Most working Australians now have the "right to disconnect" under the Fair Work Act.
This means you would be within your rights not to answer a call from your boss about something non-urgent on your rostered day off.
But organisational psychology Professor Paula Brough warns "it's not all black and white".
What is the right to disconnect?
The right to disconnect applies to all Australian businesses with more than 15 employees.
It will also apply to people who work for small businesses (those with fewer than 15 employees) from August this year.
According to the Fair Work Commission, the right to disconnect allows employees to refuse to monitor, read or respond to contact or attempted contact from their employer, or work-related contact from another person, unless the refusal is "unreasonable".
Professor Brough, who is also the director of the Work, Organisation and Wellbeing Research Centre in the Business School at Griffith University in Brisbane/Meanjin, stresses the right to disconnect "is not a blanket ban" on being contacted outside of work hours.
"It's about excessive calls … that interfere really with a worker's rest."
President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions Michele O'Neil says: "It's important that we recognise that some jobs require people to be available, but typically those jobs recognise that and there's already clear rules and pay conditions that go with it."
The right to disconnect is helping combat work "creeping" into evenings, weekends and holidays where it's not necessary.
What is 'reasonable' and 'unreasonable' contact outside working hours?
Ms O'Neil says in the event of a work emergency, most people would be happy to be contacted to help deal with a crisis, and that would also be considered reasonable contact.
She says what's unreasonable is the "more regular and systemic way" that some managers request non-urgent tasks to be completed. For example, emailing on a Saturday asking for something to be completed by Monday morning.
In sectors such as hospitality, retail and health care, Ms O'Neil says this might look like finishing a shift and then being regularly contacted within just a few hours about the next shift "when they haven't even had time to recover, let alone have a life outside of work".
University of Adelaide senior law lecturer Gabrielle Golding says an employer contacting a worker about shift changes would usually be considered reasonable.
"If, on the other hand, they were requiring you to perform urgent work for the next day that meant you had to work over and above your normal working hours, or over your weekend, that would be considered an unreasonable infringement on your private time," Dr Golding says.
She says how an employer contacts an employee is also a factor when considering what is 'reasonable'.
"The Fair Work Commission would take into account — when assessing whether contact outside of one's normal working hours is in fact unreasonable — how much disruption is actually caused by the contact."
For instance, a single email is probably far less disruptive to your time off than multiple calls.
Professor Brough says what's reasonable and unreasonable is a "little bit of a grey area".
"It requires each organisation to think about its own norms of what is reasonable contact," she says.
Tips for bringing up out-of-hours contact with a manager
The Fair Work Ombudsman encourages employers and employees "to discuss out of hours contact and set expectations that suit the workplace and the employee's role".
The Ombudsman says it's beneficial to have these conversations before out of hours contact happens, where possible.
Dr Golding says if you're planning to have a conversation with your employer about unreasonable out-of-hours contact, "identifying trends or patterns of behaviour or contact that might be potentially infringing on one's right to disconnect" could help.
Professor Brough says "you can pre-empt any contact by discussing it with your supervisor".
For example, she says you could outline the times you've been contacted beyond ordinary hours in the last week or fortnight and explain that "unless it's a complete emergency I won't be answering work requests this weekend".
"If you're having excessive calls, you can say, 'I've already answered three calls over the weekend and I'm not going to respond to this until I'm back at work on Monday'."
Ideally, Professor Brough says "you should be able to have a frank conversation and at the time of contact to be able to say, 'this can wait until I'm next back at work'".
What if speaking with your manager isn't working?
Dr Golding says the legislation requires disputes about an employee's right to disconnect be discussed — and ideally resolved — at the workplace level first.
"I would think that most reasonable employees and employers can find a meeting of the minds on that issue."
Beyond that, an employee can go to the Fair Work Commission. The Commission can make a stop order "if they feel there right to disconnect has been infringed on and already discussed within the workplace".
The Commission can also deal with the dispute in other ways, such as holding a conference.
Professor Brough says If your workplace is large enough to have a human resources representative or department you can also consider asking them to be involved.
She says the changes to the Fair Work Act are still relatively new and human resources may help update your manager.
