Brazil’s New Overtime Law Has Big Implications for Social Media

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Brazil recently passed a law stating that employees who address work-related e-mails outside of the office can ask for overtime pay.  The law argues that e-mails from work are the same as direct orders to employees, therefore entitling them to overtime.

As Forbes pointed out, this isn’t the first time the issue has been tackled.  Volkswagen worked with labor representatives and agreed to only e-mail employees between half an hour before works starts and half an hour after it ends.  T-Mobile has also made an effort to limit out-of-office communication.

However, Brazil is the first example of government legislation regulating work-related e-mails, and it could set a precedent for the rest of the world and spark similar regulations in other countries.

So what does this mean for social media?

We all know that timing is everything in the social media world, and posts are more effective and more likely to engage fans when they’re posted outside of working hours.  Like e-mail, the result is that a lot of work on social networking sites ends up being done outside of the office.

Does this mean that social media managers who are tweeting and responding to blog comments after-hours should be asking for overtime?  On the flip side, what about when employees take personal calls or answer text messages at work- should that get docked from their pay?  The separation of work from personal life walks a fine line.

As of right now it’s not clear what Brazil’s new law will mean for the rest of the world, but it has definitely raised important questions and opened the door for some interesting discussions.  What do you think, should social media managers be getting paid overtime?  Should work e-mails out of the office be limited?

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