In Brief

It has been report­ed that in July 2013, Ger­man born Chief Exec­u­tive of Swiss­com, Carsten Schlot­er, sad­ly com­mit­ted sui­cide just weeks after pro­vid­ing a can­did inter­view to the Swiss media which pro­vid­ed an insight into the increased pres­sures and stress he felt caused by mod­ern com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tems. In one media report Mr Carsten said the most dan­ger­ous thing is to fall into a mode of per­ma­nent activity”.

In the wake of this tragedy and increas­ing recog­ni­tion of the effect mod­ern com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tems are hav­ing on our lives, Ger­many is mov­ing towards restrict­ing employ­ers con­tact­ing employ­ees out­side of work hours, in a bid to pro­tect and pro­mote men­tal well­be­ing as well as pre­vent­ing employ­ees suf­fer­ing undue stress from being con­stant­ly on call.


The Facts

Ger­man based com­pa­nies includ­ing Volk­swa­gen, BMW, Puma and Deutsche Telekom have imposed restric­tions on after hours con­tact with staff in order to pre­vent staff burn out caused by undue stress. Volk­swa­gen in par­tic­u­lar, have intro­duced a pol­i­cy to stop all emails being for­ward­ed to their staff half an hour before the end of the work­ing day, while oth­er com­pa­nies have made a dec­la­ra­tion that employ­ees will not be penal­ized for switch­ing off their mobile phones or fail­ing to reply to emails or mes­sages in their own free time.

The Ger­man Labour Min­istry is now fol­low­ing in the steps of these cor­po­rate giants in a bid to pro­tect work­ers men­tal health. In a media report Ursu­la von der Leyen from the Labour Min­istry said it is in the inter­ests of employ­ers that work­ers can reli­ably switch off from their jobs, oth­er­wise, in the long run, they burn out.”

Some­thing to think about

With for­ev­er increas­ing tech­nol­o­gy and the ease with which employ­ers can com­mu­ni­cate with their employ­ees it has become gen­er­al­ly accept­able to flip an email or send a text to an employ­ee regard­ing a work relat­ed issues after hours. An employ­ee who is absent from work due to stress relat­ed ill­ness or because they are burnt out, can result in very cost­ly con­se­quences for an employ­er through absen­teeism, loss of pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and any asso­ci­at­ed work­ers com­pen­sa­tion claims that may arise.

With the devel­op­ment of mod­ern com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tems we are becom­ing per­ma­nent­ly engaged and bom­bard­ed with emails, tweets, texts and posts. Employ­ers there­fore need now more than ever, to recog­nise that the mod­ern work­place not only demands phys­i­cal safe­ty but also men­tal well­be­ing. In order to achieve men­tal well­be­ing in the work­place, and to pro­tect employ­ees from the effects of work relat­ed stress, employ­ers may need to take the lead and where pos­si­ble, intro­duce poli­cies pro­mot­ing min­i­mum inter­ven­tion” into work­ers’ free time.

If you would like to repub­lish this arti­cle, it is gen­er­al­ly approved, but pri­or to doing so please con­tact the Mar­ket­ing team at marketing@​swaab.​com.​au. This arti­cle is not legal advice and the views and com­ments are of a gen­er­al nature only. This arti­cle is not to be relied upon in sub­sti­tu­tion for detailed legal advice.

Publications

10 Tips For Stra­ta Reme­di­al Con­struc­tion Contracts

Are you won­der­ing why your stra­ta work to repair or main­tain your stra­ta build­ing is over bud­get, rid­dled with delays…

Ope­nAI’s screen­less future on pause amidst trade mark dispute

Back­groundIn ear­ly May, Ope­nAI sur­prised the tech world with news of an esti­mat­ed $6.4 bil­lion part­ner­ship and acqui­si­tion involv­ing ​“io”…

Impor­tant Stra­ta Law Changes — Effec­tive 1 July 2025

The Stra­ta Schemes Leg­is­la­tion Amend­ment Act 2025 (Amend­ing Act) intro­duces fur­ther reform in Gov­ern­men­t’s ongo­ing review of the stra­ta legislation. On 1 July…

In the News

Press Release | We are pleased to announce five senior pro­mo­tions in key prac­tice areas of the firm effec­tive, 1 July 2025

Con­grat­u­la­tions:Maris­sa Arag­o­na — AssociateRamesh Chamala — AssociateAaron Boz — AssociateWilliam Clement — Senior AssociateKel­lie Van Mun­ster — Spe­cial Counsel “I am per­son­al­ly delight­ed…

Michael Byrnes quot­ed in the arti­cle, “‘Creep­ing’ unfair dis­missal thresh­old will increase to $183k on 1 July”, pub­lished in HR Leader on 27 June 2025

Michael Byrnes quot­ed in the arti­cle, “‘Creep­ing’ unfair dis­missal thresh­old will increase to $183k on 1 July”, pub­lished in HR Leader…

Michael Byrnes is quot­ed in the arti­cle, ABC may face sig­nif­i­cant penal­ties’ after can­cel cul­ture’ sack­ing ruled unlaw­ful”, pub­lished in HR Leader on 26 June 2025

Michael Byrnes is quot­ed in the arti­cle, ​“ABC may face ​‘sig­nif­i­cant penal­ties’ after ​‘can­cel cul­ture’ sack­ing ruled unlaw­ful”, pub­lished in…

Sign up for our Newsletter

*Mandatory information