One of the most potentially divisive pieces of workplace regulation in Australian history hammers down on every business with 15 or more employees from today.

It’s called the “right to disconnect” law, which will allow workers to ignore an attempt by their bosses to contact them outside stipulated working hours – and woe betide any business that does not comply. Penalties can hit $19,000 per breach for individuals and explode to $90,000 per breach for companies.

Even more disturbing, from August 26 next year, the right to disconnect will also apply to businesses with fewer than 15 employees. This means every business in Australia, from corporate giants such as BHP to your local coffee shop, will be hamstrung with costly industrial red tape fraught with problems that threaten workplace harmony and flexibility, and could undermine productivity right across the economy.

This disconcerting new world of industrial relations is enacted under the Closing Loopholes Bill, one of the Albanese government’s pet projects. Right to disconnect allows employees to ignore, not respond or accept contact from work by phone or email outside office hours, unless the contact is deemed reasonable. It will affect Australian business across the board.

There are hidden ramifications and impacts that business owners need to be aware of, and are unlikely to have yet considered. Be warned: you cannot afford to ignore right to disconnect, because your savvy employees definitely won’t, especially those who are unionised.

Loading

From today, not having to respond to out-of-hours contact from management becomes a protected workplace right. So what’s at stake for employers?

Employees might agitate over losing a promotion because they exercised their right not to work outside business hours. They might use right to disconnect as the trigger to end the practice of unpaid overtime. Anecdotally, Lawyers are already seeing an increase in underpayment claims. According to a study by the Australia Institute, it is estimated that employees are doing an average of 5.4 hours of unpaid work per week.

What happens to productivity when the job can’t be done in normal business hours? Will a business need to reconsider its resourcing and/or outsourcing requirements to stay competitive? I fear conflict increasing in the workplace in this emerging version of “work to rule”.