As society has slowly eased into a new post-pandemic world, remote work seems to be here to stay. In fact, as of March 2021, over five million Canadians were working remotely, which is significantly higher than in 2016. Remote work has a myriad of benefits, but there are also some health and safety risks to working from home. Some benefits of remote work include:
When employees struggle to separate work-life from home life, their work-life balance can be negatively impacted. This could result in job dissatisfaction, disengagement, or mental health concerns. To mitigate these risks, in 2021 the Ontario government passed Bill 27: The Working for Workers Act to protect employees and to give them the right to disconnect from work during
non-working hours.
Learn More about Remote Work Best Practices
Not Separating Work and Home is Harmful
Ensuring you’re balancing work and life helps you maintain a healthy mental state, but many people struggle to fully balance the two. It’s because they aren’t fully disconnecting at the end of the day. Email, slack messages, and texts are all ways that workers stay tied to their work, even when they’ve long left the office. There is an
even greater risk when your office is in your home.
Answering emails during off-hours creates stress and hyper-vigilance resulting from the expectation that emails be addressed at anytime. As well, although some employers may believe that employees who answer emails during off-hours are more productive, the opposite is true. Employees who fail to disconnect from work and achieve work-life balance are often less engaged and less productive at the workplace.
Learn more about workplace harassment risks in a remote work landscape.
Bill 27: Protecting Workers
Bill 27 makes it mandatory for businesses with 25 or more employees to create a policy around disconnecting from work. They must provide a copy of the written policy to employees. Any time there is a change to the policy, it must be shared with workers within 30 days.
Most Right to Disconnect policies are straightforward. They should include a statement that all employees (with exception) have the right to disconnect from work outside of their normal working pattern. It is important to reiterate that the organization respects all employees’ personal
time.
Bill 27 remains quite general. While it mandates the employer to create a policy, there are no requirements for what policies must include aside from a general statement about the right to disconnect. As such, the onus remains on employers to help define what it means to disconnect from work, and then put practices in place that discourage working after hours. It boils down to supporting employee
wellness because disconnecting from work is a recommended measure intended to keep the work-life balance intact and ensure stress levels stay low and do not
negatively impact mental or physical health.
Learn more about remote work safety basics and download a home office safety
checklist! Trust MSW
When it comes to creating policies or providing training for your workers, you don’t have to go it alone. We offer full consultative services, and we can help you create a disconnecting from work policy so that you’re compliant with Bill 27. We also have a wide range of online courses that cover everything from remote work best
practices to leading a remote team.
To learn more about MSW’s online training and distance learning options, contact us online or call 289.309.1143. Visit us 24/7 on the
web at mswsafety.ca.
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