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If you’ve ever flicked off an email before bed, texted your boss out of hours, or received an “urgent” work call after clocking off, you’ll be glad to hear some respite is now at hand.
A new right to disconnect from work, for employees in businesses with 15 or more staff, is now in effect. This is a welcome response to the growing problem of “availability creep”, where work demands spill over into workers’ leisure time.
Artwork: Marija ErcegovacCredit:
The new right means most employees can now refuse to monitor and respond to unreasonable contact from their employers about work matters outside paid work hours.
Many of us are now online and digitally connected to our workplaces 24/7. This constant connectedness can make it hard to escape work calls, texts, and emails when not actually at work.
As we are now so easily contacted anywhere and anytime, our leisure and family time has become very susceptible to interruptions from work, leading to unpaid overtime, an inability to “switch off”, and blurred boundaries between work and non-work time. Gone are the days of 8 hours work, 8 hours rest, and 8 hours play.
The consequences are stark. Research has shown these work practices lead to increased stress, health problems and a poor work-life balance. The right to disconnect from work is one solution to the problems of availability creep and unpaid overtime.
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The Senate Select Committee on Work and Care proposed this reform to Australia’s workplace laws in early 2023 and the initiative was included in the government’s Closing Loopholes package of workplace reforms passed by the federal parliament later that year. A similar right is in place in a number of other countries including France, Canada and the Philippines.
Australia’s new right to disconnect does not mean there is a blanket ban on contacting employees outside their scheduled work hours. Rather, it means that an employee cannot be penalised for refusing unreasonable contact.
There are many circumstances in which a manager’s attempts to contact an employee out of their work hours might be reasonable. For example, this could be where an employee is on-call and receiving an on-call allowance.