Germany: 41% of the employees are accessible by mobile phone beyond office hours without having signed an agreement with their employer

The increasing use of mobile devices by employees and not only managers more and more softens the border between working and private time. This development questions the labour law. Particularly because, as BITKOM survey shows it, many companies have not negotiated any agreement for this new availability yet. BITKOM evaluates consequently that 66% of the German employees are required to be reached with their personnel or company mobile phones outside office hours. Among them, 32% are even accessible night and day. For the time being, this development has not been taken into account by the German labour law even if the issue of the more or less voluntary duty periods and their payment begins to be more and more at stake before the labour courts.