Workers now have the right to disconnect. Here’s how workplaces can prepare

By August 2025, all Australian workers will have a limited right to disconnect from their workplace. This means that employees can lawfully refuse to “monitor, read or respond to contact” from their employer or a third party, such as a client. For non-small businesses, the law is in effect now.

The impetus for the change has been what some describe as availability creep. According to Safe Work Australia, anxiety and stress disorders are on the rise –particularly for women trying to manage the “second shift”.

Right-to-disconnect laws will become widespread from next year, giving burnt-out workers the right to switch off.Credit: iStock

Research suggests “out-of-hours contact can disrupt much-needed rest and recovery time, potentially exacerbating existing stress”. The right to disconnect is designed to support workers to maintain healthy boundaries between work and personal life on which their psychological wellbeing – and workplace productivity – depends.

But what does the new legal framework mean for workplace leaders who care about providing a psychologically safe workplace for their employees?

On the one hand, the new law delivers somewhat less than what is advertised on the box. On the other, it provides a beneficial impetus and structure for leaders and their teams to discuss and agree when contact after hours is reasonable – and whether and how it should be compensated. A process that, if it goes well, should deliver on the law’s promise.

Can workers really disconnect?

The new law grants workers an enforceable right to refuse contact and attempted contact from their employer on email, phone or computer outside their working hours, unless that refusal is unreasonable.

Is what we do in our free time anyone else’s business?

To determine whether the employee’s disconnection was reasonable, the Fair Work system will consider the reason for the contact, how it is made, how disruptive it is to the employee, whether the employee is paid to do additional hours or to be available for work at the time they are contacted, the employee’s level of responsibility and whether their caring responsibilities (such as for children) explain why they refused contact.

This means that both employer and employees must consider whether each contact – or refusal to respond – is reasonable. For the employee, this analysis would need to be done for every attempt, so they know what they were doing when they refused the contact or to come in.

Why? Because while the commission deems caring as a legitimate reason to refuse contact, it sees doing so to continue a workout or do home admin as unreasonable.

This is concerning. Firstly, because of the introduction of a legitimate/less legitimate distinction between uses to which workers put their personal time.

Is what we do in our free time anyone else’s business? Don’t we all have the same claim to the freedom and mental health benefits of downtime regardless of how we use it?

Secondly, the promised liberation of a right to disconnect seems to us to include the freedom to turn off one’s email notifications and the ringer on one’s phone. As long as an employee risks having to justify their decision before the Commission for doing so, their freedom to exercise the new right is limited.

Tips for leaders – have the conversation

To avoid conflict that could escalate, leaders need to ensure they discuss the new right with every member of their team and develop a shared understanding of:

• which kinds of contact are reasonable
• which modes of contact the employee prefers
• whether and what kind of compensation should be offered for either being available for contact out of hours or doing work out of hours.

Employers must also gain a general sense of how each team member spends their time away from work to assess the reasonableness of any attempt to make contact.

But what if a leader feels uncomfortable quizzing their employee about whether any of their downtime is spent caring for others? Or they have been directed by upper management to ask an employee without kids to come in to deal with an emergency, but the leader knows the contact will interrupt a gym session that the team member disclosed in confidence was essential to her mental health?

Again, we see conversation as key, this time between the leader, HR and senior management. Initially, such conversations could focus on the organisation’s alignment with the spirit and intent of the new law.

If the leader has reservations about the ability of the law as drafted to deliver the stress reduction and productivity benefits promised, this would be a good time to raise it.

If the alignment is there, workplaces are free to implement the law in ways that are more liberatory for employees than the Commission’s guidelines suggest.

Or the workplace can implement the law in accordance with the Commission’s advice, but grant individual leaders discretion to deliver the right to disconnect in ways adapted to their team’s specific needs and circumstances.

What’s important for ethical leaders to remember is the impetus that gave birth to the 18 right to disconnect laws that have been passed globally. We think Portuguese politician Ana Caterina says it best:

“There should be a boundary between the time in which a worker is a resource in the service of the person paying their salary, and the time in which they should be the owner of a life that is not all about work. We [must avoid] the blurring of … the boundary between time as a commodity with a financial value, and the precious time remaining for the enjoyment of life.”

Dr Leslie Cannold is the associate professor of ethics and impact at Cranlana Centre for Ethical Leadership.

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