[00:00:00] Mel: Hi, and welcome to Less Chatter, More Matter, a podcast about all things communication without the waffle. I'm your host, Mel Loy, and in this show, I will give you short, punchy, practical communication tips and insights. You can start using in your communication practices right away. I'm a former corporate communication executive who happily took a redundancy, started my own business, and never looked back.

[00:00:27] Mel: These days, I use my 20 plus years of experience to help guide organisations of all shapes and sizes in how to communicate more effectively. I'm wife to Michael, cat mum to Cookie, aunty to 12 nieces and nephews, a yoga teacher, and a group fitness fanatic. I promise these episodes will always be short, sharp, and helpful, so let's get amongst it.

[00:00:52] Mel: Hello friend and welcome to this week's episode of Less Chatter, More Matter, whether you are joining from around [00:01:00] Australia or around the world at home, in the car, at the gym, on a walk, or wherever you might be, it is a delight to have you tuning in for another week. And speaking of around the world, we are going to be looking to the international community a bit in today's episode as we unpack some new developments in workplace laws and what that means for internal communication.

[00:01:22] Mel: I'm referring to some news out of Australia in the last couple of weeks around the right to disconnect laws and right to disconnect essentially means workers will have the right to not monitor or answer work emails and text messages, all those sorts of channels outside of work hours. And it's stemming from this post pandemic world where more people are working from home, either fully remotely or in a hybrid environment.

[00:01:46] Mel: And during the pandemic, some employers and employees got into the habit of consistently using their channels of communication at all hours. And unfortunately, that habit has stuck in many places and become a [00:02:00] cultural norm. And I say, unfortunately, because it leads to burnout and there's... all these hours that people aren't being compensated for either.

[00:02:08] Mel: They're doing all this work outside of their standard contracted hours that are just not being paid for. There's now a myriad of ways people can be communicated with at all hours of the day. So SMS, email, Teams chat, Slack channels, Yammer, et cetera, et cetera. And in many workplaces, some of these channels were set up when the pandemic commenced.

[00:02:28] Mel: A bit of a rush job really, because they had to very quickly find ways to communicate better and remotely. Now we've got all these channels. But after a few years, they're probably lacking the governance you'd normally put in place when you set up a channel in any other era of time. Now, don't get me wrong, I think having more ways to communicate in more effective ways is great, but it does need structure around it.

[00:02:54] Mel: But before we get into that, let's take a quick look at the right to disconnect laws here in Australia and [00:03:00] around the world. So particularly in Europe, laws like these have been coming into effect more frequently in the last few years, actually even prior to the pandemic. So if we go back to 2017, for example, the French government introduced a labour law that was designed to preserve workers right to disconnect.

[00:03:17] Mel: And the law there states that companies with 50 employees or more have to negotiate policies about work related comms with employees outside of work hours. Now, the minister responsible at the time, Miriam L. Comrie, said the law was a necessary step to reduce burnout, and what they called infobesity, so essentially an overload of comms.

[00:03:38] Mel: Now, this law was tested in court pretty soon after it came into effect, and in 2018, a pest control company was ordered to pay a former employee 60, 000 euros after an employee was ordered to permanently leave his phone on to respond to requests from his team or customers in case of problems when he was not at work.[00:04:00]

[00:04:00] Mel: 60, 000 euros as a fine is nothing to scoff about. Now then in 2021, Portugal Introduce the right to rest legislation. Now, in this case, companies with 10 or more employees can be fined for contacting their staff outside of set working hours. And, in a win for flexible work proponents, at the same time, this law also ensured that workers who have children aged 8 or younger can work remotely.

[00:04:28] Mel: So that's not bad. Uh, come to 2022 and Belgium passed its own version of right to disconnect legislation. Uh, at first it allowed only civil servants to switch off from work emails, texts and phone calls received out of hours. And that legislation protected about 65, 000 civil servants in that country. So quite a big cohort, uh, April, 2023.

[00:04:51] Mel: So last year, the legislation was amended to cover the private sector for companies with 20 or more employees. So all workers in [00:05:00] Portugal are now covered. Except if you're at a very small business, so 20 or under. Other countries that have similar legislation or who are currently considering it now also include Argentina, Greece, Ireland, Kenya, Italy, Luxembourg, and Ukraine.

[00:05:15] Mel: And plenty more on the way. So this isn't new, but it is becoming the norm. And right to disconnect isn't necessarily new here in Australia either. It's actually been managed on individual workplace or employee agreements up until now. So in 2017, for example, Victoria Police staff won the right to disconnect through their union's negotiations.

[00:05:37] Mel: So apart from emergencies, their staff are not to be contacted outside of work hours. And the new laws are now being talked about in Australia are an amendment to the existing Fair Work Act of 2019. So it's been called the Fair Work Amendment Right to Disconnect Bill 2023. You don't need to know all of that, but essentially it's aimed to provide a consistent [00:06:00] standard across all workplaces.

[00:06:02] Mel: The right to disconnect will be added to the national employment standards. Now, if the amendment goes through, which it likely will, the bill will prevent employers from contacting employees outside of work hours and ensure employees are not required to monitor, read, or respond to email, phone calls, or any other kind of...

[00:06:21] Mel: uh, communication from an employer outside of their working hours. Now, of course, there are exemptions like in the case of emergency or what the bill is terming genuine welfare. Also, if the employee gets an allowance for being outside of working hours or being available outside of working hours, that's okay as well.

[00:06:41] Mel: So what they mean by right to disconnect is described as an employee's right to not monitor, read, or respond to emails, phone calls, or any other kind of communication from an employer. And that all sounds pretty good, but what are the implications for internal communication? Let's get stuck into that. I think there's [00:07:00] three big things we need to know and need to be prepared for and need to be working towards right now.

[00:07:06] Mel: The first thing is channels governance, and that's going to need a big update. By that, I mean a review of what channels you're using, how they're being used, and the rules around their use. To be honest, I think a lot of companies need to update their channels governance anyway. The Band Aid solutions that were put in place during COVID are likely not fit for purpose now.

[00:07:28] Mel: So this is a good opportunity to do an audit of your channels anyway. So, when looking at a channels audit, It pays to look at the data, what channels are actually being used, when, how, and by whom? And conversely, what channels do you have that are underused and why are they underused? So is it people find them hard to use, they're not getting value from them and so on.

[00:07:52] Mel: So go back through your analytics, and get some ideas of trends that you're seeing with your channels. Then I would interrogate those [00:08:00] results with some short surveys and focus groups with internal audiences and find out what did they want to hear about and how do they want to hear about it? And once you've got all those data and insights, then apply the right to disconnect parameters.

[00:08:13] Mel: So, for example, you may still want to use SMS, but for emergencies only, not for other types of comms, especially if you work in a business that has staff in multiple time zones, or maybe they do shift work. The big piece here is that you'll need to collaborate with your HR teams to make sure that whatever governance you're suggesting not only meets the legislative requirements, but also that it's reflected in your employee agreements and employee contracts as well.

[00:08:42] Mel: And remember, in Australia, at least, these new laws won't be implemented for a little while yet. It takes time to update all those employment agreements and contracts, all those things. But you do need to be prepared.

[00:08:54] Mel: Okay, the second big consideration that I think we should be thinking about right now [00:09:00] And it stems from this governance piece, it is a big one - training for leaders, you will need to bring leaders up to speed on what the new legislation means for them and how they will communicate with their teams going forward.

[00:09:13] Mel: So for some teams who work fairly standard nine to five hours, it will be relatively easy to implement and easy to share with leaders. And you can suggest things to them like, you know, putting, um, Delayed sends on their emails. So even if they decide they want to work after hours, that's fine. But just delay the send until eight, nine the next morning, for example, so that nobody's tempted to read or respond to their emails that are not setting a precedent.

[00:09:38] Mel: But other teams who might work shifts. So for example, if you work in emergency services or call centers, et cetera, there will be more complexity to that, obviously. Either way, we need to set up these leaders for success in their communication. So, in these training sessions, I would cover things like, A, what the law says you can and can't do, and what the penalties are [00:10:00] involved.

[00:10:00] Mel: B, what to do if you do have shift workers or remote workers, hybrid, etc. And some of that will be very unique to your business's employment agreements, obviously. And C, how to establish an effective communication rhythm with your team that ensures they get what they need in the way they want it without breaking the law.

[00:10:21] Mel: Now, apart from training, some of the tools that could be quite helpful for leaders could be things like FAQs, uh, you could give them suggested comms plans, templates for designing their own comms plans, uh, some how to guides on sending delayed emails and all those sorts of things as well. And again, You will need to work with your HR team to make sure the training reflects the business's legal and regulatory requirements insofar as this legislation is concerned.

[00:10:47] Mel: Also, if you are a multinational organisation or you have shift workers, obviously the senior leadership level needs to be aware of what this will potentially mean for sending group wide communication. Now, remember [00:11:00] this is the right to disconnect. It means that if an employee does... does receive an email out of hours, they are no longer under any obligation to read it or respond to it.

[00:11:10] Mel: If it's.. Your organization or your leaders create a culture where people feel obligated to respond, or even if they're actually just told they have to outside of hours, that's when we have a problem, okay? But to be on the safe side, I would still recommend seeing if you can segment your audience and perhaps deliver group wide comms in batches that align with time zones, but I'll leave that for you to discuss with your HR team.

[00:11:36] Mel: The third and final big internal comms implication we'll mention today is, of course, that we need to communicate this change. And as you know, if you've been listening to me banging on for a while, change communication is all about putting people at the heart of everything we do. So if you follow my EPIC change communication framework, there's a four step process to follow.

[00:11:56] Mel: I'll pop a link to a blog article in the show notes that steps [00:12:00] you through that at a very high level. The first step is the E in EPIC, which stands for evaluate. So this is where you need to work with HR to understand the impacts on different audience segments among your employees. So for example, some employees might do shift work, so the change impact will likely be bigger on them and their leaders than teams who do standard business hours.

[00:12:22] Mel: Of course, this all depends on what culture has been built in that organization or those teams as well. So you may have a team that is meant to do standard business hours, but the culture within that team is that they're available 24/ 7. So that's a bigger impact and a bigger change if it required to.

[00:12:38] Mel: And that brings me, of course, to leaders. They are the other cohort that needs special attention when it comes to evaluating impacts. There's also hybrid workers and remote workers who need to be considered, and to be honest, they are the ones who have most likely gotten into this habit of not disconnecting.

[00:12:54] Mel: So we need to consider them as a special audience as well. The next step is then planning [00:13:00] and positioning. So thinking carefully about creating very clear, personalised key messages and your strategic approach to your communication. In a change situation, there's typically three phases to the comms.

[00:13:12] Mel: There's awareness, which is the first phase, launch, and then embed. So think about what comms you might need. For each of those phases and who they need to go to and how they'll get there. Then there's the implement phase. So this is where we need to really support leaders with the communication in their teams and also where it's likely you'll face a bit of resistance or at least some confusion.

[00:13:34] Mel: So keep your ear to the ground and respond with some clarifying comms if you need to. And then finally it's check and correct. So think about how you will measure if the messages have cut through and the behaviors have changed, like you need them to. And again, it might be you need to do a bit of research if the messages haven't cut through.

[00:13:53] Mel: Rethink your approach. Now, of course, I go through this process and the entire framework in loads more detail in my [00:14:00] upcoming book, and I'll pop a link to that in the show notes as well.

[00:14:03] Mel: Okay, it's time for our episode recap, so let's get into it. Number one, new legislation is coming to Australia on the right to disconnect. It won't be new for some workplaces though, where that right has already been a part of their employment agreements for many years. But the legislation will make that a right in law and bring consistency across the entire world of workplaces in this country.

[00:14:27] Mel: Number two, similar legislation has already been in place in many countries for some years, particularly in Europe, and it has been tested in the courts there. So governments are very serious about this and workplaces in Australia should take note.

[00:14:42] Mel: Number three, in terms of the impacts on the internal com side of things, there are three big immediate things to consider. A. Channels governance. You'll need to do an audit of your current comms channels, a bit of research with your audiences and then redesign your internal comms governance to make sure [00:15:00] it meets the legislative requirements.

[00:15:02] Mel: Also consider what this will mean if you work in a company that has employees who work across different time zones, do shift work, and who work in hybrid and remote situations as well. B. Training for leaders. Your leaders must understand what this legislation means for them. So, for example, what they can and can't do when it comes to communicating with their team members.

[00:15:24] Mel: This step will need to be done in conjunction with HR, particularly regarding employee agreements and contracts that are unique to each business and each role in some cases. And C, you've got to communicate the change! You will need to be carefully examining the impacts and design a communication strategy and messaging that helps different audience segments understand what the new laws mean for them.

[00:15:48] Mel: Now, remember, these laws won't come into place right away, but if you live and work in Australia. You need to be prepared. And if you live and work in other countries, I would take note because there's a good chance similar [00:16:00] legislation could be coming your way very soon. And it's always better to be prepared than surprised.

[00:16:06] Mel: Okay. That's all we have time for on today's episode. I do hope it got you thinking about what you might need to do with your channels and in educating leaders as well. But also the role we play in internal comms can have a direct impact on employees well being and that's a responsibility to be taken very seriously. If you take an audience first approach, though, even without legislation and you think about how you can manage internal comms in a way that has the best outcome for your audiences, then you're on the right track already to limiting that negative impact on employee well being and probably already on the right track to the right to disconnect anyway.

[00:16:43] Mel: Alright, that's it for today. In the meantime, I hope you have an incredible week. Keep doing amazing things and bye for now.