Protecting Off Hours Legislation was introduced in Australia to allow employees to protect themselves from unreasonable calls and emails from work during off-hours. You can read more about it, but a bill was passed to allow employees to ignore calls and messages without repercussion It is expected to pass, though I don't expect this to do a lot for bad bosses. They'll find ways to hint or imply that you need to respond, or even remove your chances of advancement/promotion/raises. While you can sue, that rarely works out well for anyone. From the various reports I've seen, I'm not sure if this includes salaried workers or just hourly workers. I certainly think hourly workers ought to be paid if they're called after hours. I've even been paid as a salaried worker if the calls outside of core hours exceeded a certain amount per week. That seemed fair to me, and in our team, there was always someone willing to work more for extra money, so I could trade on-call work if I didn't want to do it. As a side note, my second time on call (for a week), I got paged over 40 times. It was a nice paycheck, but not worth it. I had toddlers in the house, and I slept with a vibrating pager on my chest to not wake my wife. It was not a good week and I traded away my on-call weeks to others, sometimes even sweetening the deal by buying them lunch. There are a lot of people working in technology who don't like the job and don't recommend a career in this business precisely because they are overworked. The US has a very poor work-life balance in general, and many people feel pressured to work lots of extra hours. My colleagues and friends overseas do lots of work, and seem just as productive, but don't arrive early, leave late, or work weekends very often. Sometimes they do, but not often. In the US, many people work more than 40 hours regularly, with a commute, and think this is normal. There are times when extra work might be needed. However, with plenty of us working from home after the pandemic, it's important to strike a balance of some sort and learn to get away from work. I've worked hard to reduce my hours from a regular 60 while owning and running SQL Server Central to something more reasonable now. I certainly have weeks I work more than 40, but I have weeks I work less. Balancing the workload in a day is something else I watch. I try hard to not set meetings or work too early or late, but the nature of my job means I work with people in the US, the EU, and Australia. As I write this, I started work at 8 am this morning with a meeting and I have an 8-9 pm webinar for the Australian region. However, I went to the gym at lunch and coached kids for a few hours in the late afternoon. I found a balance and while I might have worked 9 hours today, I don't often do that. I will take 6 am calls, but not regularly. There is something satisfying about working hard to earn your paycheck each day. It gives one purpose and satisfaction for a job well done. At the same time, it's important to get away from work, enjoy your family, friends, hobbies, faith, and more. In technology, where regular hours aren't always part of the job, you must manage your life well. I don't know that legislation would help in the US, but I am interested to see how this proceeds in Australia. Steve Jones - SSC Editor Join the debate, and respond to today's editorial on the forums |
