With summer officially over, professionals everywhere resume their activity after the holidays, a break that traditionally in our country is very much in the month of August, when we truly reach an almost total pause point in everything that is not related to tourism. It happens then, that after the "we'll deal with this after the holidays", when this restart point arrives many people go from 0 to 120 in a short time and, often, even exceeding the permitted limits, if the car analogy is allowed. In other words, everyone wants to make up for lost time and emergencies accumulate. There are hours left and we go from absolute rest to being at our best.
It is at this point that we find the need to reconcile workload management with one of the rights recognized in the Organic Law on Data Protection and Guarantee of Digital Rights (LOPDGDD), the right to digital disconnection. That is, to guarantee that workers, outside of legal or conventionally established working hours, are respected for their rest time, leave and holidays, as well as their personal and family privacy.
However, it is not yet completely widespread, despite the time that the LOPDGDD has been in force, that within the implementation of this law in organizations, an internal policy is included to define the modalities for exercising this right, in addition to training and staff awareness plans. This is also important, with the extension of teleworking, to have established what use, let's say reasonable, should be made of the company's digital devices outside of working hours. Here the interest in establishing policies for good use of the devices is common. It is no longer just use in terms of schedules, but also in terms of information security. In any case, it is necessary to have this point implemented correctly within the company's general plan for data protection, privacy and information management.
There may be exceptions, yes, but then it is necessary to have an agreement on availability outside of normal working hours, which must be at a specific time and for non-face-to-face shifts. Apart from that, they would not be obliged to respond to work communications. In other words, anyone who does not respond to company communications outside of their working hours or during their holidays or for disconnecting the corporate devices they use to work during those periods of time cannot be sanctioned or fired.
Correct time planning and good implementation of the data protection policy will avoid inconveniences with these situations. Good return.
