Majority of small business bosses support potential right to disconnect law

A new poll claims that the vast majority (85 percent) of British SME bosses with HR responsibilities support proposals to give staff the “right to disconnect”, with 4 in 5 (80 percent) believing the Employment Rights Bill is a positive step forward for employees. The survey was conducted by Breathe HR to uncover sentiment towards new workers’ rights amongst bosses who will be steering through new rule changes at SMEs, ahead of the Employment Rights Bill being laid in parliament. This is expected to take place in the coming weeks, although the implementation of rule changes in practice may be delayed following pressure from certain business leaders.

Changes are set to include day-one rights to request flexibility and 4-day weeks, access to parental leave, and the “right to switch off” – which will empower staff to disconnect from work outside regular hours and on weekends. However some reports suggest the initial proposals may be watered down following opposition. SMEs account for 99.9 percent of all businesses, three-fifths of employment, and over half of private sector turnover in the UK.

To conduct this research, Breathe HR surveyed 526 senior leaders at British SMEs (with up to 250 employees) whose personal responsibilities include HR; such as CEOs, Founders, and HR Directors.

Breathe HR supports over 15,000 UK SMEs to navigate HR challenges and streamline people management through its all-in-one digital HR solution.

The survey asked SME leaders whether staff should have the right to disconnect from work communications outside working hours. They discovered:

• 41 percent of SME leaders ‘strongly agree’ that staff should have the right to switch off
• An additional 44 percent ‘agree’ that staff should be empowered to disconnect from work
• Just 5 percent ‘disagree’ or ‘strongly disagree’ with the right to disconnect

This is at odds with sentiment amongst bosses at big businesses. A separate survey conducted by the IOD, which took into account the views of Directors at companies of all sizes, recently found that 58 percent opposed plans to restrict contact with staff outside of working hours.

Bigger firms’ concerns that Employment Rights Bill proposals will be bad for business also appear to be unrepresentative of the views of SME bosses. The vast majority of the leaders surveyed by Breathe HR believe the Employment Rights Bill will significantly benefit their organisations, as well as being a positive step forward for staff:

• 68 percent agree that the Employment Rights Bill will positively impact productivity at their organisation
• 69 percent agree that the legislation will positively impact retention
• 72 percent agree’ that it will benefit wellbeing

According to the poll, 63 percent of SME leaders surveyed agree that changes proposed within the Employment Rights Bill will disproportionately impact small and medium-sized businesses in terms of cost and time to implement. Just 14 percent disagreed that implementing the changes will disproportionately impact SMEs. This echoes concerns raised by HR leaders last week that SMEs “cannot afford” regulatory pressures.

In addition, 61 percent of survey respondents agreed that implementing the Employment Rights Bill will significantly add to their workload and/or that of their HR team. Just 15 percent disagreed that implementing the changes would increase their and/or their HR teams workloads, suggesting that the expected benefits for employees and businesses could come at the cost of those tasked with steering through the changes.