Not only are the French reportedly living healthier than Americans, thanks to that red wine intake apparently, a segment of its workforce now boasts a better work-life balance given a new labor agreement between unions and the country's technology employers that prohibits employees from work-related activity after 6 p.m.
That means no reading business emails, no callbacks to customers, no texting or browsing or sharing data with co-workers. At least, that is, for one million of France's 40 million workers.
The legal stipulation, signed off on last week, means the workers, mostly employed in the technology sector, can just shut off from their jobs without potential employment ramifications.
But that may be easier said than done given how everyone seems to be truly addicted to mobile devices and are obsessive about being in touch and in the know 24 hours a day.
One study states smartphone users check devices nearly a 100 times a day. A Center for Creative Leadership study last year noted worldwide typically conducted business 72 hours per week. That's nearly double job hours in France as the country mandated a 35-hour workweek back in 1999.
A 2013 study reveals Facebook users check for updates/read post an average of 14 times a day. A Meeker study claims smartphone users check their phones 150 times a day and a Locket study claims smarthphone users swipe to unlock their phones 110 times a day.
Heck, when you factor in the productivity drop from March Madness every year, just how much work is getting done should be the focus of the next study.
And whether all the swiping, phone checking and Facebook activity is work related is hard to tell as most studies don't delve into specific user activities. People swipe phones to discover time, temperature and sports scores after all. They swipe to check calendar appointments, texts received and to look up a family member's phone number as no one bothers to memorize anyone's number these days.
