Some believe people who don't make a distinction between home and work arrive at work 'shattered'.Credit:Sharon Dominick
El Khomri apparently fleeced this idea from a report by Bruno Mettling,a director general in charge of human resources at Orange,the telecommunications giant. Mettling believes this policy would benefit employers as much as their employees,whom,he has said,are likely to suffer"psychosocial risks"from a ceaseless communication cycle.
As reported inLe Monde,a recent study found than approximately 3.2 million French workers are at risk of"burning out"defined as a combination of physical exhaustion and emotional anxiety. Although France is already famous for its 35-hour workweek,many firms skirt the rules - often through employees who continue working remotely long after they leave for the day.
With France's economy stagnant and an unemployment rate of 10.6 per cent,a near all-time high,the value of the 35-hour workweek,in place since the 1990s,has elicited a considerable amount of debate in recent months.
A recent proposal,for instance,would give companies the right to renegotiate longer hours and to pay less in overtime to employees who stay longer.
The"right to disconnect"is ultimately a means of enshrining labour protections in a changed working environment,in which technology - especially smartphones and other personal devices - have become indispensable.
Some companies in France and elsewhere already have this rule in place -French IT company Atos even announced plansto eliminate company internal emails in 2012 - but Mettling insists that many more should. As he told Europe1 Radio:
"Professionals who find the right balance between private and work life perform far better in their job than those who arrive shattered."