The right to disconnect gives all employees the ability to refuse contact from their employer or third parties outside of their agreed working hours, unless that contact is considered reasonable.
This includes emails, phone calls, messages, or other forms of communication related to work.
This means from 26 August 2025, domestic employees like nannies, housekeepers, and other household staff will officially have the legal right to ignore you after hours.
Employees will have the right to refuse to monitor, read or respond to contact (or attempted contact) outside their working hours, unless doing so is unreasonable.
While employers are still allowed to contact staff outside hours if the matter is urgent, it’s important to:
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Check your employee’s communication preferences
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Define what constitutes an “urgent” issue
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Document any agreements about after-hours availability
Basically, it’s about having the conversation on expectations on availability around the right to disconnect framework.
Example: Employee contacted on the weekend
Sophie is a nanny employed under a part-time agreement to work Monday to Friday, 8:00am to 4:00pm. She is not paid an on-call allowance or expected to work weekends.
On a Saturday morning, the family she works for text her:
“Hi Sophie, can you let us know if you’re free to babysit next Saturday night?”
They follow up with another message later that afternoon:
“Did you see our message? Can you reply today so we can make plans?”
Why this could be a breach of the right to disconnect
Under the Right to Disconnect, Sophie has the legal right to ignore unreasonable work-related contact outside of her working hours.
In this case:
- The contact occurs on a weekend morning, outside her agreed working hours.
- There is no urgency or emergency requiring immediate action.
- She has not agreed to be on call, to be contacted or available outside of weekdays.
- The messages are related to planning work but is not urgent.
A better approach from the employer would be to:
- Send the message during work hours on Monday, or
- Include in a message: “No rush to reply—please let us know when you’re next at work.”
