Workers welcome their right to refuse after hours contact from their boss
New right to disconnect laws start later in August but workers are already gearing up to take advantage of the workplace rule change.
New right to disconnect laws could result in up to 70 per cent of Australian workers saying no to the boss, even as many of them suspect they will be asked to do more during regular office hours in return.
The federal law comes into effect on August 26, although small businesses have a year’s grace to get sorted, and while many employers worry about loss of productivity, workers appear set to exercise their right to refuse contact after hours.
According to a survey conducted in June for recruiters Robert Half, the controversial right to disconnect laws will have an impact on about 87 per cent of office workers in the poll, who say they are contacted outside of work hours.
Many of them are contacted occasionally, but about 36 per cent of workers say they are called or emailed outside their work hours at least a few times a week by their employer.
And it seems contacting employees after hours is the default approach from some employers: only 13 per cent of office workers say they are never contacted by their employer outside of work hours, although another 22 per cent say they only get a call once a month.
The survey results show 70 per cent of workers report they will feel comfortable ignoring contact, and 68 per cent believe they will experience improved work-life balance by doing so.
But 35 per cent of those surveyed say that while they might enjoy the freedom to say no, they expect increased pressure to complete their workload in office hours.
Nicole Gorton, a director at Robert Half, calls the new law, part of the Fair Work Act, a “game changer for work-life harmony in Australia,” which will help reduce burnout and stress, improve employee morale and reduce turnover.
“It’s not just a new rule, it’s a cultural shift,” Gorton says.
There’s a generational difference in how workers respond to after-hour requests from their employers: millennials (75 per cent) are the most comfortable about ignoring work-related contact after hours, closely followed by gen Z (73 per cent). But baby boomers (68 per cent) and gen X (64 per cent) are a little less comfortable avoiding after-hours contact.
Gorton says the survey of 1000 full-time workers shows they expect there will be positive impacts on both their work and life because of the right to disconnect, including improved work-life balance (68 per cent) reduced stress and burnout (55 per cent); increased job satisfaction (43 per cent) and improved productivity during business hours (31 per cent).
But she says many expect there will be some challenges accompanying the right to disconnect. Along with the increased pressure to complete tasks within regular hours, about one third of workers fear they will suffer in terms of career progression if they say no. Workers also worry that not putting in the extra time after hours could mean they will have trouble staying informed about important work matters, and will feel disconnected from the team.
But Gorton is enthusiastic about the positives and says the law gives workers “the backing and support to be able to say, ‘actually, these are the hours in my contract, my work day ends here’”.
She says companies should discuss the legislation with workers so everyone understands how they will operate.
Gorton says there is the potential that the right to disconnect laws will reduce stress and burnout, and allow for increased job satisfaction.
“It’s not just a new rule, it’s a cultural shift”
“We have lost that line, where people stop and start work, because of accessibility with technology and because many organisations work across geography with different time zones,” she says.
“The lines are blurred and they have been for a number of years.”
Gorton notes that some global companies, for example, will have to make it clear in contracts that employees are required to work after hours. But she sees this as a positive change because the expectations will be explicit and communicated upfront and accepted by employees as part of a contract.
“Where companies will get the best out of people is when they appreciate that people need a balance in life,” she says.
“We still are seeing some employers apprehensive around what it will look like for them given that they’ve had access to staff for extended hours, let’s just say, or expectations on deliverables that have required longer working hours to get work done. This is particularly so when companies are under more pressure from a cost point of view, given that revenues in many industries are not where they were two years ago.”
Gorton says some employers will likely move to have contracts rewritten to extend the hours during which employees can be contacted.
In an article on The Conversation website, Associate Professor John Hopkins from Swinburne University of Technology, says the growth of digital devices – including smartphones, laptops, tablets and smart watches – means many Australian workers have been working way beyond their contracted number of hours for many years.
A 2023 Australia Institute study estimated that Australian workers were doing an extra 5.4 hours of unpaid work per week, on average.
This “availability creep” or “time theft” is equal to an extra 281 hours of unpaid work per year, Hopkins argues.
Some countries have taken a different approach to the disconnect trend, he says. Portugal, for example, puts responsibility on the employer under “refrain from contact” laws. It means bosses can face fines if they initiate contact.
The Australian law does not make it an offence to contact an employee, but instead gives the employee the right to not respond. The law requires any dispute to be resolved in the workplace but if this fails, either side can take the case to the Fair Work Commission.
The Australian Public Service Commission recently circulated guidelines to departments on how to manage the new law. It warns that job descriptions might need to be reviewed to make clear the expectations about after-hours work, in essence to codify practice.
The APSC points to a potential problem in an era of flexible and remote work: managers are sometimes unaware if an employee has switched timetables on an ad hoc basis, so they don’t really know when a staffer who works from home has actually stopped work for the day.
Disputes will be decided on whether the request to work is “reasonable”.
The Fair Work Act includes benchmark tests of whether actions are “reasonable” but it is a tricky area in workplace law.
The APSC advice lists some tests, including how the contact or attempted contact is made and the level of disruption this causes the employee; the extent to which the employee is compensated to remain available to perform work during the period in which the contact or attempted contact is made or for working additional hours outside of the employee’s ordinary hours of work; the nature of the employee’s role and level of responsibility; and an employee’s personal circumstances, including family or caring responsibilities.
