Work Life Balance: Five labour regulations in other countries that India should embrace…

Last updated on October 4th, 2024 at 02:43 pm

It’s been observed that employees in India suffer from high workload pressure, and a toxic work environment leading to development of health issues and even deaths of employees. According to the International Labour Organisation, as of Jan 11, 2024, the average work week in some of the first world countries is less than that in India. Average work week hours is 46.7 hours in India while people in the USA work only 38 hours a week while in Japan it is even less at 36.6 hours.

To balance this out, we need to adopt better labour laws for the betterment of work life balance of employees. Some of the regulations are given below.

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• Right to Disconnect: France became the first nation to adopt this change in 2017. According to the rule, workers have a right to ignore work related communications after working hours. Other countries like Spain, Belgium, Italy, Ireland have implemented this and found better productivity among employees.

• 4 Days Work Week: Many countries have adopted the four days work week culture that aims to keep employees happy and achieve more productivity at work. Countries like the Netherlands, Belgium, and Japan have adopted this rule.

• Mandatory Vacations: Adoption of laws that guarantee the mandatory vacations has been seen as a great way to increase productivity and employee well being. Companies in Austria have had to make compulsory minimum 5 weeks paid leave to employees who work 6 months or more in the company. 

• Career Break or Time Credit: In Belgium, people  have the option of taking a year off from their jobs without having to worry about layoffs. This process is known as time credit and a person working in the country can either avail it in full or work part time during this duration and still get paid the full amount by the state within the time frame. In special cases, the time credit can be extended up to 6 years.

• A set number of Work Hours per Week: As per the ILO data, people in India work an average 46.4 hours in a week that makes it one of the top 15 countries that have the highest work hours in a week globally. Bhutan is at the top with 60 hours a week, but India is at the 13th place. The data shows that 51 percent of Indian employees work more than 49 hours a week, which amounts to more than the average working hours in India. This situation needs to be changed as it leads to work related stress and increase in tensions in personal lives of employees too.