Workers now have the 'right to disconnect', but has it changed anything?

"No" is a powerful word, and in 2024 workers got to say it to their boss. Under "right to disconnect" laws, employees won the right to "reasonably" refuse contact outside their working hours — including calls and emails. "I think we've seen, by and large, businesses and employees alike really embrace this right to disconnect," says Gabrielle Golding, who researches the working lives of Australians. "But the right to disconnect is really the first policy coming into action, rather than just leaving it up to employers to determine how they wanted to go about it," Matt Loop says. 65 per cent of Australian employers were "bullish" on the prospects of right to disconnect 23 per cent of employers were struggling to maintain productivity in roles where they were required to have flexibility and work outside of contracted hours Only 20 per cent had actually started to take action or measures to ensure it was going to be implemented The lack of clear guidelines — because there have not been any legal cases about the right — might be playing in to low rates of action.