Should Hong Kong follow Australia’s ‘right to disconnect’ law for workers?

Hong Kong is not ready to follow Australia in allowing employees to ignore calls and emails from their bosses outside office hours, as responding swiftly and working overtime were part of the city’s success, according to human resources experts and the business sector.

A new “right to disconnect” law came into force in Australia on Monday, allowing millions of workers to refuse to monitor, read or respond to their employers’ attempts to contact them outside work hours – unless that refusal is deemed “unreasonable”.

But Chow yee-ping, managing director of ACTS Consulting Co, noted that given Hong Kong was in an economic downturn, now was not an ideal time to launch schemes promoting labour welfare.

“One of the biggest strengths of Hong Kong is flexibility, which includes adaptable scheduling,” she said, adding this was especially important for the financial sector to communicate with countries in different time zones.

She added that one of the reasons Hong Kong had such a vigorous work spirit was the overtime put in by employees, although she admitted long working hours was a problem.

Professor Lam King-sun, director of the Teaching and Learning Centre at Lingnan University, said Hong Kong was an export-oriented economy that also focused on trading and international business.

“We should focus on how to speed up the recovery after the pandemic,” he stressed.

Agnes Chan Sui-kuen, chairwoman of Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce, one of the city’s largest business lobby groups, told the Post that any work arrangements outside regular hours should be negotiated and mutually agreed by employers and staff members.

“Flexibility is needed in certain types of industries,” she said when asked whether the disconnect of work rule should be applied to Hong Kong.

Even if employees and employers reached a consensus on some arrangements on having staff work outside regular hours, bosses should put in place compliance protocols to avoid future disputes, she said.

Chan, a former managing partner at Ernst & Young Hong Kong and Macau, cited an example of professional services workers such as accountants and auditors working outside work hours because of the nature of the profession, especially during the peak auditing season.

“The process of compiling accounting reports involves so many different stakeholders, it is hard to avoid working outside work hours,” she said.

Chamber CEO Patrick Yeung Wai-tim said he did not think the work-life balance problem in Hong Kong was as serious as in other parts of the world.

“Probably more individual companies will have their own in-house rule rather than be required to follow a law in the near future,” he said.

He added that advanced technology had improved work efficiency and productivity and gradually reshaped traditional workflow and process.

Leo Chan, who is in his 20s, has worked for an accounting firm for about five years and said overtime was quite common.

“I think nearly everyone in the company has experienced overtime, while it is common for some of the workers to be off at midnight every day,” he said.

Chan added he had to work an extra hour every day now even though it was not the peak season.

“I am not happy that I need to work overtime because I would like to spend more time with my wife,” he said, while adding overtime was part of his company’s culture and he could not “say no” to it.

The Labour Department stressed that the Employment Ordinance stipulated that an employer needed to inform their workers of the conditions of employment including wages, wage period and length of notice required to terminate a contract.