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France's After Work Email Ban Is 1 Step Closer To Reality (huffingtonpost.ca)
Jesse Ferreras, writing for Huffington Post: France is that much closer to becoming the first country to ban after-work emails. The country's lower parliamentary house passed a bill this week that would ban companies with 50 or more employees from sending emails outside regular work hours, BBC News reported. It now goes to the Senate, where members will study it before sending it back to the National Assembly to enshrine it in French law. The bill would make businesses come up with hours during which employees cannot check or send emails. And it comes as workers are finding it increasingly difficult to detach themselves from work, Socialist MP Benoit Hamon told BBC News.Hamon adds: "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."
pagers
phone calls
snail-mail
boss following you to a restaurant to "just so happen" to get the table next to you
mandatory office holiday parties
"optional" (really mandatory) office parties of any kind
and more, I know this list is lacking.
For some places with 24 hour coverage this could workout great, but for others, the employer might simply institute shifts. Right now where I'm working, we're basically a daytime shop, though we respond to emergencies at any time (and they're really not infrequent). I really wouldn't want to start having to work nights, especially the graveyard shift, and just because something *might* go down.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Yeaaaaaah, how ya doin' Peter?
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Even if other countries adopt this policy, it won't work because of time zone differences. China is six hours ahead of France, the USA is 6 to 9 hours behind France. Conducting international business becomes impossible.
You can just not check your e-mail all the time after hours... Even turn off the mail app on your phone. (Some phones you can schedule this!) But, no... We must protect people too stupid to stop working when they are home...
I would assume that "regular work hours" could vary for each employee.
Nobody particularly likes that, at least not in the first world, but that's the world we live in.
The French are going to be left even further behind if they pass this. Then the economy will tank and extremists preaching nationalist solutions will take over.
if IT workers don't union up they will be canned and be training there H1B replacement who is willing to put in a 45-60+ hour week for 40K. With idea of being able to get emails on off days / after hours.
I don't think it is.
The benefit of people dealing with email after work is probably not something that has a huge impact on the company's bottom line. Very few things can't wait until the morning.
Mostly this is more a problem of pushy managers rather than business need.
France becomes the first nation to declare it's only going to do business in one timezone.
[Workers] remain attached by a kind of electronic leash
That sounds like more of a personal problem to me. I get to be smug here because I only check my work mail when I'm not working on sick days (and even then usually just once in the morning and once in the afternoon--I'm sick after all so I need to get better). And that's just because I'm such a nice person. Haven't had official on call duties in the present job, but always remember to get a company phone in addition to your personal one if you need to be on call. If I get a text or desperate on my personal phone about some sky-is-falling omg-can't-wait-for-tomorrow change request I really don't feel bad about ignoring it. My phone was charging, and I was in the other room. Too bad.
Now, on the other hand, what we have here is a tragedy of the commons.
I can understand where this might be within the bailiwick of perhaps a union. However, I can't say I'm entirely unopposed to a government that has labor laws adding to its labor laws that employees can't be contacted outside of their working hours. It's the only way to defeat the tragedy of the commons.
As an American, no, we wouldn't want or need a law like this. It would be unambiguously an anti-freedom nosey-government sort of thing. Blech.
Except when my wife is checking her emails. Then suddenly I wish the government were slapping everyone's wrists, controlling their behavior against their will, and suppressing their freedom as much as possible. STOP DOING THAT, WIFE!! Come back to the here-and-now with me, dammit. Ok, I get it: the TV show we're watching, bores you. We can watch something else! Now put down that tablet.
Ummm, I'm gonna need you to go ahead come in tomorrow. So if you could be here around 9 that would be great, mmmk... oh oh! and I almost forgot ahh, I'm also gonna need you to go ahead and come in on Sunday too, kay. We ahh lost some people this week and ah, we sorta need to play catch up.
What does that mean? That I as an employee am not allowed to send email to another employee outside of that employee's defined work hours? Or that the company will queue mail until that employee comes to the office? Or that employees are not required to check their email. If the latter that will be about as good as saying "don't come to the office when you are sick". But then guilt employees for staying home causing them to come to the office sick anyway.
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
"The bill would make businesses come up with hours during which employees cannot check or send email"
I looked the article hoping to get more detail on this, but it's still sorta vague. I'm assuming this is hours based on an individual's work schedule? If it was a number of hours set in stone across the board, seems like a company with clients spread across the globe would be hurt pretty bad. Sure you could hire more people and implement shift-work....I know people that like to work odd hours, but once that person decides to get a family, it becomes more difficult because their spouse and kids are on a different schedule. Seems more stressful than having to deal with after-work e-mails.
If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
Even if other countries adopt this policy, it won't work because of time zone differences. China is six hours ahead of France, the USA is 6 to 9 hours behind France. Conducting international business becomes impossible.
Not impossible - delayed. The e-mails will wait until someone can read them. Many businesses already have a policy that electronic communication will be answered within 1 business day.
I don't open my work laptop after I go home.
It's very liberating.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
I want my French fries, and to eat them too! Can I dual citizenship?
Mostly this is more a problem of pushy managers rather than business need.
And with employees that are willing to go the extra mile or seven because the alternative can be being replaced by someone who will. Before, when you left work, there was no technological leash. Nor expectations of 80+ work weeks.
Karoshi is spreading from Japan to other countries, and I think it is commendable that France tries to stem it.
People die because of overwork, and one death is one too many.
About the same frequency as tough talkers who only post AC...
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Hey, this is your boss. Please step into my office.
It could be better to allow employees not to read a mail, outside work hours. Anyway the bill comes from politics, people who, for most of them in France, never worked in a company and have no clue how the enterprise world runs ; there are certainly abuses. but the bill seems to be too peremptory.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Of course, there is no real description in the summary or article but there are several problems the summary doesn't address.
First and foremost in my mind, is all the intra-management communications that go on all hours of the day -- normal and abnormal working hours. Managers are employees too.
Second, does the bill mean someone literally is prohibited from sending an email or does it authorize the recipient to ignore the email until normal working hours?
I don't care if someone sends me an email if I don't have to check my email. This can benefit the sender by not having to "carry around" the need for an email. The article seemed to want to relieve the employee of the stress of reading answering an email while it did not address the need of the sender to be able to deal with the stress in a psychologically sound manner such as sending an email -- that is, one less thing to remember/recall/keep track of.
Three, does the bill mean that the sender can't phone or visit the employee? It makes no sense to cease email sending when phone calling and physical visiting are still available. Western Union might appreciate this bill becoming Law.
Four, what a shitty summary and article.
Five, six, seven, eight.....
I've worked with engineering organizations in both france and italy, they are pretty low productivity compared to anyone from US or Asia. This just makes them more worthless...pass a law like this, and there is no point in trying to work across the time difference to Europe. Running offices there is already way to expensive anyways due to all the other crazy regulations...
Oh dear, it seems that the Fox news comment section keeps leaking here.
It's already pretty much impossible for US companies to contract to French companies or employ French workers. This means there will be even less US companies working with French ones.
Just because I can hook a shark from a boat, I do no offer to wrestle it in the water.
It's even more important to protect them.
How would this be enforced, exactly? Also, does it apply to the government, too? Somehow I can't imagine all government email communications ceasing at the end of the work day... what about emergencies? Also, what about phone calls?
Salaried IT workers are abused! We have lives. Maybe we should organize a strike ? Would the outsourced Indian teams support us? They get abused too. Here's an example but not limited to: NTT expects their System Engineers to be on call 24x7 .. expected 15 minute response time and NO ON CALL ROTATION. That's messed up! I'm sure my fellow Systems Engineers have lives too. I'm happily married, I got three sons, my wife is awesome. When I'm on call I don't fall into a deep sleep because I don't want to miss the phone ringing and I don't want the phone to wake up my wife. Plus WHO MONITORS THEIR EMAIL 24x7. NOT ME! I notified the company I work fall if it's an issue that requires after hours support then they must call me. I am not checking my emails 24x7. I own an off road vehicle as my daily driver. I need two hands to operate it. They are not going to hear me If I answer the phone while I am driving, the treads on the BFG KM2 wheels make some road noise.. I am used to it. I need those wheels when I go off road. They are lined with Kevlar. So far sharp rocks on the trails have not been a problem for me. The roads suck so bad in New England that you need a Jeep Wrangler as a daily driver or at some point you are going to need to repair your vehicle. I repaired the suspension on too many cars that I've used to commute. Now my toy is my commuter and it's built to handle anything the poor road conditions around where I live offer. Plus there hasn't been a train.
Why am I ranting ? It's because our career should not interfere with our lives after hours. It's become more and more intruding, and for what ? Even if you are the best at what you do we get a 2% raise ? And that's if we are lucky. Meanwhile characters that earn minimum raise get a boost to $12.00/hr ? What the frig.
Sure I get paid well, but damn I have a life.
If you are on calls after hours often that really drags your actual earning down.
It would be if this ban would be about phone calls..
Even if other countries adopt this policy, it won't work because of time zone differences. China is six hours ahead of France, the USA is 6 to 9 hours behind France. Conducting international business becomes impossible.
No, it just requires a more specific solution. Just a few that occur to me immediately:
(1) Unless the business is especially urgent, just have a policy that emails will be replied to within 24 hours. That's pretty reasonable for most circumstances, except for emergencies or if you're actually providing a 24-hour service of some sort.
(2) If you are providing a 24-hour service of some sort, you just hire different employees with different effective business hours to cover all hours of the day. Or if your company opens a new division dealing with a business 6 hours different, change the effective business hours of a few employees to handle those transactions.
(3) If you need someone to deal with emergencies, presumably you could pay them "overtime" or something like that for their time... which is what businesses really should be doing when they require people to do stuff outside of business hours.
Basically -- you want people to be available to deal with stuff at other hours? PAY them to do so. Nothing hard about this.
We control the flow of data don't we ? Tired of being on call 24x7 with no rotation ? Tired of excessive hours after work ? After hours emails bugging the shit of ya ? Organize a strike! We need to find a way to get everyone involved... including those outsourced bastards.
Now if they would only block a drunk boss from calling you on a Saturday night and yelling and screaming at you for no real reason at all, that would be a good next step.
Although some may bristle and think this will cause a slow down of business, I disagree. It may make for a more efficient business with well-rested, lower stress employees.
I have seen so many e-mails sent overnight and in the wee hours of the morning from people that want to be seen as working extra time. It is kind of like the days of face time with the boss in the UK. You always leave after the boss leaves, so that it looks like you are a worker.
I'm on a call with him right now,
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Simply make it a financial cost to the company for sending any e-mail to employees after work hours.
1 e-mail is instantly considered 4 hours of overtime pay. 2 is equal to 8, and so on.
If the employer doesn't want to pay the overtime, then they don't send e-mails. Period.
And the ISP's and servers have records of the e-mails being sent, so they can't deny it either.
Oh no! A terror attack! We all need to shit our pants and end civil liberties and stop worrying about real problems immediately!!
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
That wasn't email, that was over the cubicle wall.
The attacks that are the direct result of America and the rest of the EU funding global terrorism? Those attacks?
My mistake, I must have confused you with one of our other H1Bs. We have so many TechyImmigrants now it's hard to keep track.
Not me. L1B -> Green card.
The tards who bang on about H1Bs don't even understand the details of the visa process because they've never been through it.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
If some low skill minimum wage H1B can do your job well you are already in trouble.
This is why you can't get anything done there and the other countries with these insane labor laws that the people that WANT to work (me!) aren't allowed, and the people that produce more (me!) can reap no rewards
The attacks that are the direct result of America and the rest of the EU funding global terrorism? Those attacks?
Last time I checked France is part of the EU....so the rest of the EU does it but France is somehow not responsible?
France has been one of the major players in the middle east for decades....I shouldn't have to mention their grabbing of Syria and Lebanon from the Ottoman Empire, their arms sales to Iraq and Libya, the French-Algerian war, or the Suez Crisis.
If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
I don't take my laptop home.
Even if other countries adopt this policy, it won't work because of time zone differences. China is six hours ahead of France, the USA is 6 to 9 hours behind France. Conducting international business becomes impossible.
Gee, if only someone would invent the electric lightbulb so our work hours wouldn't be locked to the movement of the sun.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
And you are from the Idaho Splendids? And your parents really liked the name "Captain"?
You have a problem if you need a law for this. A company should not let their employees have access to the email server in the first place when outside of work. That they do not do this just means the problem is with them.
That wasn't email, that was over the cubicle wall.
and apparently over your head.
Whenever a player quits EVE to go play WoW, the Average IQ of both games increase.
That one is simple. If unemployment > 0%, no Visas will be issued.
Are you from the Idaho Splendids? And your parents loved the name Captain?
You say tomayto, I say tomahto...
Corporate accounts payable, Nina speaking. Just a moment!
Even within one timezone, not everyone works the same hours, so making some strict window of time when anyone can look at work email is retarded.
Stop employers from FORCING any employee to keep up with anything work related while off the clock without overtime compensation, and protect employees who refuse to do it from being terminated. Not keeping up with things in off hours should mean forfeiting the overtime, not the job.
The reason the poster is scared is that the US work ethic is propped up by a thin veil of smoke and mirrors. Most American's are fucking retards, which is why they work too much for too little pay and despite it being in their best interest, refuse to self-organise into unions to protect themselves.
There is some kind of nationalistic net cast over all of this that implies a failure to "work hard" is a failure to be American. Of **course** this gets exploited by the employer, and the result is the current state of play in the USA.
Good luck friends, buy by my reckoning you be all fucked!
Until parliament's network goes down 30 mins after work hours....and no one can come in to fix it until the following business day.
There is no H1B in France.
http://u.meelo.org/dilbert/callat4am.gif
Dogbert: You can create the illusion that you work long hours by leaving voice mails for your boss at 4 AM.
Dilbert: Hi, this is Dilbert. It's 4 AM and I'm in my underwear and I thought of you... oops... erase... oops... BEEP BEEP
Dogbert: Did you just send an obscene message to your boss?
Dilbert: No... I think I hit the group code.
Good for them, but unless every country follows suit, France is fucked.
ROTFL.
Sometimes I think the universal sport of france-bashing is indicative of a "penis-deficit". We can't have as good a life as the french hence we bash them. We should strive to be more like the french in their outlook on life. Fuck 24/24 workday and fuck the companies that treat their emplyees as slaves.
What next?
Was it THAT hard to type out "one" in the title, or are there enough people now who would struggle reading something doesn't look like a text message?
Then why are so many French people leaving France? If it's so great why are they moving in droves to London and - gasp - NYC?
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Your not as good or important as you think you are.
So if Einstein wants to immigrate to the US, and we don't have full employment, you're going to kick his ass to the curb?
Personally, I think the free flow of labor is a good thing. I wouldn't mind going to work in e.g. Germany, Costa Rica, or Japan. Moving to another country is not for the faint of heart even if you don't have visa issues. I could develop this theme more, but I think that even you can come up with as many circumstances where immigration is good.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
Oh noes someone sent me an email after 5. I've been micro agressed, someone please powder my butt.
I kind of like the idea that I not be required to check my email away from work, but I personally like to get a view of my inbox about an hour before work in the morning. I feel more comfortable knowing sort of what I am going to face when I get to my desk. I also like to get there a few minutes early to settle in 'gracefully' rather than have my admin hanging over my shoulder prodding me that so and so is waiting in the conference room and boss #2 wants an 'immediate' update on some project the instant I get in the office.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Then why are so many French people leaving France? If it's so great why are they moving in droves to London and - gasp - NYC?
There are about as many french emigrating as us citizens getting the hell out of the US. In other terms they represent a statistical fluctuation. Nothing more.
Yeaaaah....so if you could just do that...that would be greaaaat.
These days it seems they're willing to put anyone in any position as long as they will work for bottom dollar.... and it's not their position.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Not again, and it isn't powder.
Previous posters are corrects, the goal is to stop abuse and a situation which is becoming too common and too abusive.
If there's no immediate urgency, just wait for the day after, else put shifts or an on call team.
That costs money , but the company is actually working for an extended time, and most likely making more money, so better officialise it.
If you re worrying about the well being of you re company, you ll just answer late at night thinking it might important. Then it will become a habit and you ll do it everyday. And peoples knowing that you'll answer will contact you more often. I had on duty peoples phoning me when i wasn't on call the week end. At one point i had phone calls every week end, not making any money from it, because i was not "officially" on duty.
Peoples didn't take this habit to call me, from one day to another, it took a few years. And that s what the other poster is referring to. Once it becomes the norm, peoples who don't answer the week end, get marked as not interested in their work, but they aren't paid either to do this either. And yes at one point it becomes the norm for the whole job branch to be reachable 24/24.
Then why takes expensive contracts with super fast SLA and everything if peoples answer all the time? The whole market get screwed. At one point they try to officialise what should be the norm and what is not, and answering emails outside of your workshift is not .*
I am working in a company where peoples take 0 break, that's their norm. I am smoker, i always take a 5 min smoke break the morning and the afternoon (all very dutyfully metered with my token.
My opinion : my back hurts as hell, i need a mental break, taking a 5 min break won't hurt my productivity. I work (mesured with my token) an average 7h20 per day, when i am paid for 7.
My coworkers opinion : i am a lazy guy always taking breaks. I stopped answering phone calls the WE (si i can try to have a life, social activities and such), so i am not cooperative.
The law opinion : every 4 hours period of time needs a 10 min break and every employee working more than x% of their time in front of a computer (i think it s 75%, me : 95%) must have a 5 min activity every hour that they dont do on a computer. And whatever you try to turn it to, the week end is a no no.
My interpretation of that law ( and there's not much room for interpretation ) : The 5 min break is an activity that would involves me, not being at my desk and being one which is the decision of my employer (there's none). I should take longer break the afternoon to reach 10 min and 0 the morning, obviously, leave earlier.
What i still do, being passionate about my job and i shouldn't do: Check my office mails and our monitoring every 2 hours in order to catch situation that may become harder to fix later, do a bit more hours, for free.
Small background on me, should have a few digit less, just didn't register in the early days. Linux admin since 11y. So, yes, i didn't liked that token thing.
Buy by my reckoning you be all fucked too!
Heard about gmail? If people feel the pressure to produce they'll find a way to do it. They probably need to put a related law to prosecute employees that carry out those communication...
what happens when you need a response the next day and something needs to be hashed out with something of a language barrier?
and the factory or buyer you're trying to communicate with is offset by 12 hours?
did france forget that import and export of global goods requires that someone somewhere is answering emails and phone calls at ungodly hours?
i've had emails going back and forth for a couple of days that could have been resolved in an hour if everybody had been in the same friggin timezone.
Yeah, that's exactly what email is for. Plus, it's not like it would be too hard to employ some people to work second shift to maintain contact with overseas clients.
Says the guy who doesn't know the difference between plural and possessive.
Schneider Electric, for one.
Much of the time maybe even most of the time that will work. If you have ever worked on a big project with an overseas team though you will know some phases need faster turn around than that.
Not everything can be pre-planned some things you have to deal with as they come. At somepoint even if it is after hours most people for their own sanity will want to follow so e-mail so that when a guy sends "Tried that got...." You can reply quickly with "Okay..Well..see if this will work...." and get the issue resolved. Otherwise. Its he sends that at 11a his time, 6 hours later you send a reply after he has gone home. You wait all day for him to get in at 4p your time and you have to leave in an hour, but he has a morning meeting and ....
Suddenly what you used to be able to clear off your plate and take care of in a day or two now takes weeks.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Never heard of them
"French" fries are Belgian you twat. No dual citizenship for you, you go to Eurostan, you stay there.
Basically -- you want people to be available to deal with stuff at other hours? PAY them to do so. Nothing hard about this.
While this is a nice plan, it would be illegal in France. There's regulations about the number of hours one can work.
I receive various kinds of this in mail (DBA here) - there's some cases where this "rule" is complete wrong (like mine): by receiving notifications and acting accordingly after work, in general during few minutes, save me several work-hours and headaches during the day...
Croissants
We need to talk about your TPS reports.
Are doctors exempt? Or maybe the guy who designed a multimillion dollar satellite that just freaked out?
as many french emigrating as us citizens getting the hell out of the US
US population is five times greater than france. http://www.wolframalpha.com/in... so french emigration per capita rates are much higher.
I guess no one is "on call" and nothing breaks at 3am in France. It must be a wonderful place to live.
Need assistance after hours, sorry France is closed. America is open 24/7 if you need anything.
I don't take my laptop home.
I would prefer a desktop. More storage, more CPU, more memory and I can leave it and come back to it exactly as it was the next day.
Alas they only offer laptops. Big corporations lack flexibility. But I'll live with my first world problems.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
OP here. In my defense I was really really pissed!
Sure, shoot the messenger and the fidelity of the message all you want.
Or try to read between the lines and discern what you will.
Again, good luck my friends!
Err... the whole point of email is that it is asynchronous communication medium. I know because I'm old enough to remember what things were like before email. Stuff was either handled immediately in real time by phone call, or by letter (or telex, and later fax). So for the most part you had two time response frames: right away, and a week or so.
One thing I've noticed about technology over the years is that it isn't so much a productivity amplifier as a general human proclivity amplifier. So technology amplifies laziness as much as anything else, and the lazier you are, the harder you work in the long term. Back when you had to get your work done in 35 hours, you had to be focused; you had to be tactical; you had to plan things out to make good use of your time.
Back when I was an engineering manager I used to have strict comp time policy. If you pulled an all-nighter, fine, but I want you to take a short day the next day or take it off entirely. It's not because I'm a nice guy; it's because when you work for me I expect you to work harder than you can keep up for fifty or sixty hours a week. I expect you to use your time intelligently and selectively.
As a manager I view needing to have routine unrestricted access to your employees' time as laziness. Undisciplined management leads to unstructured work time. You also have to be assertive with customers. I also never allowed customers to take out their insecurities on my staff. If we said something will be done by X, it'll get done by X; and no you cannot call my engineers directly to see how things are coming. They will report progress to you at the intervals we agree upon. The "give the customers 7x24 access" is a the lazy manager's response to bad customer service. You have to train your customers to expect success from you.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Your analysis of Americans is a generation or two late.
The "work ethic" Americans you describe are generally a thing of the past.
The reason for the labor situation in the US is the bait just enough Americans took, voting against their own self interests.
In addressing terrorism there's a big gap between doing nothing and ending civil liberties.
Yeah, France would know about colonizing people.
To get around such restrictions, they simply extend the work day and create a more "flexible" environment. Problem solved.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Yep, those attacks. Making past mistakes doesn't mean corrective action shouldn't be taken, esp when civilian lives are at stake.
There will always be ways for employers to pressure employees--laws can't anticipate every situation. The best solution is to: make sure you are worth what you're being paid, have a backbone and stand up to your boss, and if all else fails then go work somewhere else.
French is the cut style. Belgian fries are more like the way the (West) Germans make fries, which are big fat potato slices with lots of salt, served in a cone-shaped bag.
If you don't want to work extra hours then don't. I really like my job and I like working outside of standard hours. People are different.
I'm Brazillian: aside the subject of answering job e-mails on off-work hours (which I think it's needed in some situations...), the lack of regulation in work relation in U.S. and the reaction of U.S. citizens against it, amazes me!
I like cleaning out my inbox of issues the night before so I can be productive on my personal work the next morning. Different people work differently and it's weird for government to get involved in these sorts of details.
Due to anticipated imminent terrorist attacks, all employees are urged to stay home until further notice.
Basically -- you want people to be available to deal with stuff at other hours? PAY them to do so. Nothing hard about this.
While this is a nice plan, it would be illegal in France. There's regulations about the number of hours one can work.
Umm, so you don't actually know anything about French labor law, do you?
There's this myth that no one in France can work more than 35-hour weeks, but that's simply not true. They just set that as the threshold where overtime pay has to kick in, and (unlike, say, the U.S.) the overtime laws generally apply to white-collar salaried workers as well as blue-collar wage workers.
So, it's definitely possible in France to pay people to work overtime beyond 35 hours/week. There are a few different thresholds about overtime hours and how much extra you need to be paid, as well as maximum limits on hours/day or how many weeks you can have overtime beyond a certain threshold, etc. And once you get to a certain amount of overtime, you have to compensate employees with extra "rest days."
Anyhow, the system is complex, but there's nothing preventing a company from paying overtime for employees to handle most reasonable issues outside normal business hours.
AND -- guess what? If you can't staff your business for enough hours with the employees you have under the law, that's a clue maybe it's time you have to pay to hire ANOTHER employee! (Weird how that works....)
No one has sent me and after work email in over two years. everyone just texts now.
This is like banning after work faxes or after work telegraphs.
Who cares?
Considering that France is the country that legislated overtime to start after 35 hours and requires no overtime allowed for about a third of its workforce, email legislation to keep employers from getting after hours benefit from existing employees rather than hiring more certainly seems to fit.
Then schedule shift work.
www.wavefront-av.com
Having the clients interact directly with employees causes a lot of communications issues too, where various team members may have information that others (including the manager) do not, which creates conflict and issues with the project (and setbacks as a result). (Or, as I was told at a previous job, don't try to do the project manager's job for them. They (and other client liasons) exist for a reason
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
Elastic buffering. My colleagues in other time zones can send emails whenever they are working, and I'll read them when I am working. And if I happen to have an idea in the evening, I can send an email while it's fresh in my mind, and colleagues can read it when they are working again. The problem is requiring immediate attention. If the company needs that, they should be using immediate communication (phone, text, pager), and it should be in the job description, and they should be paying for it.
Corporate accounts payable, Nina speaking. Just a moment!
That is as simplistic as saying if a country is running a budget deficit then stop imports. But real life is never that simple. No visas would mean India would impose trade sanctions on US exports and then more companies in US would go bankrupt and higher unemployment in the US. Also all the Indians who would not get visas will not suddenly start doing other jobs. They would still write software just living in India. As life is cheaper in India they could do it at lower salaries. So then you have offshoring and/or competitor companies.
People simply have to recognize that for knowledge jobs they are competing in a global economy. If you want a geographically protected job become a plumber, electrician, surgeon (though people have started flying to India for cheaper surgeries)
But at the end of the day people need to ask themselves the question- "Why would simply being born in the US guarantee a better standard of living than most of the world?" The answer of course is that there is no guarantee. For a period of 40 years after ww2 USA saw unprecedented mass prosperity while the rest of the world played catchup from the devastation of WW2. Now those days are over and Americans need to get used to a lower standard of living while the rest of the world goes up till standards of living more or less equalize.
Corporate accounts payable, Nina speaking! Just a moment!
Are doctors exempt?
No, they aren't. And people die because of it, along with their mandatory vacation time..
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com...
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
So, what your saying is, French companies won't be able to outsource most of their jobs to Elbonia? I fail to see a downside here.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
It just says no email after work, not no email outside of 8a-5p. If you work at night because you have an 8 hour shift from midnight to 8am, then you can work with China from France.
Having worked with teams in other continents regularly for the last 10 years, I feel a need to correct this.
Time zone differences = delayed = impossible to conduct international business.
I work with most of my coworkers two timezones east of me, but some in India basically 12 hours ahead. I can go back and forth with my same-continent coworkers a hundred times in a day (think: instant messaging, or, heck, just get on the phone with them). But to get a hundred back-and-forth with the team in India has just taken something that could be done in a day and stretched it out over five months (5 months x ~20 round trips per month). Also known as 5-20 iterations (depending on iteration length). That's close enough to qualify for the adjective "impossible."
That girl in the article shown lying in bed reading her phone has a bodacious set of ta-tas!
If people die because someone expects e-mail to be answered right away, it's not the doctor who's to blame.
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
My previous boss chastised me for missing an early Monday morning meeting. It turned out he had scheduled it the night before, Sunday at 10pm -ish. The meeting was scheduled to start an hour before I normally got to the office. He pointed out that my company provided phone kept me connected to my email inbox and my meeting schedule. He was shocked when I said I turned off alerts for email and that I didn't regularly check it. I told him simply, "you don't pay me enough to be at work 24/7".
I'm actually on call 24/7. I have the volume turned up to max so I know if I get text messages or phone calls, signifying something important. The audio alerts for email is turned off because otherwise I could never f*cking get to sleep because the email is relentless.
I told the replacement boss that I will not be changing this policy under any circumstance. He knows I am absolutely serious. If they ever make an issue of it my response will be to hand over the phone and announce I am no longer on-call.
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Dassault Group.
Sanofi
France Telecom.
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An obvious solution is to make sure none of your developers are in France. The best French tech workers have already moved to London, or emigrated to America. I work in Silicon Valley, and several of my co-workers are ex-French, and do not have a positive opinion of France's business climate.
Pro-top for French legislators: When you have 11% unemployment, and 0% GDP growth, perhaps you shouldn't be looking for ways to be even more hostile to employers.
What I do doesn't naturally fit the 9-5 model. I start work fairly early, around 7am, and will usually finish work around 7-8pm. However I take a couple of hours out in the middle of the day. It works really well for me as I get to see and play with my kids, some times pick the older one up from school, take my youngest to her swimming lessons, or take my motorbike out for a strap up the mountain.
The flip side is I often am on the phone and sending / receiving emails in the evening. And if I didn't work like that my efficiency and performance would tank. I couldn't manage to work 13 hours straight, but if I'm cut off come 5 It would be terrible.
Notice to invaders:
To defeat France, all you have to do is spam the whole nation for a couple of weeks.
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The proposed new French law about working conditions is way more encompassing than the summary suggests. However it does say something about email, it says that *employee* have the *right* not to consult email once they go home. In other words is will become illegal for an employer to expect employees to read and respond to email after hours.
All that is required of employers is drafting of a "code of good conduct" regarding the use of email. Compliance with the law will be voluntary and no checks will be made.
That does sound reasonable, if you ask me. Email and other forms of communication are encroaching on our life.
I remember the time when email was distinctly asynchronous, because if it got delivered within an hour, you were doing well. When I sent an email, my expectation was delivery withing 8 hours, not the 8 seconds which is the norm now.
Basically -- you want people to be available to deal with stuff at other hours? PAY them to do so. Nothing hard about this.
Unless it's made illegal to do so. That's my beef, or would be if I lived in France, that my employer and I can't come to an arrangement we're both happy with.
Back to the original post, "they eventually break down". Really? Any evidence for that, Benoit? I've worked with hundreds of people who check email after hours and I don't recall hearing of one single breakdown. How about you document it's a problem before legislating against it?
This is actually quite reasonable but due to a tragedy of the commons type situation as soon as a country breaks ranks then it gives them quite an advantage. If only we could get the whole world to sign on then it would be much better. I'm not sure how that could be made to happen though.
"Because the next day, your boss is screaming at you for not answering his "emergency" email the night before."
If the boss want you to be available at certain hour for emergency then he better give you a pager or a phone and the compensation for it (e.g. being on call in germany where I am is compensated 1/8 of the time , e.g. 80 minutes is counted 10 minutes if you are not called, and normal (day) or overtime (20h-6h & week end& bank holiday) if you are called to do something. But let me guess the boss want a slave which do it bidding without paying a just compensation, and be at the ready at any time ? Having labor law must be really a pain in the ass for him...
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Maybe instant messaging is exempt so really this is about encouraging people to respond quicker
Nothing says the work day has to be eight to five. If you are working with an overseas team your work day shifts to noon to nine or whatever is appropriate. Basically the rule will be if you are not on the clock you cannot be expected to be checking your e-mail, sounds reasonable to me. My boss already knows I won't be checking my e-mail from 6PM to 6AM. If he needs something urgent then call.
Unions for everyone would be the first step to making this happen. The vast majority of labor laws that favor the employee have started as union initiatives. 40hr work week, overtime pay, 5 day work week, workers comp.
But IT workers won't support unions because they are such special snowflakes always thinking they are so much better than the rest and that the union will drag them down to the average. I got news for you, as a group we are all average because that's what average means.
In fact when I was working and putting myself through college, would have been so nice for my boss not to be able to complain that I didn't respond while he knew I was in class after hours. I would have gotten a 4.0 instead of a 3.88
Actually there is a point of diminishing returns on productivity after you hit 10 hours in a day. That job was a sleep 3 hours a night type of thing. I don't do that kind of crap anymore.. IE if I get paid for 40 hours a week, then when the money stops coming in, I stop working no matter who is bitching about it.
But US labor law requires that unpaid vacation be paid to any employee that leaves the job. The only exception is if you are dismissed for breaking a law that directly affects the company, ie steal company property. Oh, and if you contest it they have to prove it in court. How do I know, when I quit my last job they tried to withhold 300 hours of vacation pay, my lawyer sent them a polite note and I got my money. Little did they know, that lawyer was my brother using a letterhead he invented.
Sick leave does not have to be paid but vacation does. Now you know why so many companies have separate buckets for sick and vacation leave, different accounting rules.
It's only for company's with more than 50 employees - pretty sure they can afford to hire 1 or more nightshift workers to contact people in other timezones. Also i'm willing to bet the bill will say if overtime is paid employees could still work outside hours.
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That's just... weird. First thing that comes to mind are work rosters that often get sent after hours or on weekends to tell people (like my wife) their hours for the next week. Will they be banned?
More generally though they're banning the wrong thing. If they banned requiring workers to respond to after hours email then that might be defensible, but this? It just doesn't make sense. If I email my boss on Friday to ask for clarification on x and they respond on Saturday morning I'm happy to (a) get a response and (b) not read it until Monday morning. So long as they act sensibly and understand that I'm not going to act until Monday (which they do pretty much always) why would I want them penalised?
Pro-top for French legislators: When you have 11% unemployment, and 0% GDP growth, perhaps you shouldn't be looking for ways to be even more hostile to employers.
Or perhaps you should, because they're obviously not doing things right.
It's the businesses that have to be able to adapt to the environment they're in - failure to do so isn't a failure of the environment. Sahara doesn't support penguins, and Antarctica doesn't support camels. Animals that migrate either place must adapt or die.
Businesses unwilling or unable to adapt to different countries are better off packing up and leaving, making room for those that are able to adapt to the local climate.
I wouldn't want to work with anyone who has that sense of self importance and entitlement.
If I fuck up, I want to be screamed at; screaming is just another form of communication.
By that definition, so is assault... But some "forms of communication" are simply not acceptable in the work place.
Another example of government trying to control people's lives.
Here in the US, doctors only kill people by accidentally falling asleep on the surgery table. It's so much better!
Yep! Just like the poor souls in the USA! All way overworked and enslaven to big money corporations! I am moving to France!
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
Rather than 'outlaw' after-hours emails, why not simply remind workers their employer can't require them to work after-hours, and remind employers that failure to review emails off the clock is not a justifiable reason for termination/discipline. The issue is cultural, a legislative response is over-kill.
Says the fellow that has never had to 'make a payroll, never created a single job'. No, what you meant to say was select employees could flex their work hours to meet company needs.
I expect you to work harder than you can keep up for fifty or sixty hours a week. I expect you to use your time intelligently and selectively.
I so agree with this! If you can't do your job without working 50 hours, you either aren't working hard enough during your 35-40 or the company needs another employee. Unless you're financially bought into the company it's not your problem, it's the company's. Doing extra hours just makes a company feel entitled to them, and makes them feel they can work everyone harder rather than have appropriate staffing levels.
But then I never got paid for being on call as a SQA tester. :(
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This is simply the expected (and intended, and designed) spread of the Working Time Directive to cover all work places.
Note : these rules apply to employees. If you're self-employed, you can do what the fuck you want. But anyone who hires you has to follow the rules.
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This sounds more like nanny legislation by France. What next, will they enforce an official bed time and ban any business from being open after say 10 PM and all television and radio stations will be required to stop broadcasting so that people will not watch TV or listen to the radio after 10 PM. Will the web sites be required to refuse service to french citizens after 10 PM their local time?
This seems to be more of a personal problem if someone isn't able to separate work and personal time. My employer allows me to take a laptop home however, any co-worker would know that their emails sent to me after work hours won't be answered until the next time I am scheduled to work. I may check my email periodically but any emails I receive off-hours are not answered until I come to work. It isn't like I'm paid after hours to respond to emails so it is only voluntarily if I respond to your emails after hours and I do consider this to be my own personal time and since I'm not being paid, I'll wait until work to do work related tasks.
How will this ban work for employers who have multiple shifts. For example in my department we work during the day shift but other departments work during the night time and grave yard shifts who may contact us. If they encounter problems with our software during their shift they will send emails to their superiors who work during day shift or directly send us an email. They realize that we won't answer their email but leave an email for us to answer once we come into work the next morning. It would be impracticable for them to wait until our shift starts which happens to be after their shift ends in order to send us an email. We will often respond to their emails during our daytime shift so that they will have a response from us first thing when they come to work since our office is closed during their shift. How would this ban work for employees of the same company who work different shifts?
There is no such thing like a "ban opf afterwork emails", just the right for an employee not to consult or answer his emails once he has finished his day. That's very different and it is called "droit à la déconnexion" (right to disconnect).
Do they kill 14,000 in a month from falling asleep?
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
The bulk of the victims — many of them elderly — died during the height of the heat wave, which brought suffocating temperatures of up to 104 degrees in a country where air conditioning is rare. Others apparently were greatly weakened during the peak temperatures but did not die until days later.
Has anybody seen my stapler?
Sounds like someone has a case of the Mondays!
Maybe so. But he left 20+ answering machine messages on Saturday, which I think is perfectly analogous to the subject of the proposed ban.
Are you incapable of finding other articles about the heat wave? Or do you think I was just looking for articles on french doctors and stumbled on that one? I was reading the news as it was happening, and talking with people here on slashdot about it Look at what the death rate was in other countries with everything similar except for labor/vacation laws. Air conditioning use wasn't what kept the numbers down in Germany or Belgium.
The reason so many died is that there was almost no medical care for the heat victims. Half the doctors were on their mandatory vacation for one month, and the other half did their 35 hours from Monday to Wednesday, then went home for four days. As the law required. The nurses could only do so much without doctors present. There were corpses filling the hospital corridors from the people who went there for treatment.That's where many of those old people died, not sitting at home.
After the month was over the one group of doctors came home from vacation, and the other half went on their vacation. So again, the patients had no doctors for half the week for another month.
There were a major investigation into why the government ministers didn't use emergency measures to pull at least some of the doctors home from vacation, or prevent the second group from going on theirs. But vacation time and limits on hours worked are so ingrained in their workers that nothing was done when needed.
Again, I was following this story at the time it was happening. Stop trying to score political points for "your side" and accept the fact that labor laws sometimes have tragic unforeseen consequences.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
Do you really think the US will do better where doctors are already working 16 hour days? What are you going to do? Tell them to work 30 hour days? At least in France they can declare some sort of "state of emergency" and double the number of working doctors.
Stop trying to score political points for "your side" and accept the fact that labor laws sometimes have tragic unforeseen consequences.
Why does the strawman pop up in every single internet discussion? Have you considered the possibility that I might have a moderate opinion on labor laws or are you too ignorant to care?
I think the word "Migrate" is the operable one here...
Understaffed hospitals can't cope with a mass influx of patients. Big deal.
Understaffed by legal mandate. Which is what I was replying to. I thought that was pretty clear.
Do you really think the US will do better where doctors are already working 16 hour days?
What is the highest death rate from a heat wave in the US? Not nearly 14,000. So, yes, the US does do it better.
What are you going to do? Tell them to work 30 hour days? At least in France they can declare some sort of "state of emergency" and double the number of working doctors.
Except that France specifically could not and did not do that. So, your argument is almost convincing, except that it was proven incorrect by reality.
Stop trying to score political points for "your side" and accept the fact that labor laws sometimes have tragic unforeseen consequences.
Why does the strawman pop up in every single internet discussion? Have you considered the possibility that I might have a moderate opinion on labor laws or are you too ignorant to care?
Sorry. I misunderstood your complete refusal to think about this situation on its own merits as evidence that you had an agenda to push.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.