Rentokil ordered to pay 'always-on' employee for out of hours work

Rentokil Initial has been ordered to pay a former employee €60,000 (£53,000) because it failed to respect his ‘right to disconnect’ when he wasn’t working – the Telegraph reports.

France’s Court de Cassation, the country’s Supreme Court, ruled that it was unfair for the ex-employee, a former South West regional director of the company in France dubbed ‘Mr Y’, to have to “permanently leave his telephone on…to respond to requests from his subordinates or customers” in case of any problems while not at work.

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Mr Y took Rentokil to a tribunal after he was fired in 2011 for asking for compensation for the extra hours he had to be on call. The company initially said he had not been officially on call while not in the office after hours or on holidays and weekends because there was no stipulation that he needed to remain close to his home to field calls and deal with emergency business.

However, the court said that given that his number was provided as one of the directors to call should problems arise, that amounted to him being ‘on call’, and that he needed to be paid for his time.