tyson brennan.
mervin laureano. 01 july 2025.
The Albanese government’s new right to disconnect laws are reshaping the ways Australians work and communicate. Put simply, employees now have the right to ignore text, calls or emails outside of their normal hours – unless it would be reasonable to do so.
The workplace reform came into effect for larger employees in 2024, and from 26 August 2025, have extended to small businesses as well.
For Australia’s 2.6 million small business owners, this marks a significant shift that raises fresh questions about how to stay connected with staff once the workday ends.
examples
ned and stephanie
Circumstances: Ned is an associate and is working on a major protect for a client. Ned has a very young family, and has flexible working arrangements, where his hours are 7.30am to 4pm to allow for pick-ups from daycare.
At 4.30pm on a Wednesday afternoon, Ned’s supervisor, Stephanie, is copied into an urgent email to Ned from the client. Stephanie considers whether to contact Ned and ask him to action the client’s request. It is urgent, and Ned is very familiar with aspect of the client’s work. However, Stephanie is aware that Ned would be on his way to pick up his children and it is unlikely that he would be able to deal with the client’s requests.
Stephanie decides to approach another consultant, Charles, to assist the client and will update Ned when he returns to work.
Outcome: Stephanie’s decision is appropriate, in light of Ned’s family responsibilities and the fact that another employee could resolve the issue.
industry awards
All awards now include a right to disconnect clause. These awards, being industry specific, may clarify how the right to disconnect operates, for examples with emergency roster changes, stand-by and call back clauses in the awards.
Other awards may have rules about when an employee may be required to monitor, read, or respond to contact or attempted contact form the employer, outside of their working hours. For example, when an employee is paid an on-call allowance and the contact is to give notice of or recall the employee to work.
Information tailored to particular awards can be found on the Fair Work Commission webpage on the Right to Disconnect.
specific impact on small businesses
It goes without saying that the Right to Disconnect laws may have a much bigger impact in smaller scale operations. Afterall, the extra year that small businesses were given to adjust to the incoming law reflects the additional challenges that these types of establishes could face.
In particular, the idea of what is reasonable and unreasonable may look very different between small and big companies.
Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth has encouraged small business employers and employees to talk to each other about out of hours contact and set expectations suited to their specific workplace and the employee’s role. Booth urged workplace participants in small businesses to ‘educate themselves on the right to disconnect and adopt a commonsense approach’.
It is also important that this right is just like other employment matters, in that a dispute should first be discussed and sought to be resolved at the workplace level, where they can raise the issue with or without representation.
Finally, small businesses should remember that the right to disconnect becoming an established workplace right means that they cannot take adverse action against employees because of it. This includes being dismissed, emoted or overlooked for promotion.
making it work in your small business
Some small businesses owners have stated their apprehensions toward this new workplace right, particularly about the lack of legal clarity around what is unreasonable refusal. This exemplifies the urgent need for organisations to use their discussions with employees to develop internal guidelines that align with legal expectations.
In particular, if you are unsure about how you are impacted by these new rules as a small business owners, it is sensible to start setting mutual expectations about out-of-hours contact, then regularly monitoring whether it is working. Training and awareness on workplace laws for both employers and employees are often a great start to ensuring that obligations are satisfied and conflict is avoided.
And, if you believe that the contact with the employee is necessary, there are some practices you can implement in your approach. This includes:
