From August 26, 5.4 million Australians working for small businesses will have the "right to disconnect". This means they can refuse contact about work - such as emails, texts or calls - outside work hours, unless that refusal could be considered "unreasonable".

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The right to disconnect has been in place for medium and large Australian organisations since August last year. But it's now extending to small businesses with fewer than 15 employees.

It signals a big shift in how Australians relate to work in an always-connected world. In an era where smartphones tether us to our jobs around the clock, the law allows employees to reclaim personal time and reassert important boundaries between work and life.

For owners of the country's 2.5 million small businesses, it presents a new challenge, especially knowing if staff will get back to them out of hours.

If you work for or run a small business, what does the right to disconnect and "unreasonable" refusal mean for you?

For employees, a "reasonable" or "unreasonable" refusal to be contacted outside work hours depends on the context.

According to the Fair Work Commission, several factors must be considered, including:

Let's take an employee who receives a non-urgent email at 9:30pm about rescheduling a meeting time. It would generally be "reasonable" for them to defer a reply until work hours.

Similarly, workers caring for sick children may justifiably ignore a routine request, especially if there's no previous agreement that they're available and if they're not compensated for out-of-hours contact.

But as the Fair........

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