Author: Luo Kaitian, Doctor of Law, Founding Partner of Beijing Puran Law Firm.
Author: Dai Meng, Master of Human Resource Management, Beijing Puran Law Firm, Lawyer.
When work comes after work, can the company give it to employees? Such a common thing has become a problem? It may be a problem, depending on what happens in **. Let's take a look at what happens to work after work in France.
First, a story
The company's business has blossomed everywhere in China and has developed rapidly. In order to get closer to the market, the company has set up an overseas presence in France, employing nearly 100 people.
Mathilde is a local warehouse manager recruited by the company in France. After getting off work one day, the company received a notice from the first merchant and learned that the transportation time of the goods had changed, and the goods would be delivered to the company that night. The incident happened suddenly, and the company immediately contacted Mathilde, asking Mathilde to go to the warehouse as soon as possible that night to receive the goods.
Mathilde was having a party with three or five friends, and was in high spirits, so she directly refused the company's request.
The arranged work was blocked, and the boss felt deflated. He was ready to fire Mathilde the next day for not obeying the management of the work and not completing the work assigned by his superiors.
Can Dingqua Company do this?
2. Lawyer's analysis
In 2016, the French Labor Code adopted the "right to disconnect offline" (le droit à la déconnexion). According to the regulations, employees should fully enjoy the "right to disconnect offline" outside of working hours, and the company should establish a mechanism to regulate the use of digital tools to ensure that employees' rest and vacation time, personal and family life are respected. If the employer and the employee cannot agree on matters related to off-hours, the company should establish rules on this matter after consulting the Social and Economic Commission (du comité social et économique). The rules need to clarify how employees can exercise the "right to disconnect offline". At the same time, in order to ensure that companies can use digital tools more rationally, companies should also provide relevant training to employees and managers to raise awareness of the "right to disconnect offline" after work in accordance with the law. This regulation will come into force on January 1, 2017. [1]
It can be seen that the company in France may not only not be able to require employees to work after work, but also has a legal obligation to clarify the rules on how to carry out the "right to disconnect offline" of employees after work. According to the regulations, the company is legally obliged to include the "right to disconnect offline" into the agenda of labor negotiations. If the company ignores its obligation to negotiate, its legal representative may face up to one year in prison and a fine of 3,750 euros. [2]
Against the backdrop of clear and stringent penalty rules, Chinese companies "going global" need to fully and timely understand the local labor and employment regulations and avoid unforeseen liabilities as much as possible. Specifically, in order to respond to the requirement of "disconnecting the right to go offline" and achieve labor and employment management in accordance with laws and regulations, the company can further implement the rules by providing training to employees and supplementing it with corresponding electronic platform management methods. For example, in addition to clearly informing employees that they should avoid sending and replying to work emails after hours, companies can also set pop-up reminders for emails sent during non-working hours detected by the back-end system, so as to further protect the compliance practice of "disconnecting the right to go offline". If it is truly necessary for employees to return to work and work overtime after work, they should consider flexibly handling it through rules and regulations, collective agreements, labor contracts or temporary negotiations, and set reasonable exceptions to avoid the mandatory application of unilateral directives and unnecessary legal risks.
1] For more information, please refer to Article l. of the French Labor Code (Code du tr**ail).Article 2242-17.
2] For details, please refer to Article l. of the French Labor Code (Code du tr**ail).Article 2243-2.