Action for Freelancers has published new guidelines, Contact: A Guide to Work-Life Boundaries, which sets out seven shared principles on out-of-hours contact, endorsed across the industry.
The guidance has been endorsed by the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, UKTV, BBC Studios, ITV Studios, Fremantle, Banijay, Bectu, CIISA and Directors UK. It is the first set of shared standards AfF will publish, and it applies to everyone on a production – from commissioner to runner.
You can read the guidelines here, which are short and practical, detailing best practice when it comes to; contact windows, agreeing what counts as a real emergency before filming starts, delay-send and clear labels, and leaders modelling the behaviour.
It is not a ban on flexible working - it is a framework so that one person’s working pattern never becomes someone else’s pressure. Read it on the Action for Freelancers website.