While you and I feel obligated to check and reply to work emails, even long after returning home from office, office-goers in France are actually going to have a life of their own. 

A new French legislation, which deals with labour law reforms, has an amendment that seeks to free its employees from the ever-ringing phones. The new law seeks to empower employees with the right to be forgotten! Yes, you heard it right.

So, what does this mean? Well, work-life balance may soon become a real thing in France!

The new ‘Right to Disconnect’ makes it illegal for companies to send emails to employees after working hours.

Employees everywhere in the world can feel the burden of work that comes with technology, which leads to work breeding in to one’s personal life. But clearly, the French government is more sensitive towards its people, with one in every 10 employee at a high risk of job-related burnout. And the same is coherently stated by Benoit Hamon of the French National Assembly who told BBC:

“Employees physically leave the office, but they do not leave their work. They remain attached by a kind of electronic leash— like a dog. The texts, the messages, the emails, they colonize the life of the individual to the point where he or she eventually breaks down.”

The legislation, which recommends companies to adopt the guidelines, is still pending and faces a lot of opposition. But the very fact that President Francois Hollande’s Socialist Party seems to understand the need to intervene in the culture of being permanently connected, even after one has physically left the office, is worth an applause! Although, there’s no penalty for violating the law, the companies are surely obliged to establish a ‘charters of good conduct’.

This amendment is not the only good thing happening in France. An average French worker can expect 30 days a year of paid vacation and 16 weeks of paid maternity leave.

While there are many who suggest that the topic of work-life balance is much bigger than the emails received after work-hours, nonetheless, such steps certainly deserves appreciation. 

Time to revise Indian labour laws too, isn’t it?

H/T: huffingtonpost.com