Filing overtime for answering work emails? Yes please!

Filing overtime for answering work emails? Yes please!

Before you read this story, think about how your boss would reach if you filed overtime pay for answering work emails out of office hours. It’s possible. Brazil’s done it.

January 17, 2012 12:01 by p.deleon

Brazil has given the world so much. It’s given us beautiful bronze babes, the Carnivale, superhuman football players, samba, capoeira and so much more. And now Brazil has done something that Kipp thinks should be implemented worldwide, immediately.

Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff has recently approved a new legislation that says answering company emails after office hours from smartphones qualifies as overtime work. Imagine that.

Far too often, we diminish the value of our life outside of work by answering a work email every now and then even after work hours. So it’s nice to hear at least the government of Brazil wants to remind people to value their time out of the office.

According to an AP report, The legislation deems work emails as equivalent to orders given directly to the employee, making it possible for workers answering emails after hours to ask for overtime pay.

So show this to your boss and tell them to start paying up. Yes, the one who says they’ve always got an open-door policy but neglects to tell you that it’s just so they can give you the evil eye if you decide to pack up and leave the office on time.

Although there is another perspective to the issue of answering work emails. Late last year German Volkswagen’s implemented a rule that unionized workers in Germany will no longer be allowed to send work related Blackberry messages during non-working hours. According to Volkswagen the emails stop half an hour after end of a shift, and resume 30 minutes before a shift starts.It should be noted that the agreement does not affect senior management.

If you don’t get overtime pay, too bad. We hope you’ll at least start to avoid answering those work emails on the weekends and evenings.