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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

#401

Post by BLKNSLVR »

rgblambda wrote: post #152
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like most things, there's a gaping chasm of variance between teachers that are phoning it in and teachers that want to engage their students in learning. I know a teacher who leaves for work at 6:30am, gets home after 5:30pm most nights, cooks dinner for the family, and spends the rest of her evening marking work and preparing lesson plans for the next few days. Then there's preparing reports, which is like a 6-week…

When you say preparing lesson plans, is that like printing out worksheets or is it literally planning out what the lesson is going to be? I'm not a teacher so am obviously missing context, but I don't understand how this part isn't standardised for every teacher following the same curriculum. It would be like asking each individual teacher to write a new textbook every year.

> It would be like asking each individual teacher to write a new textbook every year.

This is quite an appropriate way of putting it. It is like that, but there's no real specification as to the quality and length of said text book.

Some teachers create a textbook of stick figure drawings. Others create a textbook of coherent progressive storylines that build on each other using a logical set of figures and well-labelled diagrams that explain the concepts and outcomes that cater to different learning styles.

Now I'm getting out of my depth a bit, as I don't pay a huge amount of attention to the detail of her work, but I believe there is (much?) more opportunity for re-use of materials from one year to the next, thus minimising custom work. But I also believe that she prefers to do it all "custom" for her own (perfectionist? obsessive?) reasons.

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

#402

Post by Ancalagon »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #370
ivann wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This strike me as a very naive view of the world.

Look at how dominant the USA is compared to the europeans who love to make fun of us for working so hard. The USA is about to be flung into another golden century due to its dominance in GenAI. Frogs/the EU will be too busy eating caiver served by rude waiters to realize that huggingface and mistral are all they have to compete with us. Eventually they won't be able to afford the caiver anymore. You laugh, but look a…

I’m not disagreeing with you but are you directly benefiting from the US’s “dominance”?

The way I see it, unless you’re in the top say 5-10% of tech workers you probably aren’t seeing great benefit from the US’s leads in anything. And anyone outside of that is seeing their general QoL being slowly degraded by ever higher prices and an ever weaker government (due to monopolization).

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

#403

Post by BLKNSLVR »

Prcmaker wrote: post #7

With getting no overtime, no time off in lieu, and managers perpetually confusing a 'problem' with an 'emergency', I'm glad to see this happen. If it will actually make a difference though, I'm yet to be convinced.

> managers perpetually confusing a 'problem' with an 'emergency'

I'm working on a theory around "organisational ADHD". Based on 20 years of experience in, basically, "today's problem always overrules yesterday's priority" and how this negatively affects efficiency, quality, and throughput of an organisation.

And that this behaviour is generally created, encouraged, and facilitated by (bad / immature) management, who should be doing, essentially, the opposite.

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

#404

Post by sneak »

madeofpalk wrote: post #286
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.

Your boss is telling on themselves, admitting that they do expect you to work outside of normal working hours, even if to just read the email. Sending that email out of office hours itself is a red flag.

The concept of office hours is obsolete when there is no office.

It’s not your job to make sure that others have boundaries.

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

#405

Post by defrost »

sneak wrote: post #404
madeofpalk wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your boss is telling on themselves, admitting that they do expect you to work outside of normal working hours, even if to just read the email. Sending that email out of office hours itself is a red flag.

The concept of office hours is obsolete when there is no office. It’s not your job to make sure that others have boundaries.

Mining operations run 24/7/365 days a year and workers have shifts.

Being contacted out of hours (notice the absence of the word office) is a no-no unless there's an on call agreement .. and even that has a roster.

There's an unspoken exception for serious accidents that require hands on deck to save lives | recover bodies.

I don't regard sending an email as an issue, it's much like posting a letter - but there's no obligation to read or respond to a work email out of hours (in countries such as Australia).

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

#406

Post by [deleted] »

Drakim wrote: post #327
xivzgrev wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being a jerk extends all around. As a manager I’ve had two employees tell HR that I was racist. The evidence? One I fired for performance, the other I had on a performance improvement plan. Mind you I had other minorities on my team in parallel that had no performance issues and strangely enough did not say I was a racist. Also one time the HR guy (who also doubled as office manager) ran a large scheme where he claim…

It does indeed extend all around, and I'm sorry you had to go though that. But you have to keep in mind that there is an extreme power imbalance between an employee and a manager who can have them fired, which means the jerk-factor is very much slanted heavily in one direction. For regular employees having those above you abuse their power over you in various ways is often a daily occurrence.

[deleted]

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

#407

Post by mulmen »

iforgotpassword wrote: post #392
mulmen wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The details really matter here. I won’t assume you or GP were racially motivated but “just sucks” can easily be code for “wrong race/culture”. “Some nudges” is a red flag to me, regardless of race. You think you communicated a message but aren’t sure if it was understood. That’s your responsibility as the messenger, not theirs as the unknowing recipient.

> “Some nudges” is a red flag to me, regardless of race. You think you communicated a message but aren’t sure if it was understood. Hence the "gave a very clear speech" part. If you don't get it at that point then I don't care if you're just stupid or it's cultural differences, at some point you have to adapt to the environment you work in. And no, there were no language barriers involved.

Yeah but the “very clear speech” came later, after the decision was made. After redemption was possible. At that point you’re just reinforcing your perceptions. Your job as a manager is to manage that expectation. If you fire someone for it that’s your failure.

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

#408

Post by sekai »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #370
ivann wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This strike me as a very naive view of the world.

Look at how dominant the USA is compared to the europeans who love to make fun of us for working so hard. The USA is about to be flung into another golden century due to its dominance in GenAI. Frogs/the EU will be too busy eating caiver served by rude waiters to realize that huggingface and mistral are all they have to compete with us. Eventually they won't be able to afford the caiver anymore. You laugh, but look a…

> Yeah it sucks to have a bad wlb work culture, but the alternative is losing what makes America so awesome.

You're not reaping the benefits of that “hard work”, executives do.

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

#409

Post by nicbou »

guywithahat wrote: post #397
nicbou wrote: post #165

This is already the case in Germany. It also applies to vacation and sick days. Above all, it's deeply ingrained in German culture, so that no one expects to reach you outside of your working hours. I help people settle in Germany, and it's one of the main cultural aspects I cover. The other is how normal it is to take sick days.

To be fair, I think it’s pretty well ingrained in most western cultures.

Not in the US or Canada, in my experience.

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

#410

Post by LunaSea »

mrguyorama wrote: post #317
technothrasher wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would also expect that guidance of "don't read your e-mail outside of working hours" would be sufficient to be able to send e-mail to employees at any day or hour I sometimes want to send my employees emails over the weekend as I think of something and don't want to forget. But there are certain employees that I know will immediately act on the email, which I actually don't want. So I end up emailing myself and t…

> I think of something and don't want to forget. This is a you problem. Fix the forgetting part, you are management that's literally your job. Leave a post it somewhere, start keeping a checklist, whatever. Stop making it your employees' problem.

It's the employee's fault for reading work email during weekends, not the managers.
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