Employer guide download: Right to Disconnect

South Australian Business News • HR and workplace relations

Elisa Luck

Tuesday, September 10th 2024

Need more information on how the new right for employees to ‘disconnect’ impacts your business and what you need to do?

As many businesses would be aware the amendments introduced an employee right to disconnect into the Fair Work Act 2009 (FW Act) which makes clear that employees are not required to monitor, read, or respond to employer or work-related contact out of hours, unless refusing to do so is unreasonable.

The new right is in effect a right to ‘refuse’ or ‘ignore’. These changes include the following:

the new right allows an employee to refuse to monitor, read or respond to contact or attempted contact from their employer outside of their working hours.
this right also extends to contact from a third-party contact, such as a client or customer.
this includes monitoring a phone or email and responding to calls, texts or emails etc.
this does not prevent an employer or a third party ringing an employee, texting them or sending an email outside of working hours.
the right to refuse cannot be exercised if the refusal is unreasonable and the legislation provides guidance on what might affect this test.
the right operates for the purposes of the adverse action / general protections provisions of the FW Act.
the laws apply to all employees covered by the Fair Work System including award and enterprise agreement free employees (subject to when they commence).
the Fair Work Commission is empowered to deal with disputes about the new right.
the Fair Work Commission will have a ‘test case’ this year to include a clause in all modern awards dealing with this new right.

If you want to find out more, South Australian Business Chamber members can access our Right to Disconnect Employer Guide plus other Guides via their member portal. These Guides are intended to help employers navigate these changes and offer practical advice for complying with new obligations.

It is important that employers are familiarised with these changes. These changes will affect a wide range of businesses across different sectors.

Need help?

Employers and businesses are strongly encouraged to seek individual advice tailored to their specific needs contact our Business Advice Hotline today on (08) 8300 0000 (select option 1).