Millions of workers will now be able to clock off and leave the job behind them without needing to be available after hours, thanks to new laws. Under the right to disconnect, employees can refuse contact outside working hours, including calls and emails, unless their refusal is deemed unreasonable. Martijn Boersma is an Associate Professor in the Discipline of Work and Organizational Studies at the University of Sydney, he joins us now.

Martijn, welcome. So first of all, what do you think of the fact that we have these laws now in the first place?

Well, two things, they’re very much necessary as we’ve seen encroachment of work time onto personal time. So that’s one thing. Secondly, and I think this is something that’s not been mentioned enough, is that we’re not really doing anything radical here. There are a lot of other countries around the world that have already introduced a similar right.

But what will this mean in practice?

So in practice, it means that employees can refuse contact outside of work hours, so they can refuse to respond to emails, refuse to pick up the phone if that is reasonable to do so. So the onus lies with the employee to determine whether the contact is unreasonable. The employer can still contact the employee if needed. But in practice, it means that there are, well, it’s often been referred to as guardrails.

There are, I suppose, there’s a practical rule in place now, which means that employees can decide that they do not want to engage with their employer outside of office hours, but won’t this still lead to a situation where employees feel like they need to allow this access if they’re going to get ahead and so realistically, will it change much?

That’s a good question. So as part of the changes, the right to disconnect has also been included in general protections so employers can’t take adverse action against an employee who seeks to use this right, and therefore, I suppose they should feel a little bit more comfortable in using it. That said, the Fair Work Commission has also said that the next 12 months will really be periods during which time we will have to find out how this works in practice, because obviously there will be differences in different sectors where you might have to have outside of office hours contact more frequently. So, we’ll really have to see in the next 12 months, and in 12 month’s time, the Fair Work Commission will also conduct another review to see how this will pan out ultimately.

Is it inevitable that this will end up in the courts, and that’s where we’ll get some fine tuning of what this actually means, or do you expect we’ll just get that from the Fair Work Commission?

Yeah, sadly, some of the rhetoric from the employer organizations has been a bit alarmist unnecessarily. So, I would say in the other jurisdictions, and again, we take a page out of the book from the other jurisdictions, it is really up to the employers and employees to sort this out at the workplace level. So, they’ve said you guys’ figure this out. So, before it would even come to the Fair Work Commission, they’re encouraged to do it there. And even then, I suppose there will be a few test cases, but I don’t think that we’ll see the Fair Work Commission being clogged up with any sort of, you know, broad range of right to disconnect cases anytime soon.

Now. And why do you think we’ve got to this stage as you say that there’s been too much of an encroachment in employees’ lives?

Well, clearly, it’s really hard to disconnect. I find it myself. You check your email outside of outside of office hours. You know, you take a phone call here and there. But I think Michelle O’Neil from the ACTU to said that on average, people in Australia do about five to six hours of unpaid work each week. And that’s obviously, that’s quite a serious that’s quite a serious number. The idea previously was that employees and employers can sort this at the workplace level. They still will, but the, I suppose, assumption there is that an employer will, or an employee will always feel comfortable raising it, and that might not necessarily be the case, as you mentioned, that might fear that they not, will not get ahead as much as they as they would if they do stay connected. So now this law, I suppose, gives them a bit of confidence that they can raise it without adverse action.

And so, for people who might be watching now, what are your tips for them in terms of bringing this up with their bosses, or for bosses who might want to raise it with their employees?

Well, it’s very simple, and again, taking the page from the other jurisdictions, try and figure it out by having open and constructive discussion about what it entails. What does this look like in our workplace? So, the draft, the draft clause for the award that’s been made by the Fair Work Commission is intentionally minimalist, because you can’t create something prescriptive this early on that applies across the board. So have an open discussion about what that might mean for your company in your industry and determine what is reasonable early on, so that you don’t get into the weeds as time goes by.

And what do you think of these laws as? Compared to what you’ve seen instituted overseas.

Yeah, there’s different ways to go about it, but I think having done a study on this myself recently, one of the key takeaways that was that in many jurisdictions that have enforced this have introduced this only about half of the people in workplaces were aware that this right existed, and only about half of them were aware of any, I suppose, ways in which that was actually put into practice or was enforced in their workplace. So, I suppose the key takeaway is, again, to try and I suppose, be very open and clear about that the right exists and how it might actually work in practice. Because otherwise, you know, it’s not a set and forget type thing. We have to really figure out how to do this at a workplace level, to avoid, I suppose, confusion, but also to avoid any unnecessary disputes.