Human Resources > Right to Disconnect Policy
Authorised by Chief Executive Officer
Issue Date: 20 August 2024
Policy Statement
Kyeema Support Services is strongly committed to ensuring a healthy work life balance for employees by ensuring they have the right to disconnect from work-related communications outside of work hours.
Purpose
This policy outlines the principles and guidelines governing the right to disconnect at Kyeema Support Services including establishing clear guidelines around expectations from employees to respond to work-related communication outside of work hours.
Scope
This policy applies to all Kyeema employees.
Definitions
Out of working hours contact: Contact outside of the employees’ working hours from Kyeema.
Working hours: Employees’ rostered hours.
Responsibilities
It is the responsibility of Kyeema management to determine if communication with employees is deemed reasonable. Prior to contacting an employee outside of their rostered working hours management will take the following into consideration:
- Reason for contact (or attempted contact)
- How the contact (or attempted contact) is made and how much disruption it causes to the employee
- Any compensation (monetary or non-monetary) the employee receives
o to be available to work when the contact is made, or
o to work outside their ordinary hours
- The employee’s role and their level of responsibility
- The employee’s personal circumstances, including family or caring responsibilities, and
- The employees’ expressed wishes about availability for contact.
It is the responsibility of employees to:
- Respect their colleagues’ right to disconnect
- Aim to make their own communications within reasonable hours (eg don’t cancel at 4 am if you realise you’re sick at 9 pm)
- Not unreasonably refuse to monitor, read or respond to contact, or attempted contact outside of employees working hours.
Due to the 24/7 nature of the support work we undertake as an organisation, inevitably there are times when someone in the organisation receives information outside of usual working hours regarding such things as shift cancellations, worker inability to attend a rostered shift, change of health status of a participant, incidents etc.
In order to maintain support for participants, communication may be required with staff eligible to fill the shift. This is to the benefit of the employee as well as for the participant.
If the employee has expressed preferences regarding availability to work these should be noted on Carelink and/or in the On Call folder.
Dispute Resolution
In the event of a dispute relating to an employee’s exercise of their right to disconnect, both the employee and Kyeema Support Services agree to attempt to resolve the dispute at the workplace level by discussions between themselves. Either party may raise a grievance in line with the Grievance and Dispute Resolution Procedure.
Should the dispute remain unresolved, either party may escalate the matter to the Fair Work Commission, making an application for the Fair Work Commission to do either or both of the following:
(a) make an order under section 333P of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) (orders to stop refusing contact or to stop taking certain actions);
(b) otherwise deal with the dispute.