to move from the fringes to the mainstream. </p>
<p>For example, when <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/200417/dq200417a-eng.htm">millions more Canadians</a> started working from home, many businesses were forced to experiment with telecommuting. Interestingly, <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/5/21/21234242/coronavirus-covid-19-remote-work-from-home-office-reopening">many now say they’ll continue</a> after the pandemic passes, because it benefits employers and employees alike.</p>
<p>Another idea, less widely tested than telecommuting, is generating buzz: the four-day work week. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/20/jacinda-ardern-flags-four-day-working-week-as-way-to-rebuild-new-zealand-after-covid-19">raised the possibility of a shortened work week</a> as a way to divvy up jobs, encourage local tourism, help with work-life balance and increase productivity.</p>
<p>As a sociologist who teaches about work and wrote <a href="https://utorontopress.com/ca/productivity-and-prosperity-4">a book about productivity</a>, I believe she’s right.</p>
<h2>Not a compressed schedule</h2>
<p>A four-day work week must not be confused with a compressed schedule that has workers squeeze 37.5 to 40 hours of work into four days instead of five. For reasons that should be clearer below, that won’t help us now.</p>
<p>A true four-day workweek entails full-timers clocking about 30 hours instead of 40. There are many reasons why this is appealing today: families are <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/women-juggling-caregiving-take-brunt-of-pandemic-labour-impact-1.4921334">struggling to cover child care</a> in the absence of daycares and schools; workplaces are trying to reduce the number of employees congregating in offices each day; and <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/canada-jobs-april-1.5561001">millions of people have lost their jobs</a>. </p>
<p>A shorter work week could allow parents to cobble together child care, allow workplaces to stagger attendance and, theoretically, allow the available work to be divided among more people who need employment.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-four-day-working-week-could-be-the-shot-in-the-arm-post-coronavirus-tourism-needs-139388">A four-day working week could be the shot in the arm post-coronavirus tourism needs</a>
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<p>The most progressive shorter work week entails no salary reductions. This sounds crazy, but it rests on peer-reviewed research into shorter work weeks, which finds <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ben_Laker/publication/337340662_Will_the_4-Day_Workweek_Take_Hold_in_Europe/links/5dd3dda9299bf1b74b4e69b7/Will-the-4-Day-Workweek-Take-Hold-in-Europe.pdf">workers can be as productive in 30 hours as they are in 40</a>, because they waste less time and are better-rested. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339869/original/file-20200604-67399-sd9z5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339869/original/file-20200604-67399-sd9z5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339869/original/file-20200604-67399-sd9z5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339869/original/file-20200604-67399-sd9z5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339869/original/file-20200604-67399-sd9z5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339869/original/file-20200604-67399-sd9z5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339869/original/file-20200604-67399-sd9z5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Most employees probably wouldn’t mind spending their own money on essentials provided at the office in exchange for a four-day work week.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Jasmin Sessler/Unsplash)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Shorter work weeks reduce the number of sick days taken, and on their extra day off, employees don’t use the office’s toilet paper or utilities, reducing their employer’s costs. Therefore, while it is counter-intuitive, it’s possible for people to work less at the same salary while <a href="https://blog.abacus.com/heres-how-much-a-4-day-work-week-saves-on-business-expenses/">improving their employer’s bottom line</a>. That people might have to spend more of their own money on toilet paper is a concession most workers would probably accept. </p>
<p>The same body of research also has more predictable findings: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2018.05.010">people like working less</a>.</p>
<h2>Entrenched morality of work</h2>
<p>If it makes this much sense, why don’t we have a four-day week already? It turns out this question is more than 150 years old. </p>
<p>Some of the answer pertains to the logistics involved in transforming our whole system of work, that’s not the entire answer. After all, the work week <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/hours-of-labour">has been reduced before</a>, so it can technically be done again. </p>
<p>The rest of the reason is rooted in capitalism and class struggle. </p>
<p>Thinkers from Paul Lafargue (“<a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/lafargue/1883/lazy/">The Right to Be Lazy</a>,” first published in 1883) to Bertrand Russell (“<a href="https://harpers.org/archive/1932/10/in-praise-of-idleness/">In Praise of Idleness</a>,” from 1932) and Kathi Weeks (“<a href="https://caringlabor.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/the-problem-with-work_-feminism-marxism-kathi-weeks.pdf">The Problem with Work</a>,” from 2012) have concluded we resist worktime reductions in the face of supportive evidence — and our own desires for more leisure — because of the entrenched morality of work and the resistance on the part of “the rich” to “the idea that the poor should have leisure,” in Russell’s words.</p>
<p>We are extremely attached to the idea that hard work is virtuous, idle hands are dangerous and people with more free time can’t be trusted.</p>
<h2>Four-day work weeks floated in the 1930s</h2>
<p>Nobody is suggesting evil governments conspire with evil bosses to keep powerless people busy. As historian <a href="https://davidpakman.com/interviews/benjamin-hunnicutt/">Benjamin Hunnicutt</a> has shown, there was significant interest in shorter work hours in the 1920s and 30s, when the 30-hour week was touted as a way to “share” the work among the Great Depression’s unemployed and underemployed citizens. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339874/original/file-20200604-67393-1by7rb9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339874/original/file-20200604-67393-1by7rb9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339874/original/file-20200604-67393-1by7rb9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339874/original/file-20200604-67393-1by7rb9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339874/original/file-20200604-67393-1by7rb9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339874/original/file-20200604-67393-1by7rb9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339874/original/file-20200604-67393-1by7rb9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Henry Ford is seen in this 1919 photo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">United States Library of Congress</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even industrialists W. K. Kellogg and Henry Ford supported a six-hour day because they believed more rest would make for more productive workers. But Hunnicutt’s research in <a href="https://books.google.ca/books/about/Work_Without_End.html?id=lv9cfP1QMAcC&redir_esc=y"><em>Work Without End</em></a> reveals that some employers cut wages when they cut work hours, and when employees fought back, they dropped their demands for shorter work hours and focused instead on wage increases. </p>
<p>In the complex push and pull of capitalism, eventually even the New Deal, <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/bennetts-new-deal">which influenced policy and discourse in Canada</a>, shifted away from its early demands for more leisure toward demands for more work.</p>
<p>It’s quite possible we will do the same in our COVID-19 moment, and <a href="https://thebaffler.com/salvos/why-work-livingston">beg to be put back to work</a> five days a week when this is all over. </p>
<p>But we have new reasons for considering shorter work weeks, and they might be more widely persuasive. It is also possible that we have finally given up on the <a href="http://www.csls.ca/reports/csls2008-8.pdf">false promise</a> that working longer will translate into better lives. The four-day work week could be another wild idea that makes it through the pandemic’s open policy window.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139587/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karen Foster receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and funding from the Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship program supported some of the research mentioned in this article.</span></em></p>The four-day work week is an idea that should make it through the pandemic’s open policy window.Karen Foster, Associate Professor, Sociology and Social Anthropology and Canada Research Chair in Sustainable Rural Futures for Atlantic Canada, Dalhousie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1067542018-12-24T18:44:35Z2018-12-24T18:44:35ZIt’s time to put the 15-hour work week back on the agenda<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249612/original/file-20181210-76968-4754hw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted a 15-hour work week – working three hours a day – within a few generations. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A strange thing happened on the way to the leisure society.</p>
<p>It was once widely anticipated that the process which saw the standard working week fall from 60 to 40 hours in wealthy nations over the first half of the 20th century would continue. </p>
<p>As we now know, this did not happen. The official working week has not fallen significantly in several decades. Average working hours per household have increased. The effect is that many feel that life is now less leisured than in the past.</p>
<p>But why should it be? </p>
<p>Working fewer hours was once seen as an essential indicator of economic and social progress. I explore this history in my book <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Whatever-Happened-to-the-Leisure-Society/Veal/p/book/9781138289642">Whatever Happened to the Leisure Society?</a></p>
<p>It’s time to put reduced working hours back on the political and industrial agenda.</p>
<p>There are strong arguments for working fewer hours. Some are economic. Others are about environmental sustainability. Yet others have to do with equity and equality.</p>
<h2>Economists on board</h2>
<p>In 1930 the economist John Maynard Keynes speculated that technological change and productivity improvements would make <a href="https://theconversation.com/whatever-happened-to-the-15-hour-workweek-84781">a 15-hour work week</a> an economic possibility within a couple of generations.</p>
<p>A biographer of Keynes, the economic historian Robert Skidelsky, revisited those predictions in his 2012 book How Much Is Enough? He proposed legislating maximum hours of work in most occupations, without any reduction in output or wages, as a way to to achieve a <a href="http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/216918/how-much-is-enough-by-robert-skidelsky-and-edward-skidelsky/9781590516348/">more sustainable economy</a>. </p>
<p>He is not alone. According to a report by the <a href="https://neweconomics.org/search?search=21+Hours">New Economics Foundation</a>, a London-based think-tank, making the normal working week <a href="https://neweconomics.org/2010/02/21-hours">21 hours</a> could help to address a range of interlinked problems: “These include overwork, unemployment, over-consumption, high carbon emissions, low well-being, entrenched inequalities and the lack of time to live sustainably, to care for each other, and simply to enjoy life.”</p>
<p>More recently, Belgian historian Rutger Bregman has argued in his best-selling 2017 book <a href="http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/utopia-for-realists-9781408890264/">Utopia for Realists</a> that a 15-hour work week is achievable by 2030, the centenary of Keynes’ prediction.</p>
<h2>Broader motivations</h2>
<p>Second and third-wave feminism tended to concentrate on women’s access to the labour market, equal pay for equal work, child care services, parental leave and flexibility, and men doing a greater share of unpaid domestic work. </p>
<p>More recently, writers such as <a href="http://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9781137364647">Nichole Marie Shippen</a>, <a href="http://politybooks.com/bookdetail/?isbn=9780745654256">Cynthia Negrey</a> and <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/The-Problem-with-Work/">Kathi Weeks</a> have argued that the quality of life would be generally improved if working hours were reduced for all.</p>
<p>British ecologist Jonathon Porritt described the leisure society as a “mega-fantasy” in his 1984 book <a href="https://openlibrary.org/books/OL2945322M/Seeing_green">Seeing Green</a>. Many environmentalists agreed.
As Andrew Dobson noted in his 1990 book <a href="http://thehealingproject.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/ANDREW-DOBSON-Green-Political-Thought.pdf">Green Political Thought</a>, they looked at the consumer-orientated, environmentally damaging, industrialised nature of the leisure industry and saw a future anathema to the green ideal of self-reliant and sustainable production. </p>
<p>But views have changed within environmental circles. Canadian Anders Hayden argued in his 1999 book <a href="https://btlbooks.com/book/sharing-the-work-sparing-the-planet">Sharing the Work, Sparing the Planet</a> that working less would mean lower resource consumption and therefore less pressure on the environment. </p>
<p>Some critical and neo-Marxist writers have viewed reduced working in the formal capitalist economy as a means of fundamentally changing it, even hastening its demise. The late French/Austrian sociologist <a href="http://politybooks.com/bookdetail/?isbn=9780745621289">André Gorz</a>, first advanced the idea in the 1980s. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-au/The+Brave+New+World+of+Work-p-9780745623986">The Brave New World of Work</a> (2000), German sociologist Ulrich Beck calls on progressive movements to campaign for a “counter-model to the work society” in which work in the formal economy is reduced. In the <a href="https://www.plutobooks.com/blog/the-mythology-of-work/">Mythology of Work</a> (2015), British sociologist Peter Fleming (now based in Australia) proposes a “post-labour strategy”, including a three-day work-week.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.takebackyourtime.org">Take Back Your Time</a> organisation based in Seattle, argues the “epidemic of overwork, over-scheduling and time famine” threatens “our health, our relationships, our communities, and our environment”. It advocates for fewer annual working hours by promoting the importance of holiday times and other leave entitlements, including the right to refuse having to work overtime. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250896/original/file-20181217-185261-1n5oaxv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250896/original/file-20181217-185261-1n5oaxv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250896/original/file-20181217-185261-1n5oaxv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250896/original/file-20181217-185261-1n5oaxv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250896/original/file-20181217-185261-1n5oaxv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250896/original/file-20181217-185261-1n5oaxv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250896/original/file-20181217-185261-1n5oaxv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Workers marching for an eight-hour day in Victoria outside Parliament House in Spring Street, Melbourne, circa 1900.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Melbourne_eight_hour_day_march-c1900.jpg">Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>No time like the present</h2>
<p>Despite these arguments, current prospects of working fewer hours without any reduction in wages seem unlikely. Wages are static. The pressure from employers is, if anything, to expect more hours.</p>
<p>In Australia the last great success in reducing working hours was 35 years ago, in 1983, when the Australia Conciliation and Arbitration Commission endorsed a 38-hour working week. Now reducing hours is not on the agenda of a union movement weakened by decades of declining membership. </p>
<p>But the 20th century did not begin with a strong union movement either. There were plenty of excuses not to reduce working hours, including the Great Depression and the economic deprivations of two world wars. </p>
<p>Few employers supported reduced working hours. For the most part they bitterly resisted union campaigns first for a ten-hour and then an eight-hour day (and five-day week). </p>
<p>Among the few exceptions were William Hesketh Lever (co-founder of Lever Brothers, later to become Unilever) and Henry Ford, who saw the potential for increasing productivity from a less fatigued workforce. Now countries such as Germany and Denmark demonstrate that <a href="https://data.oecd.org/emp/hours-worked.htm">working fewer hours</a> is quite compatible with economic prosperity. </p>
<p>This month marks the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 24 of the declaration states: “Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.” All members of the United Nations that have formally endorsed the declaration have, inter alia, endorsed leisure as a human right.</p>
<p>Not so long ago the age-old desire for more leisure and less work was a key part of the industrial and social agenda. Are we now content just to complain about lack of time? Or should we be seeking to do something about it?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106754/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony Veal does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The idea of reduced working hours was once seen as an essential indicator of progress. It’s time it was again.Anthony Veal, Adjunct Professor, Business School, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/994532018-07-09T05:02:23Z2018-07-09T05:02:23ZNew research shows NSW teachers working long hours to cope with administrative load<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226438/original/file-20180706-122250-1ni35mv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">NSW teachers say their administrative workload has increased significantly in the past five years.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>While most people expect to work a 38-hour full-time week, our public school teachers are working far more. In fact, teachers are working an average of 54 hours per week (43 hours at school and 11 hours at home) due to the increasing administrative demands on them to meet compliance standards. </p>
<p>This is one of the key findings of our <a href="http://news.nswtf.org.au/application/files/7315/3110/0204/Understanding-Work-In-Schools.pdf">Understanding Work in Schools report</a> released today. Together with colleagues Dr. Meghan Stacey from the University of Sydney and Dr. Scott Fitzgerald from Curtin University, we surveyed 18,000 NSW public school teachers in primary and secondary schools.</p>
<p>One in every three teachers in NSW responded to our questionnaire. One of the key findings was that 87% of respondents reported an increase in workload over the past five years, since the implementation of devolved schooling through <a href="https://education.nsw.gov.au/our-priorities/work-more-effectively/local-schools-local-decisions">Local Schools Local Decisions policy</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226436/original/file-20180706-122271-e2ipjm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226436/original/file-20180706-122271-e2ipjm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226436/original/file-20180706-122271-e2ipjm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226436/original/file-20180706-122271-e2ipjm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226436/original/file-20180706-122271-e2ipjm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226436/original/file-20180706-122271-e2ipjm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226436/original/file-20180706-122271-e2ipjm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Percentage of NSW teachers reporting an increase in various aspects of their work over the past five years.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Survey participants explained that data collection requirements have “increased enormously” and “grown exponentially”, while others described them as “totally unachievable”.</p>
<p>Our report is the first comprehensive, wide-ranging picture of the workplace conditions of teachers since the policy came into effect in 2012. It paints a picture of teachers working longer hours to cope with rising paperwork demands alongside their core jobs: teaching our next generation of students.</p>
<h2>History of the ‘Local Schools Local Decisions’ policy</h2>
<p>In March 2012, the NSW Department of Education introduced the Local Schools, Local Decisions education reform, a devolutionary policy aimed at letting schools manage resources and staff with more autonomy.</p>
<p>In practise, the policy <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1744-7941.12110">increased responsibility, although not necessarily control, at the school level</a>. It also <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/education/education-head-office-staff-cuts-done-in-secrecy-teachers-20120601-1zn50.html">ushered in a series of cuts</a> to centralised support services.</p>
<p>Some see this policy, and similar policies implemented since then, as a way of increasing the “responsibilisation” of school staff. This means that responsibility is lodged at the level of teachers, principals and schools for both <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01596306.2016.1168778">educational success</a> and their <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01425692.2011.614748">own well-being</a>, so the state can step back into a role of monitoring and control. </p>
<p>The impact of this on teachers’ ability to do their everyday jobs has been well-documented worldwide, <a href="https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/education/news/news-items/news1617/developing-the-power.aspx">in places as diverse as Chile, Kenya, New Zealand, Poland, Scotland, Turkey and the US.</a></p>
<p>However, we have not been able to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the work Australian teachers are managing in their jobs or their views on balancing their various tasks, until <a href="http://news.nswtf.org.au/application/files/7315/3110/0204/Understanding-Work-In-Schools.pdf">this report</a>.</p>
<h2>Administrative demands impeding teachers’ core jobs</h2>
<p>Our report, commissioned by the <a href="https://www.nswtf.org.au/">NSW Teachers Federation</a>, reveals the severe and negative impact of documentation and data collection requirements, which take teachers away from their core job of providing quality teaching and learning to students. </p>
<p>The majority of teachers (91%) reported administrative demands were a hindrance to their core job, while 89% cited high workloads. Teachers are coping with the challenge of this major administrative load by working longer hours. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226434/original/file-20180706-122280-udjpfy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226434/original/file-20180706-122280-udjpfy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226434/original/file-20180706-122280-udjpfy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226434/original/file-20180706-122280-udjpfy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226434/original/file-20180706-122280-udjpfy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226434/original/file-20180706-122280-udjpfy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226434/original/file-20180706-122280-udjpfy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Responses to ‘My school’s/workplace’s capacity to develop and sustain quality teaching and learning is hindered by a high workload among staff.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226437/original/file-20180706-122253-aeahty.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226437/original/file-20180706-122253-aeahty.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=304&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226437/original/file-20180706-122253-aeahty.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=304&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226437/original/file-20180706-122253-aeahty.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=304&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226437/original/file-20180706-122253-aeahty.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226437/original/file-20180706-122253-aeahty.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226437/original/file-20180706-122253-aeahty.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Aspects that may impact teaching and learning.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Around 87% of teachers, executives and principals reported their work hours increased over the last five years. Head teachers and assistant principals reported working on average 57 hours per week (45 hours at school and 12 at home), while deputy principals and principals reported working on average 62 hours (50 hours at school and 12 at home).</p>
<p>The fact that classroom teachers are working upwards of 50 hours per week places their work in the category of “very long” working hours as defined by the <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/7d12b0f6763c78caca257061001cc588/923ec292aba44932ca2570ec00006ee7!OpenDocument">Australian Bureau of Statistics</a> and labour market scholars <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0018726713478641">here</a> and <a href="https://researchbank.rmit.edu.au/view/rmit:26935">here</a>. Teachers believe this is already having a negative impact on their career aspirations (82% agreed) and threatening teaching and student learning (91% agreed).</p>
<h2>Strategies teachers say could alleviate demands</h2>
<p>As part of the questionnaire, survey respondents were also asked to identify strategies to address the workload demands and maintain the quality of teaching and student learning. The top-ranked strategy was for more time within the school day to be spent collaborating on core, teaching-related activities. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226432/original/file-20180706-122277-1gliqo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226432/original/file-20180706-122277-1gliqo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226432/original/file-20180706-122277-1gliqo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226432/original/file-20180706-122277-1gliqo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226432/original/file-20180706-122277-1gliqo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226432/original/file-20180706-122277-1gliqo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226432/original/file-20180706-122277-1gliqo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Teachers want to spend more time teaching rather than keeping on top of administrative tasks.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/388646113?src=tzHtZnzIo_-eyNLcyCVvHg-1-9&size=huge_jpg">shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Spending more hours in school on activities such as lesson planning, getting to know students and adjusting classwork for students’ individual needs, and less on administrative tasks, is critical to ensuring a sustainable education system. </p>
<p>More professional respect would also support teachers’ capacity to teach. Our survey results show teachers do not object to reasonable data collection. Rather, it is the volume, processes and methods that make the tasks too time-consuming. Some respondents even described the processes as “box-ticking” exercises. </p>
<p>The survey makes it clear a range of new, and increasing, administrative requirements are affecting teachers’ capacities to teach. Immediate action is needed, as the weight of the evidence in the report suggests that negative impacts on students are likely to follow if the current trends continue unabated.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/99453/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>As part of a formal University research contract Rachel wilson received funding from NSW Teachers Federation to conduct the study reported her</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>As part of a formal University research contract Susan Mcgrath-Champ received funding from NSW Teachers Federation to conduct the study reported here.</span></em></p>Public school teachers are working longer hours, which they believe will have a negative impact on their ability to teach students.Rachel Wilson, Senior Lecturer - Research Methodology / Educational Assessment & Evaluation, University of SydneySusan McGrath-Champ, Associate Professor, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/719992017-02-01T19:06:24Z2017-02-01T19:06:24ZWork hour limits need to change for better mental health and gender equality<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155100/original/image-20170201-12678-1ha2z5i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Research shows women's work hour limit is 34 hours before their mental health deteriorates compared to 47 hours for men. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Australian businesses need to adhere to a healthy work hour limit for the mental health of workers and to take into account the amount of caring work women do at home, <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027795361730031X">our research shows</a>.</p>
<p>More than 80 years ago, when most paid jobs were worked by men, the International Labour Organization (ILO) set the work week limit to 48 hours a week. This was based on <a href="http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/@dgreports/@dcomm/@publ/documents/publication/wcms_104895.pdf">evidence</a> that long work hours are bad for health. Since then, the labour market has changed. <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/6202.0Dec%202016?OpenDocument">Almost half of the workforce</a> is made up of women and <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/4125.0August%202016?OpenDocument">two-fifths of employed adults</a> hold down a job while caring for children or elderly parents.</p>
<p>Employers in Australia should honour the current 38 weekly hours set by <a href="https://www.fairwork.gov.au/employee-entitlements/hours-of-work-breaks-and-rosters/hours-of-work">the National Employment Standards</a>. But <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace-relations/the-38hour-week-a-rarity-among-fulltime-workers-new-data-shows-20151027-gkk1r6.html">more than 40% employed Australians</a> work more than 40 hours per week at the moment.</p>
<p>We modelled work hour limits and what happens to mental health when they are exceeded using data from 3,828 men and 4,062 women aged from 24 to 64, as part of <a href="https://www.melbourneinstitute.com/hilda/">the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey</a>. Our findings showed that on average, the maximum number of hours that can be worked before mental health starts to suffer is 39 hours. We did this by looking at the reciprocal relationships between work time, mental health and wage in our modelling. This 39 hour threshold is a full nine hours less than the ILO’s 48-hour-week.</p>
<p>However, the average working hours in a week hides an important gender difference. </p>
<h2>The differences between men’s and women’s working hours</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/4125.0August%202016?OpenDocument">Women usually spend more time caregiving</a> and have very different experiences on the job. This is because they have <a href="https://www.wgea.gov.au/sites/default/files/BCEC_WGEA_Gender_Pay_Equity_Insights_2016_Report.pdf">lower pay</a> and <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/4125.0August%202016?OpenDocument">less paid leave entitlement</a>. </p>
<p>Women are still working in a labour market that systematically disadvantages them in terms of pay, conditions and rewards. Women have <a href="http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.679.667&rep=rep1&type=pdf">less autonomy</a> than men and they earn <a href="https://www.wgea.gov.au/sites/default/files/Gender_Pay_Gap_Factsheet.pdf">17% or $277.70 less per week</a> on average, full time. Hour for hour, women get less.</p>
<p>These differences don’t reflect any natural difference between men and women. We know that <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/4125.0August%202016?OpenDocument">women are as educated and as skilled as men</a>. </p>
<p>The playing field is not level and this affects work hour limits. When systematic differences in resources and rewards on and off the job are also taken into account, our study shows the work hour limit widens further to 34 hours for women compared to 47 hours for men. </p>
<p>This gives men a 13 hour time advantage on the job, largely because they spend much less time on care or domestic work than women. Only if women were to spend very little time on care or domestic work, and if they had the same resources and rewards on and off the job, would the work hour limits converge. </p>
<p>Under these assumptions men and women without care responsibilities can work up to 48 hours before their mental health is affected. However, anyone who spends significant time caring for others or doing domestic work is unable to work long hours without facing a likely health trade-off. </p>
<h2>The hour glass ceiling is self perpetuating</h2>
<p>Our study reveals that current limits and assumptions about how long Australians should work if they want a “good” full time job is systematically disadvantaging women’s health. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/one-in-five-australian-men-work-more-than-50-hours-a-week-oecd-data-shows/news-story/e142e3c1d0d25e5d66cf472033c52280">Men dominate</a> the workforce with long working hours – <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com.au/the-10-best-paying-jobs-in-australia-and-the-worst-2014-11">these jobs are often paid the best</a>. This creates an expectation of working long hours if you want a good job. </p>
<p>This is no longer feasible or fair for a majority of Australian households, both adults now need to work, locking women into short part time hours in order for households to manage. We show that if men were to do more of the caring then their work hour limit also lowers. So the way our job market is at the moment is a problem for men who want to contribute more to care and domestic activities. </p>
<p>In contrast to this, in Finland, the vast majority of men and women both work full time, with lower average work hours and less of a gap between the sexes (<a href="https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=ANHRS">40 hours for men, 38 for women</a>). Not surprisingly Finland outperforms Australia on <a href="http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-2015/rankings/">most gender equality indicators</a>. </p>
<p>Australian employers need to continue support women to be employed and to earn equal pay, for example with good quality childcare and reducing sex discrimination in the workplace and beyond. But employers also need to support men to give time to care without suffering a job or pay penalty. </p>
<p>Australia also needs to tackle the widespread belief that it is fair or feasible for people to work long hours without compromising either their health or gender equality.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71999/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lyndall Strazdins receives funding from The Australian Research Council and the National Health and Medical Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Huong Dinh and Jennifer Welsh do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Australia needs to tackle the widespread belief that it’s fair or feasible for people to work long hours without compromising either their health or gender equality.Huong Dinh, Visiting fellow, Australian National UniversityJennifer Welsh, PhD Candidate in Social Epidemiology, Australian National UniversityLyndall Strazdins, Professor, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/599622016-08-17T20:28:14Z2016-08-17T20:28:14ZAre Sunday penalty rates a job killer? A real-world experiment refutes employers’ claim<p>Two big claims underpin attempts to cut penalty rates for Sunday workers in the retail and hospitality sectors: that they are no longer needed or relevant, and that they cost jobs.</p>
<p>These claims are at the centre of a <a href="https://www.fwc.gov.au/awards-and-agreements/modern-award-reviews/am2014305-penalty-rates-case">review by the Fair Work Commission</a> of awards in those industries. The review began in late 2014. Employers have <a href="https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjqvc_R1MTOAhVEm5QKHR57AbEQFggbMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theaustralian.com.au%2Fnational-affairs%2Findustrial-relations%2Flabor-intensifies-calls-for-malcolm-turnbull-to-intervene-in-sunday-penalty-rates-decision%2Fnews-story%2Ffcaeed3eef3a249af962193830ebf851&usg=AFQjCNGD0AAyIBzDxhGJQ3Z-Bmfx8iu17A">applied to have those penalty rates cut</a>.</p>
<p>Penalty rates were the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-17/election:-malcolm-turnbull-rules-out-change-to-penalty-rates/7522284">subject of debate</a> before and <a href="http://www.news.com.au/finance/work/bill-shorten-wants-to-work-with-malcolm-turnbull-to-preserve-penalty-rates/news-story/5c38e368a8ed7cb93e9af4a388302e03">during the 2016 election</a> campaign. Unions claimed the <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/federal-election-2016/election-2016-union-claims-1m-penalties-campaign-won-key-seats/news-story/da952cbbb0a60b6d50f5472c4f63cfb3">seats they targeted</a> over this issue <a href="http://www.afr.com/news/actu-claims-union-campaign-more-successful-than-2007-20160707-gq0wrp">swung more heavily against the government</a>.</p>
<p>The commission, <a href="https://www.workplaceexpress.com.au/topics.php?stream=15-11">speculation goes</a>, will make its decision on the review next month.</p>
<h2>No longer needed or relevant?</h2>
<p>Employer groups contended the higher wage for Sunday workers is no longer justified in a “24/7 economy” where young employees especially see no difference in working on Sundays. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull referred to penalty rates as an <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/malcolm-turnbull-lower-penalty-rates-inevitable-with-seven-day-economy-20151005-gk1yr5.html#ixzz3uU1OOMrZ">accident of history</a>.</p>
<p>But evidence shows weekend work is <a href="http://jos.sagepub.com/content/44/1/5.short">significantly associated</a> with work-family conflict for fathers. Data from a <a href="https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwii_6KQ57bOAhUBrJQKHTycAm4QFggdMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fw3.unisa.edu.au%2Fhawkeinstitute%2Fcwl%2Fdocuments%2FAWALI2012-National.pdf&usg=AFQjCNEQT6qUQoFXPU_kZEXilOwBRHlu2Q&sig2=paQhjU40d6W7yUkPemIcsg">major national survey</a> showed that working Sundays in particular is linked to <a href="https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjxz_ah57bOAhVBmZQKHS6DC1AQFggbMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.unisa.edu.au%2Fdocuments%2Feass%2Fcwl%2Fpublications%2Fawali_2014_national_report_final.pdf&usg=AFQjCNHbD4smSTD3hVh4r6GqZk_HZKzCbQ&sig2=_HE1X48-dP9j17nACMCw9g&bvm=bv.129389765,d.dGo">higher work-life interference</a>.</p>
<p>Other <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jomf.12127/full">recent Australian studies</a> showed Sunday remained a day for <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10301763.2005.10722031">family and civic activities</a>, more so than Saturday or any weekday.</p>
<p>Penalty rates are certainly an important component of workers’ incomes in the industry. <a href="http://www.unisa.edu.au/PageFiles/34117/PenaltyRatesReport_Oct2014%20Final_R1.pdf">More than half</a> (57%) of retail industry employees receive penalty rates. Of these, almost one-third (32%) report relying on them to meet normal household expenses.</p>
<h2>What about the job impacts?</h2>
<p>But set aside, for the moment, whether penalty rates are still relevant. Do they kill jobs?</p>
<p>Employers argued that existing Sunday penalty rates lead to shorter opening hours, fewer jobs and a less desirable mix of employee experience.</p>
<p>The difficulty in validating such claims is in disentangling employment effects from economic conditions or general workforce changes. It isn’t easy, for example, to establish whether any jobs lost are due to higher penalty rates, an economic downturn, or something else.</p>
<p>Our research, however, takes advantage of a rare “natural experiment” to estimate the effect of higher Sunday penalty rates. The experiment could be done because the commission’s earlier award-modernisation process had standardised state-based industry award rates.</p>
<p>In particular, Sunday penalty rates for New South Wales retail award employees rose from 150% (or “time and a half”) to 200% (or “double time”) between 2010 and 2014. Over the same five years, rates remained unchanged (at 200%) for comparable Victorian workers.</p>
<p>By comparing the two states, and using Victoria as a “counterfactual”, we could estimate the separate effect of raising Sunday penalty rates in NSW.</p>
<p>The research relied on <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/ProductsbyCatalogue/35006594EB1126B2CA257132000F9189?OpenDocument">publicly available data</a> and on widely accepted econometric methods and checks. It looked at common underlying employment trends in the two states and controlled for state-specific factors including labour market conditions, youth employment rates and industry demand.</p>
<p>Our research led to an <a href="https://www.fwc.gov.au/documents/sites/awardsmodernfouryr/am2014305-expert6-sda-040915.pdf">initial report</a> and then some <a href="https://www.fwc.gov.au/documents/sites/awardsmodernfouryr/am2014305-ws-yu-sda-181215.pdf">updated estimates</a>.</p>
<p>It found higher Sunday penalty rates in NSW did not have a consistent or systematic effect on retail employment as measured by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. While there was a large and significant negative effect in the first year — a drop of more than 7% in the number of employees and total hours – the total effects over the five years were a mix of positive and negative but <a href="http://www.measuringu.com/blog/statistically-significant.php">statistically insignificant</a>.</p>
<p>Most importantly, the cumulative effect on jobs over the five years was not significantly different from zero. That is, between them the five increases in Sunday penalty rates in NSW retailing did not significantly affect job levels in that industry. If there was an effect, it was too small to show up.</p>
<p>A different, <a href="https://www.melbourneinstitute.com/hilda/">longitudinal dataset</a> showed no change in the number of people in NSW working on Sundays. There was, however, weakly significant evidence of a drop in the number of total hours worked in NSW retail.</p>
<p>Together the results suggest that in an industry dominated by casual and part-time workers, what adjustment in employment does occur happens through changing hours and not the number of employees in jobs.</p>
<p>Finally, on the mix of available employees, do penalty rates really mean that employers can roster only inexperienced, casual employees on Sundays?</p>
<p>National data show that permanent workers are more likely to say they would <em>not</em> continue to work unsocial hours <a href="https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjcpIzAgrjOAhUI6GMKHbPzDvoQFggbMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.unisa.edu.au%2Fglobal%2Feass%2Fhri%2Fcwl%2Fpublications%2Fpenaltyratesreport_oct2014%2520final_r1.pdf&usg=AFQjCNGwIUkHlhYJMxSNB9Tx-HmMbdZF8w&sig2=BxCl6llJdEMwnTduOFZTDQ&bvm=bv.129389765,bs.1,d.cGc">without penalty rates</a>.</p>
<p>So, labour-supply effects mean that reducing penalty rates would probably mean even less experienced workers on Sundays. And that’s what it looks like when you walk into a New Zealand supermarket – without penalty rates – on a Sunday.</p>
<h2>What does it mean?</h2>
<p>The implications are stark.</p>
<p>If changes in Sunday penalty rates have no significant effect on the number of jobs, then cutting them would do two things.</p>
<p>It would reduce compensation for workers employed at unsociable hours – when that compensation is, for many, very important for meeting normal household expenses. And it would constitute a transfer of income from employees to employers, likely without an offsetting increase in jobs.</p>
<p>The most likely outcome, then, would be retail workers working longer hours for lower earnings, with little or no improvement in the number of jobs.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59962/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Serena Yu was previously employed at the Workplace Research Centre at the University of Sydney, where she received occasional external funding. The research discussed here was conducted during this previous tenure, and was commissioned by the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association and submitted to the Fair Work Commission during the review.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Peetz receives funding from the Australian Research Council and, as a university employee, has undertaken research over many years with occasional financial support from governments from both sides of politics, in Australia and overseas, employers and unions. The research discussed here was commissioned by the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association and submitted to the Fair Work Commission during the review.</span></em></p>Are penalty rates no longer relevant in the retail industry — and do they cost jobs? Recent research compared two neighbouring states where one raised rates to the other’s level to find the answer.Serena Yu, Senior Research Fellow, University of Technology SydneyDavid Peetz, Professor of Employment Relations, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/563812016-03-23T10:35:25Z2016-03-23T10:35:25ZThe proposed ‘right to disconnect’ after work hours is welcome, but not enough<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116170/original/image-20160323-28187-13pd5a6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rommel Canlas/shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Changes proposed to France’s famously inflexible employment laws by French president François Hollande have <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/09/end-of-term-protests-threaten-francois-hollande-labour-legacy">prompted an outcry among students and unionists</a> and even the barricading of schools by pupils. But among the raft of changes to working practices is the liberating notion that employees should have <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/france-may-pass-a-law-on-right-to-disconnect-from-work-emails-at-home-a6878571.html">the right to disconnect</a>: to ignore emails from employers during evenings and weekends so that time with friends and family is not affected by work distractions or feelings of guilt.</p>
<p>Limited interventions of this sort have been put forward in <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/aug/29/germany-anti-stress-law-ban-on-emails-out-of-office-hours">Germany</a> and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/money/shortcuts/2014/apr/09/french-6pm-labour-agreement-work-emails-out-of-office">France</a> before, but this is the first proposal that the right be enshrined in law.</p>
<p>There is much to like about it. First, it recognises the massive impact the widespread use of smartphones and tablets, Wi-Fi and high-speed mobile internet has had on our working lives. In as much as work emails, diaries and contacts are on a smartphone in our pocket, to some extent we are never truly “out of the office”. The proposal seeks to counter this in legislation, not to leave it to corporate custom and practice. </p>
<p>Second, the proposed legislation acknowledges the considerable research that suggests that <a href="http://cdp.sagepub.com/content/21/2/114.short">we need to psychologically detach from work</a> regularly, or risk becoming exhausted and losing our creativity.</p>
<p>Third and most importantly, it makes the employer at least partly responsible for managing this intrusive technology and its effects on employees. There is a recognised <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2466134">paradox</a>, whereby technology allows flexibility over when and where we work, but at the same time acts as a leash that chains us to our (virtual) desks. For too long this has been seen as something employees themselves should manage. </p>
<figure>
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</figure>
<p>The <a href="http://www.scc.lancs.ac.uk/research/projects/DBS/">research into work-life balance</a> my colleagues and I have conducted suggests that achieving the right balance has become another “life crisis”. It is one that is fed by endless media articles and self-help books, and one that is almost certainly unresolvable by the individual as so much of the pressure comes from bosses and colleagues at work. What we’ve found is that there needs to be respect for individuals’ chosen work-life boundaries at all levels within organisations.</p>
<p>So congratulations to the French for taking this particular <em>taureau</em> by the <em>cornes</em>. But is their proposed approach through new legislation the right answer?</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116172/original/image-20160323-28176-bgybw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116172/original/image-20160323-28176-bgybw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116172/original/image-20160323-28176-bgybw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116172/original/image-20160323-28176-bgybw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116172/original/image-20160323-28176-bgybw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116172/original/image-20160323-28176-bgybw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116172/original/image-20160323-28176-bgybw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">It’s not easy, and often employers don’t make it any easier.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">wongstock/shutterstock.com</span></span>
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<h2>As far as it goes</h2>
<p>There are three ways digital media and mobile technology have affected our lives that isn’t acknowledged by legislation, which is concerned only with time spent connected to work. In our research we’ve sought to highlight the creeping effects of “digi-housekeeping”: those endless technology maintenance tasks that we engage in – updating software, syncing devices, fighting technical problems – which often takes place outside of office hours and doesn’t appear on time sheets. None of this is accounted for by legislative approaches.</p>
<p>Nor does legislation address the way in which the use of social media for work may intrude into our privacy. When we blog and tweet for our employers, are we exploiting our personal identities for their ends? Are these additional tasks, and the need to maintain our digital presence online, causing us anxiety and increasing our workload without any formal recognition of the effort involved? These sorts of activities go beyond a concern with just maintaining a time boundary between work and life. They represent new tasks required to maintain our digital work lives.</p>
<p>What’s more, because the French legislation presumes an employee-employer relationship, it entirely ignores the anxieties of the self-employed, as those taking part in our research told us. While those working for themselves have always had to work hard, social media has put added pressure on them to be constantly online and accessible to maintain their business. We need more imaginative interventions that will address the needs of specific groups such as these.</p>
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<h2>What are 21st century working lives like?</h2>
<p>The French legislation is important primarily because it makes clear the responsibilities of employers and organisations. However, it’s also rather a blunt-edged tool that doesn’t appreciate the intricacies of our online lives. Legislation like this enforces a strict work-life boundary that may be a thing of the past. </p>
<p>Our research collaborators kept video diaries that captured the complex circumstances of today’s workers in a more revealing way than traditional surveys can do. These <a href="http://www.york.ac.uk/management/news-and-events/news/department_news_archive/tyms_news_15-16/esrc_seminar_series_wellbeing/">video diaries</a> suggest we might be making sense of our lives in radically different ways in the 21st century. We distinguish between online and offline lives rather than work and non-work hours, and we think more about how we prioritise time, rather than how we divide it. </p>
<p>To support flexible working, we may need flexible legislation that is based on other considerations than time alone, including where and how we work best. It’s very unlikely there will be a one-size-fits-all solution; researchers and policymakers are going to have to find more creative 21st century solutions for this very 21st century problem.</p>
<p>So the French government’s move to formally recognise the distraction caused by unfettered technology is welcome, but limited. To improve upon it, we need to understand much more fully the complexities of contemporary digital online lives, what boundaries people now find important, and how the law can best support them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56381/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The underlying research was funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), grant number EP/K025201/1
</span></em></p>In the age of the smartphone, it’s often hard to switch off after work. Here’s how employment law can help.Gillian Symon, Professor of Organisation Studies, Royal Holloway University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.