As of this week, it’s legal to ignore your boss and put your work phone on ‘do not disturb’ out of office hours. Here’s everything you need to know about Australia’s new right to disconnect law reform.

Key Takeaways

• Most Australian employees will have the right to refuse to monitor, read or respond to work-related contact from August 26, 2024, thanks to the new ‘right to disconnect’ law in the Fair Work Act.
  
• Employees of small businesses won’t have that right until August 26, 2025.
  
• There is a catch: it can’t be unreasonable to refuse contact. And it’ll be deemed unreasonable to respond if the contact is, say, required by law.
  
• Importantly, it doesn’t prohibit employers contacting employees outside of regular working hours, but it does mean employers need to rethink operations – particularly if they have international operations.

Key facts

• 87% of office workers say they’ve been contacted outside of working hours, according to a survey by Robert Half.
• 5.4 hours: That’s how many hours Australian workers averaged in unpaid overtime per week, in 2023.
• 60% of Australians experience exhaustion and anxiety due to their workload.
• 78% of employees are more likely to work for a company with a clear right to disconnect policy, according to recruitment firm, people2people.
• France was the first country to introduce right to disconnect laws in 2017.

Big number

$18,000. That’s the maximum penalty for an employer who violates the Right to Disconnect law.

Key background

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