Work, Non-Work Boundaries and the Right to Disconnect

Abstract

Work-life conflict involves the competing demands of work and nonwork activities that often trigger feelings of stress and anxiety that can endanger individuals’ professional and personal lives. As a result, organizations and nations have been encouraged to create more employee-friendly job arrangements in terms of where, when, and how individuals work. Providing employees greater choice and flexible work boundaries, however, often turns into work without boundaries creating problematic consequences for both firms and workers. This “always on” culture has been made possible by several factors most importantly by enhanced communication technology involving connectivity and immediacy that enable employees to communicate anytime and from anywhere. While organizations are addressing this imbalance and attempting to mitigate the often-negative effects of such professional-personal conflict, politicians have initiated legislation that attempts to switch off the 24-7-365 availability mindset by considering and sometimes adopting “right to disconnect laws.”