According to the Labor Code, remote work differs little from traditional office work. The same rules apply. However, according to Elena Vitchak, a professor of business practice at the Skolkovo School of Management, if earlier, at the end of the working day, a person switched to “home” mode and returned to “work” mode only when he crossed the threshold of 15 minutes, then during the pandemic years, significant boundaries of personal and work time were disrupted.
“Employees who don’t know how to plan their schedule effectively get stuck in a 24/7 work mode and quickly lose productivity. Employers, in turn, also don’t always understand what “quiet hours” and rest periods are. “Exhausting yourself, because without health it’s impossible to maintain balance, at least not for long,” the expert notes.
For example, in Australia, a new law recently came into effect that gives employees the right to ignore unwarranted calls and emails from employers outside of working hours.
“The initiative is controversial. It is difficult to integrate it into our working relationships. What will happen to the team if half of the employees ignore calls and the other half work 24/7? Again, because not everyone, including bosses, is able to manage their time well and give instructions outside of working hours,” asks Elena Vitchak.
Anatoly Baranov, a member of the Central Council of the independent trade union “New Labour”, also believes that issues of building a “working and personal time” regime should be resolved on an individual basis.
“Of course, you can collect the necessary materials (call schedules, correspondence by email and instant messengers, etc.), contact the labor inspectorate and teach the employer a lesson, but whether the relationship with the employer will develop after this is a question,” he argues. And adds: if an employee is listed as self-employed, pays taxes on professional income and performs a task under a contract, then he must prove that he really has an employment relationship (this is possible in court), or simply accept it. “Self-employed workers do not have a standardized work schedule, and there is no law regulating relations in this area. They have long promised to introduce such a bill to the State Duma, but so far no one has seen it. We will most likely see it in the autumn session of parliament,” clarifies a trade union representative.
