A new law passed by the Senate has blocked employers from calling or assigning work to their employees after clocking out.
The amendments to the Employment Act were sponsored by Nandi Senator Samson Cherargei to bar employers from calling employees after working hours, compelling bosses to seek consent before engaging someone outside office hours.
According to the new law, out-of-work hours include those that are not contained in the contract agreed upon between an employer and employee.
"Where an employer contacts an employee during the period when there is no mutually agreed out of work hours, the employee shall not be obliged to respond," the amendment states.
The law seeks to give employees the right to disconnect any form of communication with their bosses once they clock out to protect them from burnout and give them private time outside of work.
Employers who break the new law will pay a Ksh500,000 fine or serve a one-year jail term or both.
“This Bill seeks to address increased employee burnout. Digital connectivity has also been noted to be slowly eroding leisure time for employees hence affecting their work-life balance," the senator noted last year.
"The principal object of the Bill is to provide for the right to disconnect in the digital age. The right of employees to have their personal time and privacy respected.”
Under the Employment Act, the working hours in Kenya are 52 hours per week though most employment contracts contain 8 am-5 pm for five days a week.
"The right to disconnect shall be limited only to the extent necessary to address an emergency arising out of the work falling within the responsibility of the employee" reads the new law.
The employer will be required to set policies regarding circumstances under which they can contact an employee during out-of-work hours.
The employers should also put in place a policy regarding the circumstances under which the right to disconnect may be waived.
Also, if an employee complies to work during their out-of-office hours, the employer should specify the nature of compensation for employees who work during out-of-work hours.
"A person who contravenes this section commits an offense and is liable, on conviction, to a fine not exceeding five hundred thousand shillings or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year or to both," reads the law.
