Thousands of Belgian federal employees will be given the legal right to ignore work calls or emails outside of business hours from Tuesday.
Belgium has passed a new law, which comes into effect on February 1, that grants 65,000 civil servants the “right to disconnect” at the end of the working day.
European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium.Credit:iStock
A memo from the Belgian minister for public administration Petra De Sutter said the law was being put in place to combat “excessive work stress and burn-out”.
“This is the real disease of today,” Ms De Sutter said in the memo.
Federal civil servants should not be contacted outside of work hours unless it was “in the event of exceptional and unforeseen circumstances requiring action that cannot wait until the next working period”, she said, according to the Brussels Times.
Ms De Sutter also said workers “should not be disadvantaged by not answering the phone or reading work-related messages outside normal working hours”.
Disconnecting from work will lead to improved well-being, including better focus, recuperation, and more sustainable energy levels, she said.
“The computer stays on, you keep reading the e-mails you receive on your smartphone… To better protect people against this, we now give them the legal right to disconnect,” she said as reported in the Brussels Times.
The move makes Belgium the most recent in a growing list of European countries that have implemented a similar law.
