Although she once hoped to be a professional chef, in the end Delphine chose to be a civil servant.
But she still loves having time to cook: “It’s one of my passions! ”, he says.
The wife of 36 years is preparing dinner for his friends, Catherine and Roch. It is Hachis Parmentier, a dish of minced meat and mashed potatoes, which is sometimes compared to a meatloaf.
While stirring the onions, he tells me that he appreciates the fact that many civil servants in Belgium have the right to disconnect.
“Especially for the young people, it is not always clear when they should be available or not”.
“Because when you start a new job, you want to be perfect and you think: ‘yes I did not answer that email at of the night maybe my boss doesn’t like it’”.
“So now I think it will be a cultural change”.
Since this February 1, 18.000 Belgian government employees cannot be contacted outside normal business hours.
There are exceptions, which can be by arrangement or if something cannot wait. And it does not mean that there will be no staff on duty.
A second principle is that workers should not be disadvantaged by not answering the phone or not receiving emails after hours.
At the moment only for civil servants
The Minister of Public Administration Petra De Sutter believes the change will drive efficiency.
Says the line between work and personal life has become increasingly blurred during the pandemic, with so many working from House.
- People who have a secret second job taking advantage of remote work
Without the right to disconnect, he states, “the result will be stress and exhaustion and this is the real disease of today”.
This rule change was relatively simple to implement , since it only applies to federal civil servants.
It is believed that the plan to extend the practice to the private sector will meet more resistance.
“The right to disconnect should not be extended to the private sector”, says Eric Laureys, of Voka, the Flemish Network of Companies.
He affirms that it will “destroy” the progress observed during the pandemic towards a job more flexible.
“It would be a huge sign of distrust in the ability of employers to organize work”.
Len Shackleton, researcher at the ex group experts from the Institute of Economic Affairs and professor of economics at the University of Buckingham, agree that it undermines flexibility.
“Restrictions on contacting workers outside fixed hours are just one more dose of regulation”.
Petra De Sutter insists that the measure will not block flexible working, when that is what employees want.
“But on the other hand, we need to protect the basic rights of workers”, she points out.
Delphine laughs a little when I ask her if the change could feed the notion of public officials who “ they watch the clock”.
He states that it is an old cliché and that the workload has increased over the years.
“I believe that we do more with fewer people, generally. I don’t think it’s because we don’t like to work”.
Other countries have introduced this type of provision, such as France.
In Belgium, it seems likely that the next stage of the debate will be whether a higher proportion of workers should also get the right to go offline.
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