Delphine is one of 65,000 Belgian public employees who cannot be contacted outside of working hours.
Although she once hoped to be a professional chef, Delphine ultimately opted to be a public employee.
But she still loves having time to cook: “It’s one of my passions!” she says.
The 36-year-old is preparing dinner for her friends, Catherine and Roch. It is Hachis Parmentier, a dish of minced meat and mashed potatoes, which is sometimes compared to a meatloaf.
As he stirs the onions, he tells me that he appreciates the fact that many civil servants in Belgium have the right to disconnect.
“Especially for young people, it’s not always clear when they should be available or not.”
Public Administration Minister Petra De Sutter says the change will boost efficiency.
Without the right to unplug, he says, “the result will be stress and burnout, and this is today’s real disease.”
This rule change was relatively simple to implement, as 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 Business Network.
He states that “will destroy” the progress seen during the pandemic towards more flexible work.
“It would be a huge sign of mistrust of employers’ ability to organize work.”
Len Shackleton, a research fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs think tank and professor of economics at the University of Buckingham, agrees that it undermines flexibility.
“Restrictions on contacting workers outside of fixed hours are just one more dose of regulation.”
Petra De Sutter insists 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,” he says.
Delphine laughs a bit when I ask if the change might feed the notion of civil servants “watching the clock.”
He states that it is an old cliché and that the workload has increased over the years.
“I think we do more with fewer people, generally. I don’t think it’s because we don’t like to work.”
Other countries have introduced such provisions, like 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.
