UK proposes giving digital workers the ‘right to switch off’

Britain’s new Labour government is the latest legislature to consider how it might make it easier for digital workers using always-on technologies to turn them off at the end of the working day.

In Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay, published before it won the UK’s July general election, it promised to address the issue, saying “We will bring in the ‘right to switch off’ so working from home does not result in homes turning into 24/7 offices.”

And this week it brought the issue back into the spotlight, with a government spokesperson telling the BBC, “Good employers understand that for workers to stay motivated and productive they do need to be able to switch off, and a culture presenteeism can be damaging to productivity,” a government spokesperson told the BBC on Monday.