--- title: "Right to Disconnect: Laws by Country and the Work Phone" description: "Right to disconnect laws by country, what US law says about after-hours work calls, a work phone policy template and 10 settings that enforce it." url: https://skipcall.io/en/blog/right-to-disconnect-work-phone language: en last_updated: 2026-11-11 --- [Ask Claude about this article](https://claude.ai/new?q=I'm%20reading%20%22Right%20to%20Disconnect%20and%20the%20Work%20Phone%3A%20Laws%20by%20Country%20and%2010%20Phone%20Settings%22%20\(https%3A%2F%2Fskipcall.io%2Fen%2Fblog%2Fright-to-disconnect-work-phone\).%20Read%20the%20article%2C%20then%20answer%20my%20questions%20about%20it.) [Ask ChatGPT about this article](https://chatgpt.com/?q=I'm%20reading%20%22Right%20to%20Disconnect%20and%20the%20Work%20Phone%3A%20Laws%20by%20Country%20and%2010%20Phone%20Settings%22%20\(https%3A%2F%2Fskipcall.io%2Fen%2Fblog%2Fright-to-disconnect-work-phone\).%20Read%20the%20article%2C%20then%20answer%20my%20questions%20about%20it.) LinkedIn X [Back to blog](https://skipcall.io/en/blog) Business phone Published 11 November 2026 # Right to Disconnect and the Work Phone: Laws by Country and 10 Phone Settings The right to disconnect is now written into law or official codes in several countries, but none of those texts says at what time a work phone must stop ringing. This guide covers what each text actually requires, what US law does and does not say about after-hours work calls, and how to apply it to the phone: ring windows, voicemail, on-call lines, customers in other time zones, a policy template to adapt and ten concrete settings. 5 official texts read at their source on November 11, 2026: France, Spain, Belgium, Ireland and Ontario 0 of those texts set a cutoff hour: each one sends the employer back to a written company-level rule 10 phone settings that make the work phone follow the policy without relying on anyone's discipline **The right to disconnect is an employee’s right not to take work calls, emails or messages outside working time.** Several countries have written it into law or into an official code, and none of those texts sets a cutoff hour. They all ask the employer to write its own rules. For the work phone, that comes down to three decisions: when it rings, who stays reachable for emergencies, and what the voicemail says the rest of the time. A **You are an employee.** Your work phone rings at night or on weekends. Read the country section, then the part on after-hours calls. B **You run a team.** You want clear rules without losing an urgent customer. Go to the sample week, the policy template and the ten settings. C **You sell across time zones.** Customers call while you sleep. The time zone and on-call sections are for you. ## Which countries have right to disconnect laws? Five official texts, each read at its source on November 11, 2026. They show three different ways of handling the same problem. The list is not exhaustive. | Jurisdiction | Text | What it requires | | - | - | - | | [France](https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/article_lc/LEGIARTI000039785096) | Labor Code, Article L2242-17, point 7 | A mandatory bargaining topic where bargaining applies. Without an agreement, the employer writes a charter after consulting the works council, with training for staff and management. | | [Spain](https://www.boe.es/buscar/act.php?id=BOE-A-2018-16673) | Organic Law 3/2018, Article 88 | A right to digital disconnection for workers and public employees. The employer draws up an internal policy after hearing employee representatives, executives included, with training on reasonable use of technology. | | [Belgium](https://emploi.belgique.be/fr/actualites/report-de-trois-mois-dans-la-pratique-pour-se-mettre-daccord-sur-le-droit-la-deconnexion) | Law of October 3, 2022 (Federal Public Service Employment notice) | Employers with at least 20 workers set the arrangements in a company collective agreement or, failing that, in the work rules: practical arrangements, guidelines for digital tools, training. | | [Ireland](https://www.workplacerelations.ie/en/what_you_should_know/codes_practice/code-of-practice-for-employers-and-employees-on-the-right-to-disconnect/) | Workplace Relations Commission Code of Practice | Three elements: not routinely working outside normal hours, not being penalized for refusing to, and respecting other people's right to disconnect. Not an offense in itself to ignore it, but admissible in evidence. | | [Ontario, Canada](https://www.ontario.ca/document/your-guide-employment-standards-act-0/written-policy-disconnecting-from-work) | Employment Standards Act, official guide | Employers with 25 or more employees on January 1 must have a written policy on disconnecting from work, in place before March 1. The guide says the Act does not require creating a new right: the employer decides the content. | 20 workers: the Belgian threshold for mandatory arrangements 25 employees on January 1: the Ontario threshold for a written policy 3 elements of the right in the Irish Code of Practice The Irish code is the most practical of the five, and it reads like a manual. It accepts that occasional out-of-hours contact can be legitimate, for example to cover at short notice for a sick colleague or in an emergency, as long as it stays the exception. It also asks employers to address work across global time zones. It tells managers to talk to a team member who sends emails at odd hours, because that is often a sign of workload trouble. And it supplies sample out-of-office and footer wording, quoted further down. Spain’s Article 88 adds one point the others leave implicit: disconnection must be preserved for remote work and work done from home. > No text we read says at what time the phone must go quiet. Each one makes the employer decide, and write it down. ## What does French law actually say? France is the reference case, because its wording has been copied and discussed widely. The right entered the Labor Code with Law No. 2016-1088 of August 8, 2016, and now sits in [point 7 of Article L2242-17](https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/article_lc/LEGIARTI000039785096). The article makes the following a bargaining topic: the ways an employee fully exercises the right to disconnect, and the company’s arrangements for regulating the use of digital tools, in order to ensure respect for rest periods, leave, and personal and family life. If no agreement is reached, the employer draws up a charter after consulting the works council. The charter must define how the right is exercised and plan training and awareness actions for employees, managers and executives. **What the text requires.** A bargaining topic where bargaining is mandatory. A charter when there is no agreement. Training and awareness, management included. **What the text does not say.** No cutoff hour. No list of tools. No ban on calling or writing in the evening. No penalty of its own for a missing charter in that point 7. Other French rules do the heavy lifting. [Article L3131-1](https://code.travail.gouv.fr/code-du-travail/l3131-1) guarantees at least eleven consecutive hours of daily rest. For employees paid on an annual day-count basis rather than by the hour, [Article L3121-64](https://code.travail.gouv.fr/code-du-travail/l3121-64) requires the collective agreement to set how the right to disconnect is exercised, and [Article L3121-65](https://code.travail.gouv.fr/code-du-travail/l3121-65) says that, failing that, the employer defines the arrangements and communicates them to the employees concerned. The eleven-hour rule is the one a late call breaks most easily. What a 10 pm call does to eleven hours of rest Assumptions, under French law: the day ends at 6 pm, the usual start is 8:30 am, and a customer call is handled on instruction from 10 pm to 10:30 pm. Evening with no call 14.5 hours of unbroken rest. Start at 8:30 am. Evening with one call The eleven hours restart at 10:30 pm. Start at 9:30 am at the earliest. - Rest - Rest cut short - Call handled - Work Outside the exceptions the French Labor Code provides. General information, not legal advice. One evening call costs an hour of the next morning, or eats into the rest period if nobody does the math. A recent ruling shows where the line falls. France’s official Service Public site reported on [April 13, 2026](https://www.service-public.gouv.fr/particuliers/actualites/A18871) a decision of the Cour de cassation dated March 25, 2026. An employee on sick leave had logged in on his own initiative and answered his emails. His claim for breach of the right to disconnect failed. He had acted spontaneously, the emails were automatic notifications he had no duty to answer, and nothing showed the employer had required a reply. The lack of a charter was not enough on its own. ## Is there a right to disconnect in the United States? We found no federal statute that creates a right to disconnect. The federal framework looks at a different question: is the time paid? The Department of Labor’s [Fact Sheet #22](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/22-flsa-hours-worked) explains hours worked under the Fair Labor Standards Act. It recalls that the Act defines “employ” as “to suffer or permit to work”. Work the employer did not request but allows still counts as hours worked. **After-hours calls can be paid time.** For a non-exempt employee, a work call taken at 8 pm is work the employer permitted. It belongs on the timesheet. **On-call depends on the constraints.** Per the fact sheet, an employee required to remain on the employer’s premises is working. An employee on call at home generally is not, unless added constraints limit their freedom. **States and cities may add rules.** This guide covers federal law only. Check your own jurisdiction, and your contract or handbook. For a US sales team, the business case does not depend on a statute. Uncounted after-hours calls create pay exposure for hourly staff, and constant availability wears people out. A written phone policy solves both, and it is the same document a French or Belgian entity would need anyway. ## One policy for several countries: what should it contain? If you employ people in more than one of these places, you do not need five documents. The texts overlap enough that one policy, written to the most demanding standard, covers the substance. What changes is the form: who must be consulted, where the document is filed, and by when. 1. 01 #### Practical arrangements for not being reachable. Belgium requires them by name, France and Spain ask for the ways the right is exercised. In practice: written windows, voicemail outside them, a defined on-call. 2. 02 #### Guidelines for using digital tools. Belgium lists them, and the French and Spanish texts speak of regulating or using tools reasonably. For the phone: delayed send, no internal calls outside the window, notifications off. 3. 03 #### Training and awareness, management included. France, Spain and Belgium all require it, and all three name managers or executives. Plan it at onboarding and once a year. 4. 04 #### No penalty for not answering. It is the second element of the Irish code, and the sentence employees look for first. Write it plainly. 5. 05 #### A date, and proof of distribution. Ontario requires the date the policy was prepared and any change dates, a copy to employees within 30 days, and three years of retention after the policy stops applying. Do the same everywhere: it costs nothing. For a US-only company, we found no federal statute that makes any of this mandatory. It is still the cheapest way to settle two real problems at once: unrecorded working time for hourly staff, and a team that never fully stops. ## Can my employer call me after hours? The question comes up more than any other. The honest answer has three layers. 1. 01 #### The call itself is rarely banned. None of the texts we read forbids an employer from placing a call. They organize a right for the employee and a duty for the company to set rules. 2. 02 #### What is protected is rest, or pay, or both. France protects rest periods and leave. Ireland’s code protects against being penalized for not answering. US federal law protects pay for time worked by non-exempt employees. 3. 03 #### Your company's written rule decides the rest. An agreement, charter or policy says when you are reachable, what counts as urgent and who is on call. Without one, only the general rules on rest and working time apply. ## What can you do as an employee if the work phone keeps ringing? Before it becomes a dispute, five simple steps clarify where you stand. They are just as useful to a manager who wants to know what the team is living through. 1. 01 #### Find the written rule. A company agreement, a charter, a policy or your contract: your reachable hours are in there, or should be. Ask HR or your employee representatives for the text. 2. 02 #### Write down the facts. Date, time, length, who called, and what was expected of you. Two weeks of notes carry more weight than an impression. If you are paid by the hour, the same notes are your record of time worked. 3. 03 #### Ask the question in writing. ”Am I expected to be reachable after 6 pm? If so, on what basis?” A written answer settles the expectation, one way or the other. Expectation is what decided the French ruling of March 25, 2026. 4. 04 #### Set your phone. A Focus mode outside your hours, and a voicemail greeting that gives a callback time. Ready-made wording is further down. 5. 05 #### If nothing changes, do not stay alone with it. Your employee representatives, HR and the labor authority in your jurisdiction are the channels meant for these questions. ## Why is the phone a special case? Most disconnect policies are written about email. The phone is a different problem, for four reasons. **It interrupts.** An email waits to be opened. A phone rings. The load is not the same, even for a thirty-second call. **It comes from outside.** A company can discipline its managers. It cannot stop a customer from calling at 7:30 pm. So you have to set the device, not only the behavior. **It blends with personal life.** When the business number is the personal number, you cannot silence one without silencing the other. **It leaves traces that weigh.** A missed call on the screen all evening and a waiting voicemail create the same tension as a call taken. The third point is the most common in small teams. As long as customers call a rep’s personal cell, no policy can be enforced. The first step is to separate the numbers, which is the subject of our guide to running a [business number on a personal phone](https://skipcall.io/en/blog/business-number-on-personal-phone), and more broadly to choosing a [virtual business phone number](https://skipcall.io/en/blog/virtual-business-phone-number) that lives in an app. ## What does a week look like when the phone follows the policy? Here is an example for a sales team. Three states only, so everyone knows at any moment which one they are in. A sample week for the work phone Example policy for a sales team. The hours are an illustration: adapt them to your own agreement or policy. Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun - **Reachable.** The phone rings. Internal and customer calls come through. - **On call.** Only the on-call line rings, for the named and compensated person. - **Disconnected.** Voicemail with a greeting. Nobody expects an answer before the next window. Lunch break counted as disconnected time. Saturday morning on call: one person, in rotation. Three things make this model workable. - **Few states.** Reachable, on call, disconnected. A fourth state such as “reachable if important” ruins everything, because each person reads it differently. - **Lunch counts.** If the phone rings through lunch, the day has no break. Voicemail takes over, as it does in the evening. - **On-call is a visible exception.** It has its own color, its own person and its own compensation. The hours in the example are not a standard. A team that calls restaurant owners does not work the same windows as a team that sells to finance leaders. To set yours, start from your call data, from our benchmarks on the [best time to cold call](https://skipcall.io/en/blog/best-time-to-cold-call-b2b) and from the free [When to Call tool](https://skipcall.io/en/tools/when-to-call), then close everything else. ## How should on-call work be organized? On-call is the proper name for “reachable in case of emergency”. Naming it is what keeps the rest of the policy honest. **A dedicated line.** An on-call number separate from individual numbers. That is the number the voicemail greeting gives out, not a colleague’s cell. **A rotation.** One person at a time, a schedule known in advance, a fair turn. Never “the manager, by default”. **A definition of urgent.** Three or four written cases. Everything else waits for the next window, and the on-call person is allowed to say so. French law gives a precise model: [Article L3121-9](https://code.travail.gouv.fr/code-du-travail/l3121-9) defines on-call duty as a period when the employee, without being at the workplace or permanently at the employer’s disposal, must be able to step in. Time spent stepping in counts as working time, the period itself gives rise to compensation, and employees are told their schedule within a reasonable time. [Article L3121-10](https://code.travail.gouv.fr/code-du-travail/l3121-10) adds that, apart from time spent stepping in, the on-call period counts toward daily and weekly rest. “A definition of urgent” is the card teams skip most often. Here is a sample appendix for a sales team, to adapt to your business. **What justifies calling the on-call line.** A customer who can no longer use the service and flags it as blocking. A security incident or a data leak. A contractual deadline that falls before the next window. A risk to someone’s safety. **What waits for the next window.** A prospect who wants a quote. A number for tomorrow’s meeting. A billing question. A “call me when you have two minutes”. A manager’s idea at 9 pm. ## What if customers are in other time zones? A New York team selling into California takes calls until 8 pm Eastern. A team selling into Europe starts before dawn. A disconnect policy does not disappear in that case: it forces a choice. 1. 01 #### Shift the window, do not stretch it. A rep covering the West Coast works 11 am to 7 pm Eastern, not 9 am to 8 pm. The disconnected block moves with them. 2. 02 #### Split time zones between people. Two staggered windows cover a twelve-hour span without any single phone ringing for more than eight. 3. 03 #### Tell the customer when they will be called back. A greeting that gives the callback time, in the customer’s time zone, beats a call answered half asleep. To identify the country behind a missed call before you call back, keep the list of [international dialing codes](https://skipcall.io/en/blog/international-dialing-codes) at hand. 4. 04 #### Write the exception into the policy. If some people work shifted hours, the policy says so, with their windows. An unwritten exception becomes an obligation for everyone. Do not confuse this with the rules on what time of day you may call a prospect. Those protect the person being called, not your employee, and vary by country. They are covered in our overview of [cold calling laws by country](https://skipcall.io/en/blog/cold-calling-laws-by-country). ## What about managers? The French and Spanish texts both name management explicitly, and the Irish code lists a duty to respect other people’s right to disconnect. That is no accident: most evening calls come from managers. **The manager creates the expectation.** A call at 8 pm “just to sync” teaches the team that 8 pm is working time. No policy survives that example repeated. **The manager needs rest too.** Managers receive every escalation. The policy must say who takes over when they are disconnected. Three habits change the picture at no cost: schedule evening messages to send the next morning, keep one-to-ones inside the reachable window, and never comment the next day on a missing after-hours reply. In a distributed team, those habits are built with the rituals described in our article on [calling culture in a remote SDR team](https://skipcall.io/en/blog/remote-sdr-team-calling-culture). The link with retention is direct. A team whose phone never stops wears out faster, and burnout is one of the causes covered in our guide to [reducing SDR turnover](https://skipcall.io/en/blog/reduce-sdr-turnover). To put a dollar figure on it, the [sales rep turnover cost calculator](https://skipcall.io/en/tools/sales-rep-turnover-cost-calculator) starts from your own numbers. ## The 10 work phone settings that enforce the policy A rule holds when the tool applies it instead of people. Here are the ten settings, from the most structural to the finest. 1. 01 #### A separate business number for each person. As long as the business number is the personal number, nothing else is possible. This setting unlocks the nine that follow. 2. 02 #### Written ring windows. By team, by time zone, day by day. They appear in the policy and in the tool, identically. 3. 03 #### An after-hours voicemail greeting. It gives the name, the hours, the callback time and the on-call number if there is one. Ready-to-record examples are in our [voicemail greeting scripts](https://skipcall.io/en/blog/voicemail-greeting-scripts). 4. 04 #### Scheduled Do Not Disturb. On the cell phone, a Focus mode scheduled to the policy’s hours silences the work app and lets personal calls through. 5. 05 #### A separate on-call line. One number, one person, one schedule. It is the only number that rings outside the windows. Setting up [several lines in a small business](https://skipcall.io/en/blog/multi-line-phone-system-small-business) has its own guide. 6. 06 #### Notifications off with the ringer. Missed calls, voicemails and texts do not appear in the evening. They wait for the next window, grouped. 7. 07 #### A callback planned for the next window. After-hours missed calls become tasks for the next morning. The customer is called back at the announced time, and nobody needs to check at night. 8. 08 #### A rule for internal calls. No calls between colleagues outside the window, except on-call. Messages written in the evening go out on a delay. 9. 09 #### Time off connected to the tool. During an absence, calls go to a named colleague or to voicemail, with a greeting that gives the return date. The how-to is in our guide to [call forwarding and call transfer](https://skipcall.io/en/blog/call-forwarding-vs-call-transfer). 10. 10 #### A monthly measure. Calls and messages handled outside the window, per person. If the number is not zero, the policy is not applied, and it is the organization that needs fixing. The tenth setting is the safeguard. Without a measure, you discover the problem when someone resigns. Call statistics are enough: time of call, duration, person. For US teams with hourly staff, the same report tells you which after-hours calls belong on a timesheet. If you record calls, the notice and consent rules are in our guide to [call recording laws for businesses](https://skipcall.io/en/blog/call-recording-laws-business). ## What should you actually say? Eight lines to copy Settings silence the phone. Words tell the caller and the team what happens next. These are the lines that come up most often, to use as they are or to adapt. | Moment | The line | What it settles | | - | - | - | | After-hours voicemail greeting | "Hi, you have reached \[first and last name] at \[company]. I take calls Monday to Friday, 9 am to 12:30 pm and 2 pm to 6 pm. Leave me a message and I will call you back tomorrow before 10 am." | The customer knows when the callback comes. There is no reason left to keep trying tonight. | | Greeting when an on-call line exists | "For an emergency that cannot wait until tomorrow, call \[on-call number]. For everything else, leave me a message." | Urgent matters have one door, and only one. A colleague's cell is never given out. | | Vacation greeting | "I am away through \[date]. While I am out, \[first name] can help you at \[number]." | Nobody expects a reply during time off, and the customer still has a contact. | | A manager's message written in the evening | "Nothing to do tonight. Let's talk tomorrow at 9:30." Better still: the same message on delayed send. | The expectation of a reply is gone, in writing. | | Email or text signature | "My normal working hours are from X to Y. I will respond to you when I am back at work." | This is the sample wording in Ireland's Code of Practice. | | A customer asks for your personal cell | "This is the number where you are sure to reach me. Outside my hours, voicemail passes your message on and I call you back at the time it announces." | The personal number stays personal, without sounding evasive. | | The morning after a missed internal call | "I saw your call from last night this morning. What do you need?" | No apology, no justification: the answer comes inside the window, as planned. | | Taking the on-call shift | "I am on call Saturday, 9 am to 1 pm. Urgent cases on the list come to the on-call line. Everything else waits for Monday." | The whole team knows who is reachable, and that nobody else is. | One line is missing on purpose: “I’ll stay reachable if you need me”. It sounds kind, and it cancels everything else. The Irish code offers a second footer for people who choose to write late: “I am currently working flexibly so while it suits me to send this email now, I do not expect a response or action outside your own working hours”. ## A work phone policy template to adapt This template is a starting point. It does not replace bargaining where it is required, consultation with employee representatives, or review by your counsel. It covers the phone only: add email and team messaging. The appendices you add (hours by team, the list of urgent cases, on-call compensation) are what matter most. A policy with no dated, numbered appendix remains a statement of intent. ## Six common situations, and what the policy should answer A policy is judged on its edge cases. These are the ones that come up in teams that live on the phone. | Situation | What the policy answers | The setting that applies it | | - | - | - | | A customer calls the rep at 7:45 pm | Outside the window: voicemail answers and gives the callback time. | Ringer off, after-hours greeting, callback task at 9 am. | | The manager wants a number by 8 am tomorrow | A written message on delayed send. No call, unless it is a listed urgent case. | Scheduled send, internal call rule. | | A prospect can only talk at 8 pm | A phone meeting booked in advance, counted as work, with the next day's window shifted to match. | Slot in the calendar, window adjusted that day. | | An employee on vacation gets a customer call | The call goes to the named colleague or to voicemail, which gives the return date. | Absence forwarding switched on before leaving. | | A serious incident happens on a Saturday | It is on the urgent list: the on-call line rings, and only that line. | On-call number, rotation, compensation. | | A rep calls prospects back in the evening on their own | Nothing requires it, and the policy says so. If it becomes a habit, the manager raises it: it is a workload signal, and for hourly staff it is time worked. | Monthly measure of after-hours calls. | The third case deserves a word. A right to disconnect does not forbid working late on a given day. It asks that the late hour be chosen, counted and offset by rest, not endured every evening. ## How do you roll the policy out in four weeks? 1. 01 #### Week 1: measure. Pull a month of call history. Count calls received and placed outside usual hours, per person and by origin: customers, colleagues, managers. 2. 02 #### Week 2: write. Set the windows by team, the urgent list and the on-call organization. Start from the template above. Consult employee representatives where required. 3. 03 #### Week 3: configure. Apply the ten settings. Record the greetings. Have each person check, on their own phone, that nothing rings at 8 pm. 4. 04 #### Week 4: check. Run the measure again. The after-hours calls that remain show where the organization, not the person, has to change. If part of the team works from home, the boundary between work and rest depends even more on the tool, because there is no office door to close. Same windows as in the office, a line you can shut with one tap, and an end-of-day signal for the team. Equipment is covered in our guide to a [phone system for remote teams](https://skipcall.io/en/blog/remote-team-phone-system). ## Six mistakes that empty the policy of meaning **A policy that only covers email.** The phone keeps ringing, and it is the heaviest load. **A “reachable if urgent” state.** With no definition of urgent, everything is urgent to the caller. **The personal number given to customers.** No setting can tell work from the rest anymore. **Managers who do not follow it.** A manager who calls in the evening cancels the policy more surely than having none. **Implicit on-call.** No schedule, no compensation, always the same person. **No measure.** Nobody knows whether the policy is applied, so it is not. ## Where Skipcall helps, and where it does nothing Skipcall is an outbound calling tool. On this topic it helps on three precise points and no more. **A business number per user.** The number lives in the web and mobile app, separate from the personal number. That is the first of the ten settings. **Voicemail on every line.** Each business line has its own voicemail. Outside the window, voicemail answers, and messages wait for the next one. **Time-stamped call data.** The time of every call is logged, which makes the monthly after-hours measure possible. What Skipcall does not do: the tool has no phone menu, no call queues and no inbound routing to an on-call line. The after-hours cutoff is set on the phone itself, with Do Not Disturb or a Focus mode. If your main need is a front desk that forwards automatically to a duty line, a cloud phone system is the right tool. Skipcall’s Business VoIP plan starts from $25 per license per month, with no commitment, and our comparison of the [best VoIP for sales teams](https://skipcall.io/en/blog/best-voip-for-sales-teams) shows where it sits next to the alternatives. ## What to remember - France, Spain, Belgium, Ireland and Ontario each have an official text on disconnecting from work. None sets a cutoff hour. - In the US, we found no federal right to disconnect. For non-exempt employees, after-hours work calls are a pay question under the FLSA. - An evening call is rarely banned in itself. What matters is the expectation of a response that the company creates, through its instructions and its habits. - The phone needs its own treatment: a separate number, ring windows, voicemail, on-call duty that is named and compensated. - Ten settings, eight lines and a monthly measure do more than a three-page policy nobody applies. Author [Charles Baldet](https://skipcall.io/en/author/charles-baldet) [Charles Baldet on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlesbaldet/) CEO & Co-Founder, Skipcall Charles is the CEO and co-founder of Skipcall. A sales commando with over 10 years of experience in B2B SaaS and complex strategic accounts, he has closed major deals with Stellantis, SNCF, RATP and Natixis. A specialist in the PUCCKA and MEDDIC methodologies, Charles regularly teaches sales at HEC's incubator and the Sorbonne. He was ranked among Les Echos' top 10 business angels under 35 in 2020. He also co-founded Getalead (B2B sales agency) and Getlab (SalesTech studio). [See all their articles](https://skipcall.io/en/author/charles-baldet) FAQ ## Frequently asked questions **What is the right to disconnect?** The right to disconnect is an employee's right not to engage in work-related communications, such as calls, emails and messages, outside working time. Ireland's official Code of Practice describes it as the right to disengage from work and refrain from work-related electronic communications outside normal working hours. Where it exists, the law does not set a cutoff hour. It asks each employer to write its own rules in an agreement, a charter or a policy. **Which countries have right to disconnect laws?** France, Spain, Belgium, Ireland and Ontario, Canada, each have an official text on disconnecting from work: Article L2242-17 of the French Labor Code, Article 88 of Spain's Organic Law 3/2018, Belgium's law of October 3, 2022 (employers with at least 20 workers), Ireland's Workplace Relations Commission Code of Practice, and Ontario's written policy requirement for employers with 25 or more employees. All five were read at their official source on November 11, 2026. The list is not exhaustive: other countries have their own rules. **Is there a right to disconnect in the United States?** We found no federal right to disconnect. What federal law regulates is pay. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, as explained in the Department of Labor's Fact Sheet #22, work that an employer suffers or permits counts as hours worked, even when nobody asked for it. For an hourly, non-exempt employee, an after-hours work call is therefore a pay question. State and local rules may add to this, so check your own jurisdiction. This is general information, not legal advice. **Can my employer call me after hours?** In most places the call itself is not banned. What changes from country to country is whether you must answer and whether the time is paid. In France, the law protects rest periods and leaves the details to an agreement or charter. In Ireland, the Code of Practice says employees should not be penalized for refusing to attend to work matters outside normal hours. In the US, the question is mostly about pay for non-exempt employees. Your contract and your company policy decide the rest. **Does the right to disconnect apply to a work phone?** Yes. The texts speak of digital tools or work-related communications in general, and phone calls are named explicitly in the Irish code and in Ontario's definition. The phone is also the most intrusive tool, because it rings. A useful policy treats it separately: ring windows, an after-hours voicemail greeting, on-call rules, and what happens when customers sit in other time zones. **Is a right to disconnect policy mandatory?** It depends on where your employees work. In Ontario, employers with 25 or more employees on January 1 must have a written policy on disconnecting from work. In Belgium, employers with at least 20 workers must set the arrangements in a company collective agreement or in the work rules. In France, a charter is required when no agreement is reached. In Ireland, the Code of Practice is guidance: failing to follow it is not an offense in itself, but it is admissible in evidence. **How do you handle on-call work without emptying the policy of meaning?** By naming it. On-call means one designated person, a schedule known in advance, a dedicated line and compensation where the law or the contract requires it. French law defines on-call duty and attaches compensation to it. In the US, the Department of Labor's Fact Sheet #22 says an employee required to stay on the employer's premises is working, while an employee on call at home generally is not, unless added constraints limit their freedom. Everyone else's phone goes to voicemail. **Does Skipcall block calls outside working hours?** The after-hours cutoff is set on the phone itself, with Do Not Disturb or a Focus mode applied to the Skipcall app. What the tool brings here is a business number per user, separate from the personal number, in a web and mobile app, with its own voicemail. Skipcall is an outbound calling tool: it has no phone menu, no call queues and no inbound call routing. ## A calendar full of meetings starts with a call. [Get started now](https://app.skipcall.io/signup) [Book a demo](https://skipcall.io/en/demo) **No commitment** · Number live in 2 minutes Keep reading ## Related articles [View all articles](https://skipcall.io/en/blog) 01 Business phone ### [Business Number on a Personal Phone: 4 Ways to Run Two Numbers on One Phone](https://skipcall.io/en/blog/business-number-on-personal-phone) Dual SIM, eSIM, a carrier add-on or a business phone app: four ways to put a business number on your personal phone. What each one really separates (calls, texts, voicemail, contacts, hours, the bill), the iPhone and Android settings, and what happens to the number the day you leave the company. 11 Nov 2026 02 sales management ### [Managing a Remote SDR Team: How to Build a Calling Culture That Holds Without a Sales Floor](https://skipcall.io/en/blog/remote-sdr-team-calling-culture) On a remote team, the phone is the first thing SDRs push back. A calling culture gets rebuilt with a few fixed rituals, metrics that look at conversations instead of dial counts, coaching based on real calls, and hiring that actually tests phone skills. The weekly cadence, the metrics, hiring, onboarding and the mistakes to avoid. 5 Nov 2026 03 voicemail ### [Professional voicemail greeting scripts: 12 examples to record today](https://skipcall.io/en/blog/voicemail-greeting-scripts) Your voicemail greeting is often the first thing a customer or prospect hears from you. The four-part structure, the right length, 12 professional voicemail greeting scripts (sales rep, out of office, vacation, after hours, team line, bilingual), the mistakes to avoid, and how to record it so it sounds as good as your calls. 5 Nov 2026 ## Ready to multiply your productivity? Join the sales teams that have transformed their prospecting. [Request a demo](https://skipcall.io/en/demo) Personalized demo • No commitment