For a corporate lawyer immersed in an always-on tech world, it must have seemed odd, at least at first, when California-based LegalZoom general counsel Chas Rampenthal emailed a business contact in the UK, where the working day had ended, and received an automatic notification that the recipient was off the clock and would be available during regular hours.

"In our business, when we have a problem, it could be a server issue or a website glitch… those calls are sometimes coming in at 2am and there's a team of people whose responsibilities are to take care of that," he said.

But the 'Do Not Disturb' movement – the idea that employees should be allowed to disconnect from work after clocking out – is gaining traction, most notably in Europe, where for the last decade or so there has been a gradual and growing push to separate personal life from business.

In Germany, carmaker Daimler allows its employees to use software that not only blocks work emails sent to them during vacations but also automatically deletes the notes and notifies the senders about what has happened: Imagine taking a real holiday, free from the looming spectre of a clogged inbox.

"This is what people are doing for the health and safety of their workforce," Rampenthal said. "It's part of this idea that we can't disconnect on our own. That our brains just can't do it."

Other German companies, including Volkswagen and BMW, have long had policies against contacting employees after hours. Now, the country's lawmakers are considering making those policies law by following France's lead and enacting so-called 'right to disconnect' rules. The disconnect trend also has reportedly spread to Italy and the Philippines.

Canada has been eyeing similar measures since last year, when the movement also reached the US. The New York City Council considered a proposal last March that would give private employees the right to ignore electronic work communications after hours and fine employers $250 every time they violated that right. 

Cultural change within the workplace

Several players in the world of workplace communication software, including Slack, have begun offering 'Do Not Disturb' features for employers and employees. After ensuring that we're connected all the time, it seems that tech companies are now finding ways to help us disconnect.  

"Technology is always about creating new solutions that create new problems that require the creation of new solutions that will inevitably have new problems," said Odessa O'Dell, an employment lawyer at Canadian firm Borden Ladner Gervais.

That the tech industry – the architect of our always-connected culture – is now coming up with ways to unplug "signals an important cultural change within the workplace", according to Patrick van der Mijl, the Amsterdam-based co-founder of workplace chat platform Speakap. His company, which is headquartered in New York and caters primarily to retailers with remote employees, recently announced that it had released a 'Do Not Disturb' feature for its users.

Speakap, according to what van der Mijl has observed, has joined a growing list of technology platforms that are "building features that encourage companies to empower their employees to switch off when they're not working and create a sense of digital wellbeing".

Erik Syvertsen, general counsel for AngelList, a recruitment website for startups, said he views the Do Not Disturb feature as "essential for a productivity tool such as Speakap".

"Being able to focus and minimise context switching is necessary to make consistent progress on impactful legal projects, whether in the legal department or elsewhere," added Syvertsen, who encourages employees to activate Do Not Disturb mode on their laptops and phones for personal and "work focus time".

Back at Speakap, van der Mijl said the "core values" and "personal beliefs" of his company's team drove their decision to develop the Do Not Disturb feature. But he acknowledged that "there's a legal element that also needs to be addressed" as right-to-disconnect and anti-stress laws catch on in more jurisdictions.

Could new laws become 'gotchas'?

LegalZoom GC Rampenthal views those laws warily – because he's uncertain about how murky language in the rules will be interpreted. For instance, the New York proposal includes an exception that allows employers to contact employees after hours for emergencies. But Rampenthal wondered how the courts might define an emergency for the purposes of the law.

"Some of these rules are proffered with really good reason, but I am worried that the legal system will turn them into an abomination and they will be used as gotchas for people who were not trying to mess over their employees," he said. "I'm concerned by them."

Implementing right-to-disconnect policies could also be tricky for companies with workers in different timezones or employees who work from home, said O'Dell.

"We're a global world now," she added. "We're also in an environment where people want flexibility in their work arrangements and it's going to be hard to monitor."

Employees themselves present another complication. Many might not be able to tune out work, either because they're afraid of missing something and not getting ahead or simply because checking emails during every spare moment has become a habit.

"Even if an employer does its best efforts to put limitations in place, we all compulsively pick up and check our phones. It's hard to turn off," O'Dell said. "There are a lot of factors pushing us against disconnecting. It's the age-old tango we've always had between that work and life balance."