Employers to be prohibited from calling Employees Outside of Office Hours in proposed Employment Law

The Senate is preparing to consider a proposed bill that prohibits your boss from phoning you after hours and assigning you tasks.

Senator Samson Cherargei of Nandi introduced the Employment (Amendment) Bill, 2021, which provides that an employee can ignore calls or any other kind of communication from their employer, such as email or text, to accomplish specific chores after working hours.

“Where an employer contacts an employee during a period when there is no mutually agreed out of work hours,” the Bill states in part.

The Federation of Kenya Employers (FKE) has requested Senators to vote against the bill, claiming that it is too prescriptive by suggesting that employers be forced to develop employees.

The bill defines “out of work hours” as any time that is not agreed upon in the employment contract between the employer and the employee.

Cherargei justifies the bill by claiming that it will improve employee productivity.

“Bill’s goal is to alleviate rising staff burnout. In his justification for the Bill, Cherargei stated that “digital connectivity has been reported to be slowly eroding leisure time for employees, therefore compromising their work-life balance.”

An employer who forces his employees to do an assignment without compensating them will face a fine of Sh500,000 or a year in prison.

“The Bill’s main goal is to establish the right to disconnect in the digital age. Employees’ entitlement to personal time and privacy,” Cherargei argued in support of the new legislation.