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Australian employees now have the right to ignore work emails, calls after hours

reuters.com

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Re: Australian employees now have the right to ignore work emails, calls after hours

#31

Post by frosting1337 »

PlunderBunny wrote: post #24

Maybe we should think of these things as employment flags? There's no right-to-disconnect in my country, but sometime this year my boss started putting "I don’t expect a response to this email outside of your normal working hours." on the end of his email signature. I might not be earning FAANG money, but it's just another sign I'm working for a 'good' company.

A lot of companies here are pretty good. It's the ones that aren't that necessitate the law change.

My workplace, for instance, published the formal policy last week and the accompanying announcement was honestly bordering on anger about it. My team is pretty good, but other teams have been having to work out of hours. It's a good change.

Re: Australian employees now have the right to ignore work emails, calls after hours

#32

Post by ceejayoz »

nomilk wrote: post #29
joshgermon wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you rely on exploiting the fact that your employee does not have the right to ignore your call outside of hours, your business shouldn't exist. What kind of take is this? It says it gives them the right to ignore, not to sue the business if they do call.

Employees benefit from calls out of hours. How? The employer is able to offer better service to customers, and make more money, and the employee can negotiate a higher salary from the more profitable business. Employees who are inflexible cannot offer the same level of service to their employer and its customers; they'll on-average be paid less and measures like this increase production costs, making goods and servic…

If overnight service is that critical and profitable, hire a night shift.

Re: Australian employees now have the right to ignore work emails, calls after hours

#33

Post by jp0d »

nomilk wrote: post #22

Another 'good in theory' idea. Trying to run a business in Australia is 'death by a thousand paper cuts'. Far too many rules. Letting individuals interact freely creates good outcomes 90+% of the time. Most of these rules are cost-benefit negative because the administrative burden of adherence exceeds the benefit of the new rule. Politicians and govt departments like them though; they get to put a dot-point on their…

It's indeed a very negative take on a pro-labour policy. Entrepreneurship doesn't equate to exploitation of workers. If your business depends on that then it's not a death by thousand paper cuts, rather a death by poor management. Germany has similar laws and it hasn't exactly become a 'business-backwater'.

Re: Australian employees now have the right to ignore work emails, calls after hours

#34

Post by Gustomaximus »

For emails, I generally feel these are a 24hr thing. I turn off email alerts so I can focus on my tasks then check a few times a day only.

I used to filter CC emails into their own folder for reading maybe once a day which worked mostly well but occasionally people can't seem to use to/CC as they are supposed to.

Calls I always try to pickup or callback asap but my job calls usually means urgent.

Chat like Teams I'm mixed. Often it's urgent but too many people use Teams in my current company like email and it's really disruptive to work flow getting 50 unimportant messages a day + long "just one more thing' task requests. Ive considered putting an auto-reply of "if it's not on JIRA it's not a task" but that would not come across well.

But generally I feel a better law change would be right to work your contracted hours. Put the onus on the company that they have to get your workload to the contracted hours or pay overtime. Some exceptions for execs on top end pay, but generally this would be a better win for employees, and then you can get that after work call but your being paid extra, which in itself will make people think twice about calling etc when they know there is a cost.

Re: Australian employees now have the right to ignore work emails, calls after hours

#35

Post by sandworm101 »

nomilk wrote: post #22

Another 'good in theory' idea. Trying to run a business in Australia is 'death by a thousand paper cuts'. Far too many rules. Letting individuals interact freely creates good outcomes 90+% of the time. Most of these rules are cost-benefit negative because the administrative burden of adherence exceeds the benefit of the new rule. Politicians and govt departments like them though; they get to put a dot-point on their…

>> but every rule - however well-intentioned - steals attention and creativity away from entrepreneurs

Really? Every rule? How about safety in the workplace? Hardhats for construction workers? No more asbestos in the walls? I think the rules setting standards for cars/trucks have prevented vast numbers of accidents. Lord knows what insurance rates would be like without limits on how much a truck can carry, how fast it may drive. The innumerable rules that create and protect intellectual property rights have served entrepreneurs well too. And there was that ozone hole thing.

Here is an idea: Lets remove the rules about embezzlement. When an employee takes from an employer that employer can fire them and sue to get property back. No need to involve the police. Let the hand of the free market separate the trustworthy employees from the bad.

Re: Australian employees now have the right to ignore work emails, calls after hours

#37

Post by nomilk »

ceejayoz wrote: post #32
nomilk wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employees benefit from calls out of hours. How? The employer is able to offer better service to customers, and make more money, and the employee can negotiate a higher salary from the more profitable business. Employees who are inflexible cannot offer the same level of service to their employer and its customers; they'll on-average be paid less and measures like this increase production costs, making goods and servic…

If overnight service is that critical and profitable, hire a night shift.

But who really pays? The employer? Yes, at first, but the cost is passed straight on to consumers. Prices are sky high in Australia for this reason, businesses have many laws that each increase prices by a fraction of a percent - almost imperceptible - but cumulatively very noticeable.

Re: Australian employees now have the right to ignore work emails, calls after hours

#38

Post by strken »

fuzztester wrote: post #16

dammit, i thought aussies were more freedom loving than even usians. i have met and interacted with some of them, and have read a good amount about them, too. did aussies not have this right, earlier? I don't know if it should even be called a right, because it seems obvious. to me, it sound more like an attack by employers on employees, to say they cannot do such a thing - before this so-called "right" was ”given".…

Employment contracts here usually state that you work X hours a week, likely 38 or less unless your union did a bad job, and can only work more if the hours are "reasonable" according to a bunch of criteria. This was previously enough to cut down on most of this kind of nonsense, but has not proven sufficient in the age of smartphones.

Re: Australian employees now have the right to ignore work emails, calls after hours

#39

Post by steelframe »

I've dabbled in management a few times in my career. This meant attending manager-only meetings and trainings. I'll never forget one time when a manager in a focus group said something along the lines of, "The tech sector is going through a rough patch, so we can turn the screws on our employees and they'll have to take it because they will have a hard time trying to find a job somewhere else." This is at a company where most of the employees are on work visas, so losing their job can very rapidly escalate into having to leave the country in short order.

After I picked my jaw up off the floor I realized I simply lacked the scruples I'd need to be "one of them." I also started looking into every legal protection I had available to me in my jurisdiction.

I know not every manager is like that. I'd like to think I wasn't. But there are enough of them that think that way that legal protections often need to be there.

Re: Australian employees now have the right to ignore work emails, calls after hours

#40

Post by warbeforepeace »

PlunderBunny wrote: post #24

Maybe we should think of these things as employment flags? There's no right-to-disconnect in my country, but sometime this year my boss started putting "I don’t expect a response to this email outside of your normal working hours." on the end of his email signature. I might not be earning FAANG money, but it's just another sign I'm working for a 'good' company.

I work for FAANG and have had one page outside of working hours over that last 12 months. I do not respond to emails on weekends or evenings. I do not turn my work laptop on during vacation at all. I leave at home in a safe.
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