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News · Labour & Employment · Mexico
Mexico and the Self-Managed Workday: Greater Autonomy, but More Rules as Well
As Mexico moves toward a 40-hour workweek, Leslie Palma and Carolina Soto examine self-managed working hours, legal compliance, and the lessons for employers in Costa Rica.
Carolina Soto, partner at ARIAS Costa Rica, and Leslie Palma, Labor & Employment shareholder at Greenberg Traurig Mexico
By Leslie Palma, Labor & Employment shareholder at Greenberg Traurig Mexico, and Carolina Soto, partner at ARIAS Costa Rica
A perspective from Mexico and Costa Rica on autonomy in the organization of working time, the gradual reduction of the workweek, and the risks companies may want to consider.
When discussing workplace flexibility, one of the first questions is often how much control employees may have over their own time.
Can they decide when their workday begins?
Can they organize their hours around their objectives?
Can they work from different locations?
Can a company measure results without continuously monitoring presence?
In Mexico, these questions are especially relevant at a time when the maximum workweek is undergoing a gradual reduction: from 48 hours per week in 2026 to 40 hours in 2030.
However, a legal clarification is worth noting at the outset.
The so-called "self-managed workday" is not a legal category recognized as such under Mexico's Federal Labor Law. Nor is it an independent concept developed through case law.
Rather, it is a business practice that may be structured through employment agreements, internal policies, or collective instruments, within the limits established by labor legislation.
This distinction is relevant for multinational companies.
An organization may grant autonomy over when and how work is performed, but that autonomy does not eliminate statutory limits on working time.
In the words of Leslie Palma, our co-author from Mexico, "Autonomy may be agreed upon, but the limits may not."
This idea is useful for understanding how the organization of work may evolve in Mexico and what questions a company in Costa Rica may wish to ask when considering similar models.
What Does a Self-Managed Workday Really Mean?
The first challenge lies in the concept itself. Because it is not a distinct legal category, a “self-managed workday” may mean different things depending on how the model is designed.
In practical terms, it involves granting employees a significant degree of autonomy to decide when and how they complete their working hours, while remaining subject to certain predefined limits and objectives.
There may be flexibility regarding start times, the distribution of working hours throughout the day or week and, where the arrangement permits, the location from which work is performed.
However, this autonomy has a clear limit: employees may not waive statutory maximum working hours, or the rest periods established under labor law.
This distinction may appear straightforward, but it could have significant consequences.
A company may allow an individual to organize their own workday. It may not turn that freedom into implicit authorization to work indefinitely.
The “How Much” Is Also Changing
The discussion in Mexico also has a time-related dimension that should be considered.
The reduction of the workweek will be gradual:
2026: 48 hours per week.
2027: 46 hours.
2028: 44 hours.
2029: 42 hours.
2030: 40 hours.
This means that companies designing flexible work models today may wish to do so with the environment they will need to manage four years from now in mind.
The question should not be limited to how autonomy can operate under the current limit.
It is also important to ask:
How might this model be adapted as the maximum weekly workweek is reduced to 40 hours?
Designing the model now with that transition in mind may reduce the need for subsequent changes to policies, employment agreements, timekeeping systems, and work organization.
The Employer Does Not Lose Control; What It Controls Changes
One of the most noteworthy insights from the Mexican experience is that autonomy does not mean an absence of managerial authority.
The focus of managerial authority changes. Under a traditional arrangement, much of the control may center on presence: start time, end time, physical attendance, and direct supervision. Under a self-managed model, an employer may focus its oversight on four elements: results, limits, coordination, and traceability.
This may be translated into specific tools:
Core hours during which the team needs to overlap;
Measurable objectives;
Clear rules on overtime;
Reliable mechanisms for recording working time;
Availability parameters;
Right-to-disconnect policies.
The model therefore does not eliminate rules; it changes them. And a company that knows what to control exercises more managerial authority, not less.
Flexibility and Timekeeping Can Coexist
This is where one of the most legally significant issues arise.
Autonomy over the organization of time does not eliminate the need to substantiate how many hours were worked.
According to the information provided by Leslie, the provisions on electronic working-time records under Article 132 of the Federal Labor Law will apply beginning Jan. 1, 2027. However, the general provisions that the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare is expected to issue to define their scope and any exceptions are still pending.
Given these developments in Mexico, a prudent approach may be to avoid designing the model on the assumption that self-managed arrangements will be exempt from timekeeping requirements.
For this reason, the practical recommendation from Mexico is not to design the model in the expectation that self-managed arrangements will necessarily fall outside the timekeeping requirements. Mexican authorities have yet to define the exceptions, but the underlying logic is that the less visible the workday, the greater the need to document it. Building in a timekeeping system now that supports autonomy, without becoming a time clock in disguise, is what will make the model sustainable and defensible, whatever the final regulations may be. Flexibility and timekeeping can coexist. In fact, they can complement one another.
A reliable, verifiable digital system may allow employees to record their own working time while giving the company ways to access that information and use it for management purposes.
This changes the conversation.
A company does not need to monitor every movement an individual makes in order to meet its obligations. It does, however, need to be able to show that its self-managed workday model operates within legal limits.
When Flexibility Becomes Surveillance
There is, however, another extreme that employers may want to avoid.
If a company formally grants autonomy but attempts to monitor every minute through random screenshots, continuous camera monitoring, or keyboard-activity metrics, flexibility loses much of its purpose.
Additional issues may also arise in connection with personal data protection and psychosocial risk factors.
The Mexican experience highlights an interesting tension here:
How can a company obtain enough information to manage an employee's compliance with their obligations without turning autonomy into constant surveillance?
The answer does not appear to lie in greater control. It lies in better design of the self-managed workday arrangement itself: defining from the outset the limits within which autonomy operates and the times when the team must overlap. When the rules are well designed, the information needed to show compliance is generated naturally, without the need to monitor every minute of the workday.
Clear objectives, known rules, appropriate timekeeping systems, and a culture of accountability can reduce the need for intrusive supervision.
Overtime, Availability, and the Right to Disconnect
There are three areas in which a flexible model may create exposure if it is not properly designed.
Overtime
Autonomy does not mean that overtime ceases to exist. The arrangement must clearly establish when overtime may be worked, who may authorize it, and how each of these steps must be recorded.
This is especially relevant when leaders know that an individual is working beyond authorized hours and nevertheless allow the situation to continue.
A written rule that no one enforces is unlikely to protect the company from operational reality.
Availability
A distinction must also be drawn between the freedom to organize one's workday and the obligation to remain available.
An individual may have autonomy to decide when to perform their work while also being subject to virtually continuous availability if the organization does not establish clear limits.
In certain cases, that availability may affect the calculation of working time.
Accordingly, duty periods, on-call systems, and expectations regarding responses outside working hours should be carefully analyzed.
Right to Disconnect
The right to disconnect becomes even more important when autonomy exists. If an individual may organize their own workday, the point at which that workday ends must be clear.
Otherwise, the model may create a situation in which the employee is free to decide when to work but feels required to always remain available.
This may turn a policy designed to provide flexibility into an environment with high levels of pressure.
The Risk Does Not Lie Solely in the Policy
From a business perspective, one relevant issue in Mexico is the need to maintain appropriate consistency between established labor policies and their practical implementation.
The company needs consistency among the employment agreement, the internal policy, the timekeeping system, leadership instructions, and day-to-day practice.
A company may adopt policies that grant employees a certain degree of autonomy to manage their time. The application of these provisions may vary depending on how activities are organized, operational needs, and supervisory practices, including meeting schedules, communications outside working hours, and the distribution of working time.
When those five elements tell different stories, exposure increases.
What Benefits Are Companies Finding?
Self-managed models may generate meaningful advantages.
They may also foster more results-oriented management. When supervision no longer focuses exclusively on hours of presence, the organization is compelled to define more precisely what it expects from each position.
They may likewise promote results-based management by encouraging the organization to establish clearer objectives, responsibilities, and performance criteria for each position rather than focusing solely on hours of presence.
Implementing new working arrangements may help identify aspects of organizational processes that were not as evident under
