Work-Life Balance – Walking the Talk
Photo by Ketut Subiyanto from Pexels
Most organizations talk about work-life balance, although not all provide clear and crisp guidelines regarding how exactly they ‘walk’ that talk.
The province of Ontario, in Canada, has recently passed an omnibus bill called the Working for Workers Act (“Act”) which includes many provisions to support workers, most notably, the requirement to create a Right to Disconnect policy. This policy requirement applies to any employers with 25 or more employees, and requires that the policy be put into place between January 1st and March 1st of the year following the year they have more than 25 employees. It also requires that the policy be issued to the employees within days of preparing the policy.
The definition from the Act, regarding the term “disconnecting from work” is defined to mean not engaging in work-related communications, including emails, telephone calls, video calls or the sending or reviewing of other messages, so as to be free from the performance of work.
The first time that this policy will become a requirement is between January 1st and March 1st of 2022.
The employer’s Right to Disconnect policy is required to be as specific as possible in empowering employees to disconnect at the end of their work days. Examples of what could be included in this policy are:
Response times for returning emails
Ensuring that emails are not sent out after hours
Asking employees to include out-of-office messages on emails when not working
Acknowledging and creating expectations across time zones
As I have noted in other blogs, staying informed about employment legislation in other jurisdictions across both Canada and the United States can help employers to ensure that they are keeping abreast of the most progressive practices, and then be in a position to proactively include those best practices in their workplaces on a voluntary basis.
The implementation of a Right to Disconnect policy, which includes specific recommendations, is one way in which employers in our movement can mitigate burnout.
I’ve written about burnout in two other blogs, including in my own blog as well as for Faunalytics.
Our work as animal activists is hard work. We are exposed to some of the most egregious cruelty day in and day out. We must take a long-term approach to the work, and in order to be here for the long-term we must take care of ourselves and each other.
As such, this blog is a callout to all employers in our movement to protect their people for the long-term and mitigate burnout as much as possible in part by ensuring that they have a policy which ensures that their people are truly disconnecting.
This blog is provided for general information purposes only. It is not intended to provide legal advice or opinions of any kind. No one should act, or refrain from acting, based solely upon the materials provided on this website, any hypertext links or other general information without first seeking appropriate legal or other professional advice.
The intention of this blog is to promote the longevity and engagement level of the activist community within the Animal Advocacy Movement (AAM). The majority of the advice will be geared towards employees within the AAM in Canada and the United States, but may be applicable to other countries.
Krista is the Executive Director of For The Greater Good where she consults with animal protection organizations across North America on matters of organizational development and governance. In addition to holding five degrees and designations in human resources, including a master’s degree in organizational development and leadership, she is pursuing her doctorate focused on the employment experiences of animal rights activists in Canada and the United States. Krista first joined the Animal Advocacy Movement as the VP of Mercy For Animals in Canada where she led twelve undercover investigations into factory farms and slaughterhouses. Krista also served as the President of the Board for Happily Ever Esther Farm Sanctuary for over five years, also now serves on several other Boards including One Protest, The Rancher Advocacy Program, Egg-Truth, and Dairy-Truth. Krista is also a member of Womxn Funders in Animal Rights. Krista is a peer reviewer for the Journal of Critical Animal Studies. Prior to joining the Movement, Krista founded a boutique employment and labour law firm in Toronto where she consulted to employers across Canada and the U.S. for a decade, and before that she spent fifteen years in human resources including as the Vice President of HR for one of the largest software companies in the world.