Right to Disconnect in Australia: What It Means for Rosters, Shift Changes and Call-ins

The right to disconnect is an employee’s right under section 333M of the Fair Work Act 2009 to refuse to monitor, read or respond to contact, or attempted contact, from their employer or a work-related third party outside their working hours, unless the refusal is unreasonable. It has applied to every Australian employer, including small business, since 26 August 2025.

What it is not is a ban on contact. The 5am sick call didn’t get repealed, and neither did the client who moves the pour to Thursday. The law asks whether the worker’s refusal to engage was unreasonable, and that is the question your roster has to be able to answer.

This guide covers hours, notice and records. Allowances and rates belong to your award and your payroll system, and this is general information, not legal advice.

Who the right to disconnect covers, and from when

The right came in through the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes No. 2) Act 2024 and started in two waves. The Fair Work Ombudsman’s right to disconnect page sets out the dates and the headcount test.

Associated entities and regular casuals count, so a civil contractor with eight permanents and nine casuals who work most weeks was never a small business employer for this purpose. Since 26 August 2025 the distinction only matters for history. The right belongs to employees: where a subcontractor’s crew are the subcontractor’s employees, the right runs against the subcontractor.

What counts as contact outside working hours on a field crew

The Ombudsman says contact can include calls, emails, texts, social media and messaging services, and that third parties can include clients, suppliers, staff from other businesses and members of the public. Attempted contact counts too, so a missed call is contact. On a crew, almost every roster message qualifies, because the roster gets built after hours.

The law turns on reasonableness, not on a ban: the employer can send, and the employee can decline to engage unless that refusal is unreasonable. The FIFO row is our reading of the Mining Industry Award’s cycle-work rules (clause 13.1), under which the off-duty period starts at the end of the last rostered shift, so a message to the donga at 8pm is contact outside working hours even though the worker is 40 metres from the crib room. Our guide to FIFO, DIDO and BIBO rosters covers how swings are built.

How the reasonableness factors apply to roster work

The Ombudsman lists the factors that “must be considered” when deciding whether a refusal is unreasonable:

• the reason for the contact
• how the contact is made and how disruptive it is to the employee
• how much the employee is compensated or paid extra for being available to perform work during the period they’re contacted, or for working additional hours outside their ordinary hours
• the employee’s role in the business and level of responsibility
• the employee’s personal circumstances, including family or caring responsibilities

Other matters may also be considered, and a refusal is unreasonable if the contact is required by law. Here’s how the factors might play out in four roster situations. These are illustrations, not rulings; a real dispute turns on its own facts.

A sick-call replacement at 5am

The reason is strong, the contact is a phone call, and it’s about as disruptive as contact gets. A leading hand paid for being available is a different case from a labourer who finished a 12-hour shift at 7pm and isn’t. For the first, a refusal to pick up could be unreasonable. For the second, it probably isn’t, and the better plan was never to depend on one person answering. Offer the shift to the group, as our guide to reducing no-shows with real-time rostering sets out.

Next week’s roster change sent at 9pm

The reason is routine, the channel is a notification, and nobody needs to act tonight, so a worker who leaves the app closed until morning is almost certainly reasonable. The sender’s real problem is the award’s notice period. Under the Mining Industry Award (clause 13.2) a variation to days of work or start and finish times needs at least 48 hours’ notice, or a shorter period agreed with the individual; under the Road Transport and Distribution Award (clause 15.2) a change to a regular starting time needs one week’s notice. Sending at 9pm is fine. Sending at 9pm for a 6am start the next day is a notice problem whatever the worker’s phone settings.

A client-driven site change

The client moves the crew to a site 90 minutes away, starting tomorrow. The reason is real and the contact is the employer relaying a third party, which the right covers. One clear message to everyone affected, with the new start time and address, is less disruptive than four phone calls and a voicemail. A worker’s caring responsibilities may still make a refusal reasonable, and the award’s notice period applies however good the client’s reasons are.

A worker paid an availability or stand-by allowance

Compensation for being available is one of the five factors, and some awards go further. The Ombudsman notes that some awards set out when an employee may be required to respond, “for example, when an employee is paid an on-call allowance and the contact is to give notice of or recall the employee to work”. A worker on paid stand-by who declines the call that stands them up for work is on thin ground. The allowance buys the availability; it doesn’t buy a right to message them about next month’s roster at 10pm.

What the construction, mining, transport and manufacturing awards add

All awards were required to include a right to disconnect term by 26 August 2024, and the Fair Work Commission’s announcement of 23 August 2024 said it would add the term to all 155 modern awards. The term mostly restates the Act. The useful part is the carve-out at the end, which names the clauses under which an employer can still make contact. Here’s what the four awards this audience works under say, each as consolidated to 1 July 2026 in the Ombudsman’s award library.

“Emergency” is the award’s word, not yours. The mining award’s clause 13.3 lets the employer “vary or suspend any roster arrangement immediately in an emergency”, and the construction carve-out points at the inclement weather clause. A client bringing a pour forward is a change, and probably a reasonable reason for contact, but it isn’t what those clauses mean by emergency. The list isn’t closed either: each clause says the employer isn’t prevented from making contact “in circumstances including” the ones named, so everything else goes back to the reasonableness test.

Stand-by is the one true exception. The road transport and manufacturing terms let an employer require a response from an employee on paid standing-by time, but only where the contact tells them they’re required to work or gives other notice about the stand-by. The construction and mining terms carry no stand-by wording, so an on-call arrangement under those awards still runs through the five factors. Crews on an enterprise agreement should check it, since agreements can carry their own terms, and our guide to Fair Work compliance for shift workers covers the wider hours rules.

What a business running rosters should do

The Ombudsman’s advice is to talk about out of hours contact before it happens, set expectations that suit the workplace and the role, and record the arrangement in writing. On a field crew that becomes five habits.

Publish the roster ahead of time. The further out the roster lands, the less of your contact is urgent, and urgent contact is the kind that gets tested. The ABS Working Arrangements release for August 2025 found 17% of employees did not usually work the same number of hours each week, and a crew whose hours move every week most needs next week’s roster before this week ends.

Set a change-notice practice and write it down. Decide the minimum notice your business gives for a change to a published shift, at or above what the award requires, and the cut-off hour after which a change waits until morning unless it’s an emergency. A 48-hour rule and a 7pm cut-off in the roster policy give supervisors something to follow.

Define emergency contact. Name what counts (inclement weather, a safety stop, a breakdown that stands the crew down, a recall under the award), who makes the call, and which channel they use. The Ombudsman’s own example is a specialist told they don’t need to monitor email but will be expected to answer a phone call about a serious outage.

Record what was sent and when. A dispute about whether a refusal was unreasonable starts with what the contact was, when it went, how it went and what it said. A roster notification with a timestamp, a message in the channel the policy names, and a record of who had seen the roster before the change are the evidence. A text on a personal mobile is not. The same discipline covers the hours records in our guide to how many hours you can legally work in a row.

Have a policy that names the channel. Three lines will do: rosters and changes go through the app, emergencies come by phone from a named role, and nobody is expected to monitor the group chat outside their shift. Everything else waits for working hours, where time in lieu agreements, swap approvals and RDO requests belong anyway.

What happens if there is a dispute

Disputes go to the workplace first. The Fair Work Commission’s right to disconnect disputes page says an employer or employee must try to resolve the dispute at work before applying. If that fails, either side can apply: an employer for an order to stop an employee unreasonably refusing contact, an employee for an order to stop the employer continuing to require a response or taking action against them. The Commission can also hold a conference, and can arbitrate if both parties agree.

The right to disconnect is a workplace right under the Act’s general protections, so an employer must not take adverse action (dismissal, demotion and being overlooked for promotion are the Ombudsman’s examples) against an employee for using it. An employer who wants a stop order has to show the refusal was unreasonable, which comes back to the reason for the contact, how it was made and whether it was within the arrangement the worker had been told about. That’s a records argument before it’s a legal one.

How Humanz keeps the roster, the change and the message in one record

Humanz doesn’t calculate pay, interpret your award, use AI, track anyone’s location or give legal advice. It has no quiet-hours setting either: when a roster change is pushed, it’s pushed. What it does is make every piece of roster contact a dated record, which is the half of the right to disconnect an operator controls.

Rosters publish to workers’ phones ahead of time, with a push notification when a shift is created, updated or assigned. The schedule records whether each allocated shift has been displayed on the worker’s phone, and the Show Unseen filter cuts the roster down to the shifts nobody has looked at yet, so a scheduler three days out can see who still needs a call during working hours. Our guide to shift confirmation and team messaging walks through it.

Workers confirm shifts in the app, and the scheduler sees confirmation status across the roster. Chat templates create standing group chats aimed at a function rather than a person (Sick Day, Missed Flight), so the 5am message goes to whoever is rostered to handle it. Messages sit against the job they’re about, which is the record a dispute asks for: what was sent, when, through which channel, and who had seen the roster before it changed.

That is what rostering software for field crews should give you under the right to disconnect: a published roster with a timestamp, changes with a seen or unseen status, and a named channel with a history. The policy says which contact is expected. The record shows you kept to it.

If you run rosters now, check two numbers this week: how far ahead of its first shift last fortnight’s roster was published, and how many roster changes went by personal text. Both tell you where the policy needs to land.

Frequently asked questions

What is the right to disconnect?

The right to disconnect is an employee’s right under section 333M of the Fair Work Act 2009 to refuse to monitor, read or respond to contact, or attempted contact, from their employer outside their working hours, unless the refusal is unreasonable. It also covers contact from a third party, such as a client, where the contact relates to the employee’s work. It doesn’t make out of hours contact unlawful; it gives the employee the right not to engage with it.

When did the right to disconnect start in Australia?

The right to disconnect started on 26 August 2024 for employees of non-small business employers, meaning employers with 15 or more employees, and on 26 August 2025 for employees of small business employers, meaning employers with fewer than 15 employees. It was introduced by the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes No. 2) Act 2024.

Does the right to disconnect apply to small business?

Yes, since 26 August 2025. A small business employer is one with fewer than 15 employees at a particular time, counting employees of associated entities and casuals engaged on a regular and systematic basis. Before that date the right applied only to employers with 15 or more employees.

Can an employer still contact an employee outside work hours?

Yes. The right to disconnect doesn’t prohibit an employer from contacting an employee outside working hours; the question is whether the employee’s refusal to monitor, read or respond was unreasonable. That depends on the reason for the contact, how it’s made and how disruptive it is, whether the employee is paid for being available or for extra hours, the employee’s role and responsibility, and their personal circumstances including caring responsibilities. A refusal is unreasonable if the contact is required by law.

Does the right to disconnect apply to on-call or FIFO workers?

Yes, but an on-call arrangement changes how the reasonableness test plays out. Employees can be required to monitor, answer or respond to calls when working overtime or when on call, and some awards state that an employee paid for standing by can be required to respond to contact telling them they’re needed at work. A FIFO worker’s hours between rostered shifts in camp are outside working hours, so contact in that time is treated the same as contact at home.

What happens if there is a dispute about the right to disconnect?

The dispute must first be raised and discussed at the workplace. If it isn’t resolved there, the employer or the employee can apply to the Fair Work Commission, which can make a stop order, hold a conference, or both, and can arbitrate if both parties agree. An employer can ask for an order to stop an employee unreasonably refusing contact, and an employee can ask for an order to stop the employer requiring a response or taking action against them.