Taiwan employers to pay for overtime work assigned over

instant messaging apps

All work and no play is a common phenomenon among the working population of the present
day as advanced communication technology and staying connected at all times, makes it difficult
to draw boundaries between work time and personal time— they keep intersecting. E-mails,
messages or group discussions on instant messaging apps, after work hours, are fairly prevalent
and one cannot avoid them.

Considering this as serious work that should be compensated for, Taiwan’s New Taipei City
Labour Affairs Department’s arbitration commission recently ruled that employers must pay
overtime compensation to employees for work assigned via instant messaging apps, such as
LINE and WhatsApp during non-work hours. This is a first of its kind ruling in Taiwan.

The arbitration case came up when an electronic parts manufacturer employee, who, after being
laid off in 2015, requested overtime pay for tasks assigned via LINE, that were completed
outside of working hours.

Apparently, the company claimed that it did not ask the employee to go to the office during non-
work hours as he only had to send LINE messages to three other employees. While the company
said the work only amounted to 30–40 minutes per month, the employee claimed it took longer.

The arbitration commission, however, ruled that the employee worked an additional 358 minutes
on weekdays and 1,007 minutes on weekends, after reviewing records of LINE messages and
calls, post which—as per the arbitration commission’s ruling— the company needs to pay
NT$2,598 (US$83) in overtime compensation.

Although the new rule may come as a delight to some, it may also create further measurement
and negotiation issues for most as the tasks employers request employees to do after work hours
are urgent or irregular, and are hence difficult to predict and measure.

© 2016 HR Katha