France has introduced legislation designed to stop workers checking their emails outside of work hours.
The law requires companies to establish hours when staff don't have to send or answer emails, which raises the question - could it work here?
On New Year's Day, France put the new restriction on large companies, those with more than fifty employees.
They'll now have to take measures that allow staff to ignore work-related emails outside of work hours.
Smartphones give us constant access to emails, and can make work eat into play time, so the law is encouraging people to switch off and let a holiday be a holiday.
The Council of Trade Unions says with some research such legislation could work in New Zealand, but the need to be on call and be available affects different sorts of workers in different ways.
"It's not so much the minutes or after hours that's the problem, it's the stress leading up to that, where the phone might ring or the email come from the boss or the call might come through," secretary Sam Huggard says.
New Zealand workers say they are guilty of checking their emails outside of work hours and believe a change would be good.
"We spend all day every day at work whether we want to or not so I think we need to have some restrictions around it," said one woman.
"I don't get paid for checking my work emails. I probably will check them tomorrow," said another.
The right to disconnect bill is the first of its kind in the world, and is designed to be a protective measure against stress and burnout. French working conditions are already different to New Zealand's - they only have a thirty five hour working week.
Newshub.
