Right to Disconnect: Your Small-Firm Compliance Playbook

Australia’s Right to Disconnect is now in force. Here’s how small professional services firms can align remote work policies with Fair Work requirements—without losing productivity or clients.

1) The Day After-Hours Pings Became a Liability

“It’s only a quick message,” Mia, an accounting partner, thought as she Slacked a junior at 9:47pm. By Monday, an employee raised a concern about repeated late-night pings. That’s when Mia realised: what felt like hustle was now a compliance risk. The new Right to Disconnect turns after-hours contact into a policy issue, not a personal preference.

“Culture is what you tolerate after hours.”

Challenge: unstructured remote work norms; ambiguity about urgent vs. non-urgent contact; no records.

2) What the Law Now Expects (Without the Legalese)

Right to Disconnect

Employees can refuse unreasonable contact outside working hours. Define what “reasonable” looks like in your context.
Set clear after-hours expectations, escalation for urgent matters, and record-keeping.

Flexible Work Requests under the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth)

Eligible employees (including those aged 55+, carers, people with disability, pregnant employees, or those experiencing family and domestic violence) can request flexibility.
Full-time and part-time employees are generally eligible if they’ve worked for you for 12+ months (casuals may be eligible if regular and systematic).
You must consult and provide a written response within 21 days—approve, or refuse on reasonable business grounds (with details), and explore alternatives.

Risk alert

Mishandling requests can escalate to the Fair Work Commission, leading to orders and penalties. Treat this as a systems issue, not a case-by-case scramble.

3) Audit: Where After-Hours Work Hides

Before writing rules, map reality.

Run a 90-minute audit

List all tools: email, Teams/Slack, Zoom, project apps, mobiles, VOIP, CRM, e-signing.
Identify after-hours triggers: client deadlines, month-end, bid submissions, outages, court dates.
Document current norms: who is “on,” when, and why. Capture evidence (screenshots, logs).
Create a single source of truth: a shared policy hub in your intranet or knowledge base.

Tip: If policy lives in PDFs on desktops, it doesn’t exist. Remote workers only follow instructions they can quickly find and trust.

4) Write the Policy You Can Actually Enforce

Make expectations unmistakable

Contact windows: Standard hours (e.g., 8:30am–5:30pm). After-hours contact is by exception only.
Urgent escalation: Define “urgent” (e.g., client data breach, court-ordered deadline). Provide a 3-step escalation tree: 1) On-call role mobile, 2) Team lead, 3) Director.
Channels: Urgent = phone call; Non-urgent = project tool/email with delayed send. No Slack DMs after hours unless on-call.
Right to refuse: Employees may refuse unreasonable contact; no adverse action for exercising this right.
Record-keeping: Log after-hours urgencies (who/why/how). Store flexible work requests and responses in HRIS.

Reasonable business grounds for refusing a flexibility request (examples)

Significant negative impact on customer service or team coverage that can’t be reasonably mitigated.
Unreasonable cost to accommodate or substantial loss of efficiency/quality.
No capacity to reallocate work or restructure without undue hardship.

Include examples tailored to your firm (tax lodgement cycles, court deadlines, or peak audit weeks) so managers can apply the rulebook consistently.

5) The Manager Checklist (With Scripts)

Consult within 7 days of receiving a flexibility request. Ask about needs, options, and impacts; propose trials.
Assess operational impacts and reasonable business grounds. Gather data (rosters, workload reports, client SLAs).
Respond in writing within 21 days: approve, approve with adjustments, or refuse with reasons and alternatives.
Document: store request, consultation notes, decision, and any review date.
Configure tools for the employee’s right-to-disconnect settings (quiet hours, notification rules, escalation role if applicable).

Micro-scripts

Manager: “Let’s explore a trial: Tue/Thu remote with 10–6 hours. We’ll protect your disconnect time by shifting client calls. We’ll review in 6 weeks.”
Employee: “I’m a carer. If urgent after 6pm?”
Manager: “Only on-call receives after-hours calls. You won’t be on the roster during this period.”

Reminder: “Document your business or get out.” If it’s not written, it didn’t happen—and it won’t hold up in a dispute.

6) Configure the Tools: Right-to-Disconnect by Design

Email: Enforce delayed send after 6pm; add signatures noting response hours.
Teams/Slack: Organisation-wide quiet hours; disable @channel after hours; create “Urgent—On Call Only” channel with audit logs.
Calendars: Visible working hours; on-call rota calendar for escalation.
Phones/VOIP: After-hours auto-attendant routes to on-call role; all calls recorded in the incident log.
Project tools: SLA labels to differentiate urgent vs. standard tasks; after-hours tag auto-captures reasons.
HRIS/Docs: Single source of truth for policy, checklist, and request form; time-stamped changes.

Outcome: tooling makes the compliant behaviour the default and generates the records you’ll need if challenged.

7) The Payoff: Compliance, Culture, and Clients

Compliance: You can show consultation occurred and a written decision was issued within 21 days, with reasonable grounds if refused.
Culture: After-hours noise drops; engagement and retention improve—especially for carers and older workers.
Client trust: Clear escalation means true emergencies are handled faster, not slower.
Metrics to watch: After-hours messages ↓ 60%, on-call response times, number of approved adjustments, dispute rate = zero.

Resolution: the firm now balances humane boundaries with crisp service levels—and has evidence to prove it.

8) Your 14-Day Action Plan (Takeaway)

Publish a Right to Disconnect + WFH policy with escalation and record-keeping rules.
Roll out the manager checklist and scripts; train leaders.
Launch a simple request form; commit to 21-day written decisions after consultation.
Define reasonable business grounds for your context and add examples.
Configure quiet hours, on-call routing, and audit logs across tools—document the settings.
Create a single source of truth and require acknowledgements from all staff.

Small firms win with clarity. Set boundaries, script exceptions, keep records—and watch performance and compliance rise together.

Right to Disconnect: Your Small-Firm Compliance Playbook