Millions of Australians will now be able to clock off from their work shifts without having to be available after hours.

Under right to disconnect laws, employees from today will have the right to refuse contact outside their working hours — including calls and emails — unless that refusal is unreasonable.

“Oh, it’ll be a weight off my shoulders, for sure,” said shift worker Lachy.

He is looking forward to living his life outside of work hours, without worrying if the phone will ring with news about his job.

“It’ll give me some of my life back. Even going out to walk the dogs, going out with the mates,” he said.

“If I receive a phone call, there is some expectation that I do pick up.”

Performing extra unpaid hours of work is common in Australia and many jobs come with an expectation of being contactable beyond paid or rostered hours.

But the right to disconnect is aiming to create limits around this work culture and the so-called ‘digital leash’ of phones, laptops and easily-accessible email. 

While it may be welcome news to employees, it doesn’t mean the boss can’t call you.

What it does mean is you might not have to answer.

What do the new laws mean for you?

The distinction is important. Brent Ferguson, head of national workplace relations policy for employer body Ai Group, explained the new laws won’t bring an end to late night calls.

“This isn’t a prohibition on an employer contacting or attempting to contact an employee,” he said.

“It’s a new right for an employee to refuse that contact, to refuse to monitor their emails, or to refuse to take a telephone call from their employer, if it’s outside of their working hours.”

While the details are still being worked out, one thing is clear: today workers at businesses with more than 15-employees get the right to disconnect. 

Employees of smaller businesses will be able to disconnect after work on August 22, 2025.

The legislation is thin, but it states that if there is a dispute, it has to be first dealt with “at the workplace level by discussions” between workers and bosses.

“It is subject to that important caveat that [employees] can only refuse if their refusal is ‘not unreasonable’,” Mr Ferguson said.

“Now, what’s reasonable or unreasonable is going to depend on the individual circumstances.

“And that uncertainty is part of the difficulty that industry is really grappling with at the moment.”

How the pandemic blurred our working and personal lives

Academic Gabrielle Golding said the COVID-19 pandemic and enforced “work from home” periods promoted growth in what she calls “availability creep”.

“During that time when we were, by and large, forced to work from home, we were kind of training ourselves to be constantly available within our homes and elsewhere outside of the workplace,” she said.

Even as restrictions rolled back, cheap and easy access to digital connectivity meant being available became a default setting for employees.

Many employers took advantage of it, but the new laws should give workers the option to reset.

“If we have some sort of a ‘guard rail’ in place like this, it will change the patterns in the way in which people are conducting work,” Dr Golding said.

“And hopefully give them an opportunity to take some of their their private life back.”

Just like doctors who work on call and shift workers who get penalties for starting early in the morning, it could be that disconnect laws prompt people who are expected to be available to win compensation for that time in future.

The legislation has a requirement that disputes are dealt with at a workplace level first.

Sally McManus, secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), said “workers have got a brand new right”, which is “really awesome”.

“What that basically means is your employer can’t harass you after work,” she said.

“So emails, calls … if they contact you, it’s got to be reasonable, and you’ve got a right not to respond.”

Ms McManus said “if you work, you should get paid” and the right to disconnect will enable workers to put in place boundaries between their work and personal life.

“Not all employers, but some employers have completely blurred or just crossed over those boundaries and are expecting people be connected and answer their emails and look at their phones, 24/7,” she said. 

“And that’s just not on.”

It may mean employees don’t have to check their phone every few minutes

Lachy works at Melbourne Airport, a role that requires him to work shifts at odd times.

“If you go to check in for a flight, I’ll be there. You go to board a flight, I’ll be there,” he said.

Like many who work difficult and unsociable hours, he struggles to rest and sometimes wakes up to missed calls and texts.

“There’ll be days where I’m not rostered to work but I wake up to a call from work thinking: ‘Hang on, what day is it? When am I scheduled to work?’

“It’s reminiscent of when you would be waking up like for a school day and thinking: ‘Oh crap, I’m late.’

“I suppose it’s a form of anxiety. You feel the phone ring, and I don’t think ‘Oh it’s one of my friends or family’. I think: ‘It’s work.'”

Lachy loves his job, taking a call from his employer while the ABC is interviewing him at his house, but he is looking forward to being protected when he reasonably refuses contact from them.

“Just the expectation to be taken off my shoulders that I don’t have to check my phone every few minutes to see if there’s been any changes to my roster,” he said.

“[Or] if they’ve sent out any emails that are changing how we’re working. It’ll be a weight off my shoulders, for sure.”

How will disconnecting actually work?

More than 20 countries have put in place similar laws, and research has found improved wellbeing and work satisfaction in companies with right-to-disconnect policies. 

In Australia, Telstra has set boundaries around employees being contacted — or feeling like they should be available — for years.

Despite being in the business of selling communications, and the need for constant monitoring and maintenance of vital networks, the company has built in boundaries so staff are not “always on”.

“A lot of it comes down to behaviours and work practises,” said Kathryn van der Merwe, the human resources executive in charge of Telstra’s 31,000 employees.

“It’s reminding our people of the importance of having a conversation within your team, with a leader and a team agreeing a set of ‘team norms’ and work practises.

“And reminding people that we also have tools that actually help to respect those boundaries and personal time.”

Dr van der Merwe suggested tools such as the “delay send” function on emails, or stating a person’s normal working days and hours in their email signature.

There will always be a need for certain people and roles to have a reasonable expectation of being contactable, she said, and many are compensated specifically for that. 

For everyone else, Dr van der Merwe sees the start of the right to disconnect as a reminder to work in ways that respect an employee’s personal time.

“We all, I think, have felt that blurring between work and personal life, particularly as we spend more time working from home.”

“This gives us a chance to have a renewed conversation [about] some of our ways of working and to reset some norms to help firm up those boundaries.”

Will there be guidelines around the ‘right to disconnect’?

The legislation requires the Fair Work Commission (FWC) to provide guidelines around the new entitlement. But it has so far declined to do so.

Instead FWC found it would be better off issuing guidelines after it has dealt with a few disputes around the new entitlement.

So expect to see “test cases” that tease out the difficult legal and practical nature of the word ‘reasonable’ and what it means in a world where mobile phones are ubiquitous and employees want flexibility in how and where they can work.

“The new entitlement is cast in very broad terms,” Mr Ferguson said.

“We’re going to have to see how it operates in practice over time to understand exactly what the parameters of the new right are.”

Ms McManus believes the new right could take us back to a time when the life/work balance of Australians was in better shape.

“We have lost that over a period of time,” she said, noting that Australians’ long working hours harm mental health.

“If you’re constantly connected, if you’re not able to switch off, if you’re not able to refresh and recuperate…obviously you’re going to be a worse worker.”

The right to disconnect could end what she calls “unreasonable pressure” on workers.

“So this is actually good for employers, as well as for workers,” Ms McManus said.

“A more productive workforce where people actually are rested enough and they’re not constantly driven by the beeping and the notifications on their phone.”