Transcription
Workers have the right to disconnect. Is it working? Let's have a look.
Hello everyone, Florian here. Happy New Year! Welcome to 2025. Grab your cup of coffee and nurse that hangover. I was well behaved, you know. I stayed up till midnight with the kids; they wanted to stay up, they wanted to experience it. And oh boy, I didn't even need to drink to feel exhausted.
Now, I thought we'd have a look at this article from ABC Business because this is about the right to disconnect. If I think back to my career, I've been self-employed for so long now that I don't even assume the right to disconnect. I've got a project I've got to quickly knock over over the holidays, so I'll be jumping back on the machine later today and doing some work.
But if I think back to my earlier days in my career, I went through a period where I got rid of my mobile phone. When I just started dating Rachel, I was at university. I went through a good few years without a mobile phone; I was just sick of the bloody bills. I got one of those stupid three phones with the video calls—that was a mistake. I said, "No more! If you want to contact me, just call me on Google Chat or Messenger or ICQ." Those types of things probably weren't the smartest thing to do. Rachel got really frustrated with it.
I remember when I took a job just after graduation. This was a role at the architectural practice Academy, where architecture graduates from the two universities here in Brisbane were working under the government department but setting up their own business, their own practice, and learning all these fantastic skills. I remember there were other colleagues asking, "Why don't you have a mobile phone? What if we need to call you?" My response was simply, "Well, buy me a phone then." So that was my solution to the right to disconnect.
But let's have a look at this article. I thought this would be a good topic to discuss and start the year with, guys. Ah, there we go, nice cold coffee does the job.
So, workers now have the right to disconnect, but has it changed anything? Now, I'm probably the worst person to discuss this. I mean, thinking back when I had staff, I would call them occasionally after hours if we needed to, but not enough for me to remember it. Usually, we were all working back throughout the night to meet some crazy deadline or to help a client out with a presentation or a submission. That was what it was.
So, "no" is a powerful word, and in 2024, workers got to say that to their bosses. Well, no, they always say that to their bosses. I guess I'm coming at this from a professional perspective. I'm an architect; I've worked in architectural practices since I was a student. That was a professional world, and architecture is notorious for terrible hours—people putting in long hours, working excessive amounts above and beyond what you need to meet crazy deadlines and to get the quality of outcome that you desire.
So, if a director is calling you and bugging you at night, I guess with experience, you just hang up or say no. But I guess maybe this is now that people can work from home. That's what I'm not relating to here. You've got people who can take the work home and don't switch off—that's the problem.
Under the right to disconnect laws, employees won the right to reasonably refuse contact outside their working hours, including calls and emails. Oh, that's just common sense, isn't it? I think we've seen, by and large, businesses and employees alike really embrace this right to disconnect, said Gabrielle Golding, who researches the working lives of Australians.
"There's certainly a shift in the way in which people approach employees," she said. "So it forced conversations to happen, and those conversations will continue." Will it, though? Is it going to make any difference? Could this potentially stifle your career?
I think the issue would be if you are portrayed as a troublemaker and a pain in the ass. Maybe in a big corporate organization, that could happen. If I think about it, yeah, that could be the issue. But then again, if you've got a boss that's just some sociopath nutcase contacting you all the time, micromanaging you all the time, well then, you should leave anyway. You want to be in a position where you have the skills and enough of a buffer that you can walk away. That's the real message here.
Now, I know that's easier said than done, and I know we're getting different messages about the economy and the way things are going at the moment. So yeah, maybe that's just me being idealistic. But I'd be worried if you had people saying, "Oh, you can't call me now," when you're ringing up a staff member because you need some help for something.
Maybe they didn't—here's an architecture thing: you're all working in a collaborative Revit model, and someone forgot to sign out. They went home at their normal hours but logged in remotely. Are you going to call them to get out of that model so you can actually make updates and issue it? That could be the problem.
It's almost six months now since the laws passed in August, and in August 2025, they will extend to employees of small businesses, meaning millions more workers will have their right to disconnect.
Okay, so small businesses can't deal with it. I mean, here's another thing: this is just another weight on the back of small business. It's another way of disincentivizing people from hiring staff and going to contractors. Do you think a contractor is going to say they've got a right to disconnect? Not in a million years.
I think there'll be a huge gender divide here. I think there'll be a lot of BLS that will not care and will be career-minded and won't care about this rubbish. They'll just say, "Yeah, sure, no problem." The number of times I've taken phone calls during a rush part of a project or had questions for people I've been working for and rang them up outside of hours—they're not going to tell me they've got a right to disconnect. They're going to help out and give an answer to get things moving so we can get projects done. That's the mentality you want.
I just think back in my limited experience how the BLS would put in the extra hours and stay back, and the girls—this is usually their first job as students graduating from architecture or not even graduating, still studying—and those that would stay back and put the extra time in, take on extra responsibility, and those that wouldn't. Maybe it's changed, but then again, I'm not that old.
I just look at loosening the digital leash of phones and laptops. This is probably the issue. We're in a different world now. I mean, you can just turn it off. If they want to contact you from out of hours, give you a company phone. The laws came about in response to growing disquiet about the leeching of employer contact and expectations into unpaid non-work hours.
Really, I guess the type of people that are going to want this rule or this law are going to be the type of people that are going to complain to their Greens representative and moan. Countries like France—oh boy, yeah, they do they still do more than 30 hours a week? Are they still at 35 hours a week there in France? If you're a baker, they restrict how many hours you can work. This is not a country of innovation.
We want to mimic organizations, including the Victoria Police. Oh boy, what role models here! Victoria Police—everyone's favorite police force here in Australia. I bet you they had the right to contact when they were loading up their rubber bullets, eh?
They had already enacted policies to prevent the so-called digital leash of technology and the compulsion to answer calls, texts, and emails out of hours. Has it worked? Dr. Betty Frenos is not sure. "It's hard to read at the moment," she said, a senior lecturer in Human Resources.
That's an interesting career. I've had some friends who've worked in that sector, and just the stories I've heard over the years. Anyway, I'm sure you're all familiar with it. At the Australian Catholic University, Dr. Frenos has seen many attempts to change Australian work culture and says people simply need a break because we're seeing now this constant need to be connected, to reply to something immediately, this insistency of conversation or the matter has to be resolved or has to be dealt with.
Well, this comes down to a lack of boundaries. It depends—maybe it needs to be dealt with instantly. Maybe you've got people pouring concrete on site; you need to confirm the set out for a whole lot of things. Maybe there's been a drastic change in a client requirement. Maybe something hasn't been communicated. Maybe something was discovered late in condition on a project—you've got to deal with it.
What are you going to say? "No, sorry, you can't contact me. Ring me at nine." Imagine if that's your business and you had your employees managing a job, and that's what they said to a client. Wow, could you imagine? Who's going to get the promotion—the employee who steps up and finds a solution and helps out, or the one that says, "No, no, no, you got to follow the law the Greens put in"?
Employees are now listening to that directive in the law and starting to understand that there's a line that should be drawn. Performing extra unpaid hours of work is not uncommon in Australia, and many jobs come with an expectation of being contactable beyond paid or rostered hours. The legislation from the federal government aimed to create limits around this work culture, but it does not mean the boss cannot contact you.
What it means is you might not have to answer. "Concrete law," Dr. Brinda said. "It does change things. It's just trying to give workers a reprieve in a way of saying, 'Hey, you're okay. You can actually have a break.'"
I get the feeling we don't need a law for this; we just need people to grow up a bit, or we need people to be in a position where they can tell people to get stuffed. "I'm not dealing with that now. Call me tomorrow."
Well, take a break when you're at home. You don't have to actually still be working. I mean, I'm the worst person at this. I looked at the number of hours I did last year, and it equated to 45 and a half hours a week over 52 weeks. And that's—I have taken time off. You can see why the content of the channel has just not been as frequent as it was in the past. Hopefully, it'll calm down next year.
Now, it's not going to. I don't think it will. I shouldn't complain. I'm not really complaining; I'm just highlighting how I'm not the best person to advocate for work-life balance. I mean, my wife and I have work-life balance. I have the work, and she has the life. That's balance, isn't it?
Allowance and permission to be able to take the time you need—therapy requires people to ask hard questions of themselves. What's that got to do with this? At Adelaide business AO, the staff have been doing the same thing with each other—senior team discussions and reinforcing expectations that have given her colleagues allowance and permission to take the time they need to live the lives they want.
Guys, viewers, what's this? Can someone explain this to me? Is this really an issue, or is this just something I can't comprehend? Maybe I've been a workaholic. I haven't been the last week; I forgot what day of the week it was. That's how little of a workaholic I was—pushing off stuff I should be working on just to relax.
For me personally, it definitely meant permission to do things like silencing emails, getting rid of notifications altogether on my days off and weekends. I think it gave me the possibility of that, whereas before it felt almost like, "Is this allowed?"
Oh, these are just inexperienced people. I mean, you shouldn't be getting work emails on your private phone. You shouldn't! Just turn off the bloody notifications on your email. Tell your phone or your email app to check only every 30 minutes.
What frustrates me is people using SMS. I never check them. I don't know; I'm not a 16-year-old girl. Who the hell uses SMS? Apparently, tradies love SMS, and I guess I can understand, but where's the record? Where's the paper trail?
Anyway, with many clients arriving at the clinic to discuss work-related stress, the period ahead of the right to disconnect commencing in August was a good time to talk about sustainability and how the team was working.
Okay, let's just change things. Yeah, well, we're going all over the place. Let's reflect on this one, guys. What do you reckon?
Well, what a starter for 2025! Articles that we're looking at about the right to disconnect. I know it was big in the news; there was a big push for it. I'm probably just not the best person to deal with it, to relate to it, to be honest.
Let me know your experiences here. I mean, we've got a lot of people that watch the channel who are in the construction game. You've got a lot of people that are in professional roles. I mean, is this even possible for you? If you've got a level of responsibility, isn't that what holidays are for? Or maybe I'm just a workaholic and can't deal with the concept of this.
I think that's it. I think that's what we've discovered there. Anyway, guys, thanks for watching. Have a great day, nurse those hangovers. I'll see you next time. Bye for now!