Effective from October 2024

Approved by: Chief Executive Officer

At a Glance

Five Good Friends is strongly committed to ensuring that we are diligent and responsive in our responsibilities to our Members and the community we serve.  We also recognise that our employees have many facets to their lives, with work being one of these. We therefore fully respect and support our team to completely switch off when they are not working.

This Policy outlines the principles and guidelines governing the right to disconnect at Five Good Friends. It aims to ensure that all employees are treated (and treat others) in a way that balances productivity with everyone’s health and wellbeing, and also complies with the right to disconnect noted in the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes No. 2) Bill 2024 (Cth).

Five Good Friends operates First Respones and Escalation Team (FRET) and On-Call programmes.  Participating team members are remunerated for this, and the Right to Disconnect does not diminish responsibility when serving in these roles.

Objective

The purpose of this Policy is to establish guidelines and best practices for the right to disconnect at the Company.

Scope

This policy applies to all employees in Five Good Friends.

Definitions

• Out of working hours contact - means contact outside of the employee’s working hours, from the Company, or a third party if the contact relates to the employee’s work.
• Working hours - means the ordinary hours and span of hours set out in the employee’s employment contract (or for rostered employees, their rostered hours).

Roles and Responsibilities

It is the responsibility of all members of the Senior Management Team to ensure that:

• The company fosters a culture that allows employees to disconnect as much as reasonably possible;
• all employees understand and are committed to the principles of the right to disconnect;