Lazy workers are licking their lips as the right-to-disconnect laws loom

In 2023, the term “lazy girl job” took off on social media. It purports to represent female employees who are no longer willing to tolerate the traditional work environment impinging upon their health, wellbeing or social activities.

TikToker Gabrielle Judge, who coined the phrase, said it was a modern take on the “work-life balance” philosophy and an extension of “quiet quitting”. But, when the idea’s biggest proponents say things like “I don’t have to talk to anyone and only want to go into the office once a week”, there appears to me to be a thin line between flexibility and laziness.

Illustration: Dionne GainCredit: Dionne Gain

Unproductive and lazy employees exist in most businesses to some extent. Australia’s unfair dismissal laws have, on occasion, been lenient to them – except where blatant laziness is involved.

In 2019, as an employment lawyer I was involved in a case where the company won an unfair dismissal claim proving that a security guard who was often asleep and snoring in the control room, and who took a 90-minute break for every 20-minute patrol, was fairly dismissed.

In another case from 2019, the Fair Work Commission found a cleaner was fairly dismissed when he engaged in “time theft” by spending 11 hours and 26 minutes over five shifts sitting in the tearoom doing nothing while being paid.

In December 2022, a council worker lost an appeal in the Fair Work Commission after his ute was tracked using GPS. The worker frequently went missing during the day and could not explain his absences. His laziness was found to be “egregious and contrary to his obligations as an employee”.

Lazy workers will be keenly awaiting new workplace laws that commence in Australia on August 26. Workers will gain a statutory right to refuse to be contacted by their employer outside standard hours, if the employee feels the contact is unreasonable.

Changes to the Fair Work Act will give employees a “right to disconnect” that will include the right to apply to the industrial umpire for orders allowing them to refuse to read or respond to emails or telephone calls from their employer.

According to Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke, these laws give workers the power to stop employers from taking advantage of them by infringing upon their personal time with constant work requests and demands.

However, as with the anti-bullying laws, which at times can be used as a sword against managers rather than a shield, the new laws will be misused by some employees. Lazy workers wanting to push the limits might misuse these laws by refusing to take a call from a boss about a critical business issue in the evening; for example when a cyber risk has been identified, but an IT officer won’t answer a call from the chief executive at 10pm.

These new rights will, of course, be a fair remedy for many genuinely hard-working employees who spend significant personal time doing unpaid work. But my concern with these laws is that they will give new protections to the workers who are already idle. After all, to “disconnect” means “to become detached or withdrawn”, attributes rarely sought by employers.

Think I am being unfair? Well, laziness is an increasing trend in the cases I defend for employers. Putting aside pandemic lockdowns where all sorts of things other than work were going on in people’s homes during virtual business hours, more recently I have been involved in matters where employees were surreptitiously sleeping on the job; forging time sheets with fabricated work hours; using fake medical certificates to take sickies; or watching Netflix while claiming to be working from home.

An employer’s power to give work-related orders and expect them to be obeyed is a fundamental feature of the employment relationship, but lazy employees have been around for a long time. In a famous English case from 1969, an employee was hired as a gardener at a manor house. Over a period of three months his work deteriorated and he became lazy and inefficient.

On the day of his dismissal, he was directed by the owner of the house to put some plants in the garden, which he refused to do, retorting: “I couldn’t care less about your bloody greenhouse and your sodding garden!” He was dismissed with the English Court of Appeal finding his wilful laziness was disobedience of a lawful and reasonable direction.

Get ready for more complaints from employees wanting to exercise their rights to do less work. Employers seeking to recruit staff with an old-fashioned work ethic might need to ensure job advertisements include the warning “Lazy Girls and Lazy Boys need not apply”.

Paul O’Halloran is an employment law partner at law firm Dentons Australia.

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