Labour’s ‘right to switch off’ is ‘unfeasible’ in UK academia

Even if academics are empowered to switch off from their jobs, feasibility of planned rules in question if root causes of overwork are not addressed

August 19, 2024
Businessman sitting at his office desk in the sea on Brighton beach to illustrate Labour’s ‘right to switch off’ is ‘unfeasible’ in UK academia
Source: Jim Holden/Alamy

The new Labour government’s plan to introduce a “right to switch off” could be “unfeasible” in UK academia, experts have warned.

Ahead of its general election victory, Labour promised to bring the UK in line with Ireland and Belgium by allowing workers to disconnect from their jobs outside regular hours, giving staff and employers the opportunity to “work together on bespoke workplace policies or contractual terms that benefit both parties”.

But questions have been raised about how applicable the rules could be in academia, which has been long associated with a lack of formal working hours and an individual – and sometimes intense – pursuit of research goals.

This is complicated further by the financial crisis facing UK universities and the intense competition among researchers to secure permanent positions, research grants and other accolades.

“It’s hard to really see how feasible it is. There’s a massive problem with overworking in academia, but that problem certainly isn’t solved by right to disconnect,” said Ruth Dukes, professor of labour law at the University of Glasgow, adding that such regulation may even be “unwelcome”. 

Without addressing the root causes of high workloads, such regulations “make it even more difficult for people to do the work that they feel they have to do”, she added.

And it would be hard to enforce such rules, Professor Dukes said, with a code of best practice, as adopted in Ireland, the likeliest outcome.

Labour has also pledged to ban “exploitative” zero-hours contracts, leading to similar questions about how this could be applied within academia.

Deborah Dean, associate professor of industrial relations at the University of Warwick, said “disconnecting from work as a right is a really welcome signal in terms of employment relations in general”, but added that “most of us inevitably self-exploit by working on research in and around the increasing teaching and admin loads”.

“The problem is not with managers contacting us out of hours or a need to be ‘seen’ to be working. Instead, it is the relentless pressures to perform in narrowly specified ways that have been allowed to take over because of the pressures of marketisation. Not getting an evening email won’t change that,” she said.

Cathryn Knight, senior lecturer in the psychology of education at the University of Bristol, said intense competition to secure full-time positions in academia makes it even harder to enforce regulations on working conditions.

“Whether it’s possible to switch off from academia or whether people want to do that when there’s such pressure on them maintaining their jobs might be a difficult balance to get right,” she said.

juliette.rowsell@timeshighereducation.com

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Reader's comments (5)

Deal with this, yes, but just as important is to get rid of the new centralised timetabling systems which are destroying research time.
There is something in this about managing 'customer' expectations around response times and ensuring clear communication. I know far too many academics who are accessible to students 24/7 and this should never be the case. If we are really preparing students for employability demonstrating boundaries and balance surely has to be a part of it.
Although there is plenty of work to do - there remains much personal autonomy on when and where to work - which is part of what makes academia an attractive workplace. Nonetheless narrowly focussed managerialism around research (outputs) combined with the passion academics tend to have for our subjects can lead to overwork - maybe the proposals are a salutary reminder of the need for us to work less hard?
Having the 'right' to switch off does not mean that I have to do so. If I am at my computer, which given that my hobby involves researching, writing, and creating a website I usually am even when off-duty, I'll see what I can do... but no promises. Although the student who tried a Teams call at nearly 9pm on Friday discovered that I was in the middle of running a game of Dungeons & Dragons over Teams for fellow academics, so I threatened to set some monsters on him :) He came back on Monday. Teams was then a monster free zone.
It is possible to switch off if you want to. Just that the 'managerial/admin' roles thrust on academics will not let you switch off with endless (and lengthy) meetings, meaningless tasks and to do lists (always urgent) and endless hand holding. Surely, this is not the role of an academic? We would much rather be immersed in our research and teaching.

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