Always on? Labour bolsters workers' rights
The new British government wants to reform the working world, giving employees more freedom of choice. The initiative foresees more flexible working hours and increased opportunities to work from home. In addition, staff are to be given "the right to switch off" outside of an agreed set of hours.
We are more productive at the office
The Sun is not convinced that working from home (WFH) works in most cases:
“It takes years to develop the iron discipline to keep focused without being distracted. It is one thing for a tech start-up, with highly motivated employees who are paid by results, to allow staff to work from home, quite another for a public agency whose staff are paid by the hour and where employees are used to having colleagues around to motivate them. ... Just look at what the big tech companies are doing. Having been forced to shift to WFH during the pandemic many, such as Amazon, are now demanding workers return to the office. Even Zoom is doing the same, a business that has profited more than any other from the rise of WFH.”
Turn on the answering machine
Most of all, Gen Z needs help to switch off, The Independent argues:
“They have no memory of working life pre-smartphone, no memory of being - practically and genuinely - unavailable. ... They are doing something no previous age group has had to do: feel their own way through the thickets of employers' finagling, coercion, guilt tripping and boundary ignoring, on their own, and without anything as physically, immovably protective as 'Sorry you've missed me, please call again tomorrow' to shield them. ... Labour's workplace reforms will help Gen Z re-establish the boundaries that every generation before them took for granted. We should get off their case and let them enjoy their holiday.”