Credit: Andrés Monroy-Hernández from Cambridge, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
It is now illegal to call your staff outside work hours in Portugal.
According to CNN, Portugal has introduced a law that bans employers from contacting workers outside of their regular hours by phone, message or email.
The new law states that employers must respect the privacy of their workers, including periods of rest and family time.
The new law became exigent following the covid pandemic that made companies to adopt remote work to keep their operations going.
However, the new normal led to the blurring of the lines between office hours and close of business as many employers typically sent mails and initiated calls to their staff after office hours.
This is now a serious offence that could result in a fine if reported.
Portuguese regulation also stipulates that employers are responsible for providing workers with the appropriate tools to do their jobs remotely.
Employers are required to reimburse workers for any additional expenses, including any increase in bills such as electricity and gas, they might incur while working from home.
Portuguese parliament passed the law last Friday and came into effect the following day.
France was a forerunner in the area of regulating employer-employee relations as it implemented a law that gave workers the right to ignore after-hours business emails in 2017.
