Employees feeling ‘always on’? Maybe right-to-disconnect policies can help

The rise in work-from-home arrangements has caused some employees to feel they’re always on the job. Without a distinction between the workplace and home and a universally defined quitting time, the lines between work and personal life can blur, leading to poor work/life balance and burnout. That’s why some workers are demanding the right to disconnect.

Defining the problem

When employees are free to set their own hours, some will rise with the sun to get an early start while others sleep in but work well into the night. That means the early birds might resent work-related emails that come in after they’ve put in a full day, and the night owls might not want to be bothered early in the a.m.

Another problem: Bosses often want answers when they want them, regardless of how many hours an employee has already logged before a manager decides to add another task to the workday.

When coworkers are in different time zones, the issue is more complicated because even workers with similar work styles may be hours apart.

In March 2023, The Pew Research Center reported that more than half (55%) of the employed adults it surveyed for research on how Americans see their jobs said they respond to work emails or other messages outside of their normal hours at least sometimes, and 28% of those employees said they respond extremely often. Another 33% said they rarely or never respond to work emails or messages after hours.