法国拟立法：下班时间，不回邮件！

20160511ou 一中两外锵锵三人行 今日话题--- 法国拟立法：下班时间，不回邮件 Brian: So, who likes dealing with email, or other parts of work, after work? Nick: As you said, it is something that’s sometimes unavoidable, and it seems more and more so, as technology progresses. We’re all attached to our emails and our various other forms of communication, even on our phones these days, so it’s very difficult, if you have your emails on your phone, or anything like this, to disconnect from work sometimes. But France is taking a stand; they’re saying that according to new regulations they’re introducing, companies with more than 50 employees, larger companies, will be obliged to draw up a program in which they set out the hours in which the staff are not supposed to send or respond to emails. So there will be times outside of the working hours when, regardless of what you are doing, you shouldn’t be responding to your work emails. yoyo: Most people, of course, don’t like sending emails or receiving emails after work, because they enjoy their freedom, but if it is for some salesman, if they are really eager to get more clients, if their clients email them after work, you think that they would not like it? They will just run away from it? Of course not! Nick: Well, this is a key part of the problem here; it very much depends on the industry and your job within your company. For many, many people you’re just replying to things out of a sense of urgency, when really it could wait until the next day, or the Monday, or whenever you’re next at work. Brian: Right. Yoyo: But sometimes it is really difficult to draw the boundary of how urgent it is, or whether it is urgent or not. I can totally understand that, but my question is, should the government be involved in this? Brian: That is a good question. Nick: I think in a lot of cases, it’s kind of the culture within the company that you’re expected to do this even if it’s not in the rules, or your boss hasn’t said so. Yoyo: Exactly. If the authority and the government really want to write it in the law, to forbid a company to give after-work emails, so they protected the benefits from the employees, then let’s make it a fair play – what about the company? Did the government also made another rule to make some subsidies or beneficiary policies to the company, to compensate, sort of, the harm that the company will face because of this? If it is a company full of salesmen, if they didn’t reply to the emails instantly and then they lost a certain amount of clients, would the government compensate the company because of this? Nick: I think if it’s a company that relies so much on people being able to respond to things twenty-four hours of the day, then they should have shift workers or something, workers that are actually at work during those hours of the day, rather than relying on their existing workers to work 100% of the time, because that’s just not a feasible scenario. Yoyo: That is what the workers’ union is made of. And also, workers benefits, of course, should be protected, as always, but I have to say that the company, as for a fair say, rationally, the company is benefit-oriented. If a worker really cannot do the job, if it is really in the selling industries, what do you think that company should do, and the employees should do? Brian: Actually, treating our workers better, whether it’s by improving their conditions, giving them less hours, giving them more time off, or actually real time off, you know, after work, or increasing their pay, often leads to happier workers and better workers who get more done and actually bring in greater profits for companies.