Employees have the right to disconnect from work

Understanding your employees' right to disconnect

There isn't a specific UK employment law protecting employees from working outside of their normal hours. However, the UK government (as of 2026) is considering initiatives to rather than banning the practice.

Your business still needs to keep in mind three things:

• The Working Time Regulations 1998 and the limits on average weekly working hours

• Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and the legal duty of care to protect the mental and physical health of staff

• Employment contract terms, such as any preventing an unreasonable demand on out of hours work

If you ignore reasonable boundaries then you do run the risk of an employment tribunal claim by a staff member. This is because they could claim for constructive dismissal (feeling compelled to resign due to your behaviour) or stress-related issues.

How overworking staff may affect your business

As is the case with all forms of organisational change, the first step is for senior leaders to recognise the dangers associated with the current system. In this case, the obvious starting point is mental health.

A survey conducted by The Mental Health Foundation discovered that a third of employees are unhappy about how much time they devote to work, and that over 40% are neglecting other aspects of their life as a result.

It also found that when working long hours, 27% feel depressed and 34% feel anxious. Confirming that managing employee burnout is a vital strategy for any business.

These figures are clearly concerning in and of themselves, but they are also rather damning from the business perspective, bearing stark implications for the engagement and productivity of employees. Once again, this is a link that has long been established in the corporate world. One study by Deloitte, for instance, reports that poor mental health among employees costs UK businesses up to £45 billion in lost productivity each year.

The employer's role in staff wellbeing

The onus is on your business to create a set of standards for work-life balance and ensure managers communicate this to employees on a regular basis.

This can be as simple as ensuring employees do not work beyond their agreed hours, they utilise their annual leave allowance, and they're comfortable with their workload. This'll not only improve employee satisfaction and performance, but also bolster the organisation’s employer brand.

Here are some other tactics to consider:

1. Workload plays a key role and it should be required of managers to ensure a suitable balance is struck. Often, employees will be quietly reluctant to take holidays, or feel compelled to work beyond their contracted hours, for fear that it'll set them back and their performance will be negatively scrutinised as a result. This can quickly lead to burnout.

2. In many cases, reaffirming that it's okay to take a break, taking excess work off people's plates, and working with them to prioritise tasks can boost productivity, as sometimes having too much on can lead to nothing being done at all. It'll also enable employees to leave work at work, recharge, and come back refreshed, rather than working themselves into the ground.

3. Before rejecting annual leave requests, managers should carefully weigh up whether this is worth the potential impact on the employee. It might not always be possible to accommodate a request, particularly during busier periods, but this is sometimes all the more reason to ensure employees take the time out they need to decompress. 

4. Keep an eye on those who have a build-up of unused holidays and encourage them to take them; even if the current circumstances mean they have nothing particular planned, this can do wonders for overall wellbeing.

5. Finally, aside from communicating the company’s stance on work-life balance, managers should also be urged to comply with the standard themselves and resist the temptation to contact employees during evenings, weekends and holidays.

6. Often, managers will continue to delegate tasks and send resources to employees when they are out of office, with the expectation that they will acknowledge it when they return. But the digital age we live in renders this a flawed approach. With employees able to access platforms such as email, Slack and Microsoft Teams from their smart devices, these communications can act as a source of stress, and ultimately have a negative effect on work-life balance.

If these provisions are firmly in place, and that is made clear to the employee, it is far more likely that they will feel comfortable switching off outside of working hours and during holidays.

Updating your approach to internal people management

While this is an approach to people management that can be conceived and implemented over a period of months and years, the impetus to do this now is clear.

It's good business practice to assume a statutory mandate on work-life balance could become a reality in the near future (such as adopting a hybrid workplace model). It makes sense to avoid future complications and get ahead of the curve by ingraining this into your culture now.

After all, choosing to implement a policy of your own volition rather than because it is a legal requirement will be viewed as a much more authentic display of your commitment to employee wellbeing, boosting your employer brand, strengthening your talent function and producing greater job satisfaction among employees, all of which can only be good for business.

Advice on all your HR issues

Employers and HR teams will have much to contend as the working world evolves post-lockdown. From helping you to craft a new policy to supporting you through the legalities of implementing hybrid working, our Employment Law and HR experts can help your organisation adapt its people management practices and guide you through any employee obstacles you may encounter quickly and compliantly.

For more information on our fixed-fee support, call 0345 336 8393 or request your free consultation using the button below.