New laws allowing employees to disconnect from work are a reflection of how the digital age has blurred the lines between employment and home, but the well-intentioned legislation has the potential to both help and harm.

Workers will have the right to disconnect and not answer calls or emails outside paid hours and will be able to take their employers to the Fair Work Commission to stop being harassed after hours. On-call employees and managers would be excluded from the rules. The legislation also includes provisions allowing employers to incur fines or criminal sanctions if they continue to make unreasonable contact.

New laws allowing employees to disconnect from the work are a reflection of how the digital age has blurred the lines between work and home.Credit: Getty Images

But it is not all a one-way street: Employees will be barred from “vexatious” use of their new right. To this end, the government must provide funding to the Fair Work ombudsman to support understanding of the new rules by businesses; require the Fair Work Commission to issue guidelines on the new rules; and empower the umpire to dismiss an application for a stop order if it is vexatious or frivolous.

However, to work, the legislation requires a lot to be taken on trust and depends on the reasonability of employees and employers. The problem, of course, is that trust and reason can never be guaranteed by legislation.

That said, over recent decades the internet, mobiles and COVID-19 have gradually worn down the dividing line between work and home. With the working day bleeding into relaxation and family time came the realisation that new technology can have serious consequences for mental health and personal relationships.

People certainly need to have uninterrupted downtime to devote to themselves and their family and friends. Sometimes it is employees themselves who are to blame for letting work take over their private lives. Some workaholics cannot resist the temptation to log on at home.

It is clearly a big issue for our health and wellbeing in the digital age. But the right to disconnect is neither new nor radical. As long ago as 2012 in Germany, Volkswagen set its servers to block emails reaching certain staff from evening to morning. Disconnect laws already exist in European countries, including France and Germany, and in several enterprise agreements in Australia.

Some bigger corporations have already embraced their workers’ right to disconnect. Companies are appointing “chief remote officers” who are supposed to manage these issues. However, smaller businesses, which would include many hospitality and service workers who get after hours requests to work additional hours, may struggle to comply.