UK Poised to Adopt New ‘Right To Disconnect’ Legislation as Remote Working Has Ignited An Always On Culture

Just Ask Max, a new digital well-being service, has been launched to lead the response in helping to improve the ‘digital health’ of employees and with the UK poised to be next to adopt the new ‘Right to Disconnect’ regulation sweeping across the Europe, digital health is quickly emerging as the fourth segment of employee well-being, adding to financial, physical and emotional well-being.

Many countries around the globe have been working on the best way to implement an effective right-to-disconnect legislation by either putting a cap on the workday or workweek or limiting communication outside of working hours. Both options are meant to help and protect employees from any repercussions if they choose to switch off and following pressure from the Labour Party and other MPs across the UK this should become law later this year

With 69% of remote workers already experiencing burnout symptoms (Monster Survey, 2020) and four to five times more working remotely expected post-pandemic (McKinsey, 2021), supporting people’s digital lives is set to become a significant area of growth in 2021. Over the last year, UK employees are being given greater workloads and are logged on an extra two hours each day whilst working remotely (NordVPN, 2021) as the lines between personal and professional space have become blurred.

Jonny Pelter, Just Ask Max’s founder and CEO, said: “The ‘Right to Disconnect’ is so important to employees across the UK as the pandemic has accelerated remote working and this has had a huge impact on our work life balance. Employers already have a duty of care to do more to understand and promote digital welfare in the workplace but having a legislation will ensure that all businesses change to protect their employees.”

The Just Ask Max platform helps employees use technology in a safer, more secure and healthier way. Employees can get their home devices protected, protect their wider family online, assess their digital well-being, learn heathier tech habits, understand how to work from home productively and get personalised support direct from a community of experts when something goes wrong.

The launch of the platform comes as the business world adapts to the new normal and many businesses across the UK announce hybrid models with staff working from home for the majority of the time. The acceleration of remote working during the pandemic, the mental well-being issues that have arisen, and the emergence of ‘digital burnout’ has all acted as a catalyst for a need by employers to support their people’s digital health.

Jonny Pelter, Just Ask Max’s founder and CEO, said: “Employers are finding that existing mental health support mechanisms are able to treat the symptoms of issues like digital burnout, but not address the source of the problem directly. Our service is different to anything currently available – we’re moving away from the product-based ‘point solution’ that is dropped into an organisation (and often then just left) and towards a service-based model where we combine technology, engagement activity and wellbeing workshops to provide continued support over time.”

“Organisation’s IT Security teams can help protect company devices, but not employee’s digital lives. We’re able to help with everything from balancing work and their kids screen time, to parental controls, online scams, social media, cyber bullying, sexting – we have them covered.”