When can the boss call outside of working hours?

Accessibility outside of working hours is a neuralgic point in many organizations. Where an on-call and standby system is a natural part of everyday life, this does not cause a problem, just as in the case of a malfunction, IT incident, occupational safety risk or extreme weather, employees rarely get upset when they are called from their workplace. However, if employees feel that the company or certain members of it take it for granted that they must be available outside of working hours and regularly abuse the situation, it can easily become a source of conflict. The phenomenon is rarely widespread within a single company, but overall it affects broad groups.

“According to international data, out-of-hours contact is an everyday occurrence in many places. In a survey published by Eurofound in 2023 covering four European countries, more than 80 percent of respondents indicated that they receive work-related messages outside of working hours in a typical week, and the majority – almost nine out of ten – respond to them at least occasionally,” Erik Czinger, the Hungarian head of Munipolis, which operates corporate smart communication networks, pointed out the problem. Although these problems seem to be easing as we move away from the Covid period, they have obviously not disappeared. The Work Trend Index analysis, based on Microsoft 365 telemetry data, shows that nearly a fifth of weekend workers check their emails by noon on Saturday and Sunday, and over 5 percent return to their emails on Sunday evening.

It seems to contradict everything that another survey found that barely 10% of companies are able to reach their employees in real time, en masse, after working hours, but this number is only 16% during working hours. The explanation is that the burden of continuous presence primarily affects office jobs, while hard-to-reach employees are typically those who have tasks that can only be performed in the field at external locations or remote sites.

The expert pointed out that Hungarian labor law otherwise clearly regulates: an employee can be required to be available outside of their daily working hours in the form of on-call or standby, but it ties longer-term availability to specifically justified cases. The duration of on-call can be a maximum of 24 hours, the maximum monthly standby is 168 hours, and such a schedule must be announced at least a week in advance, a month in advance. If this works, it usually does not cause a problem. The informal standby that applies to almost everyone, the “boss can call at any time” status, on the other hand, easily causes discussion or frustration. This is not a Hungarian phenomenon; on July 25, 2025, the European Commission entered the second phase of the consultation on teleworking and the right to disconnection.

“If there are more than a few dozen employees, according to our experience, the solution is internal communication regulations covering the entire workforce. Who, when, and for what reason can, can or must be notified during or after working hours. It is worth logging all, but at least all, communication outside of working hours to avoid later disputes. It is advisable to designate on-call or emergency groups for certain topics and it is worth determining the method of contact in advance”

‒ Erik Czinger added. All of this can hardly be handled manually, but with a well-parameterized internal communication system it can be completely natural and automatic. The goal is to ensure that the right – and only the right – colleagues receive the information in a verifiable manner, while respecting their break time and ensuring that no one feels that their employer is intruding into their private lives without permission.