Welcome, and how this works
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This course takes about 30 minutes. You can stop at any point and pick up where you left off.
It is for everyone at work, and particularly for anyone who sends messages to their team outside working hours. Supervisors, managers, business owners and anybody who has ever felt they had to answer a nine o’clock email.
The misunderstanding to clear up first
The right to disconnect is not a ban on contacting people. It is a right for an employee to refuse to monitor, read or respond to contact outside their working hours, unless refusing would be unreasonable.
That distinction matters. Managers who believe they can no longer call anybody after hours will make worse decisions than managers who understand what the provision actually says, and employees who believe the phone can never ring will be disappointed.
What it covers
- What the right actually is, and when it started applying to your employer
- When a refusal would be unreasonable, which is where all the real content sits
- What counts as contact, and contact from whom
- What it means if you are the one sending the message
- Why this is a work health and safety matter as well as an industrial one
- How disputes are actually dealt with
What it is not
General information for Australia, not legal advice and not a substitute for your award, agreement or contract, which may say more. This is a new provision, so how “unreasonable” gets applied is still settling.