03 Apr
Hi there
In August 2024, the newly passed ‘Right to Disconnect’ legislation will come into effect for many employers and on the 26 August 2025 small businesses will also need to adopt it.
The right to disconnect will become a protected right under the general protections’ regime of the Fair Work Act. This will give your employees the right to refuse to monitor, read or respond to any contact or any attempted contact that is made with them outside of their work hours either from their employer or third party. This right includes communication such as emails, calls, texts or any other work-related messaging platforms used by the business.
While small business is officially exempt from these changes till 2025, the climate we are currently working in means that businesses of all sizes are likely to be thinking about what communication changes need to be considered in their own workplaces.
Essentially, the legislation protects employees against ‘unreasonable’ contact outside of business hours, so the question really becomes what is the definition of unreasonable, and how likely employees are to lean on the legislation.
But, in an industry like real estate where ‘typical’ hours don’t necessarily apply, what will these changes mean for us in practical terms?
The group least likely to be impacted by these changes are our salespeople. Given they tend to be engaged on incentive-based remuneration, they aren’t going to want to miss any important calls that could lead to new listings or closed deals.
However, property managers, administration staff and senior business managers have the potential to be significantly impacted.
Despite the best of intentions, there will be times when out of usual business hours work may be required. It’s recommended that you agree with your teams how this would be managed in your business and how these changes would be embedded in your workplace contracts.
I recently spoke to Ruveni Kelleher from JWS Lawyers about this legislation and what it means for businesses. To hear that interview and get some tips on how to approach any potential contract amendments, you can listen here.
Following my conversation with Ruveni, I’ve decided to start conversations with my own team so we can determine what are appropriate after-hours communication in property management and within our short-term rental business. My goal is to walk away with clear definitions on what we classify as urgent and what technology we can leverage to help us serve clients after hours.
Even though we are a small business and the legislation doesn’t impact us till 2025, I would rather make the changes to our contracts and policies now. As you will hear in my discussion with Ruveni, new employees will have an expectation that we do have policies in place.
The availability creep we saw during and post COVID is one of the issues that has led to this legislation. The world of work is definitely changing, and I do find it a little ironic that we have gone from being always available to now having legislation in place that provides employees the right to disconnect. It does demonstrate that we haven’t been able to do this ourselves very well.
Until next time.
Stay connected,
Sadhana Smiles
CEO, Real Estate Industry Partners
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