After years of flexibility that workers could have only dreamed of before the pandemic, employers are now eager for staff to return to the office – for at least part of the week.
Business groups and CBD cafe owners have reacted gleefully to bosses calling their employees back in. But workers and unions are reluctant to give up freedoms, suggesting some level of flexibility will remain the norm for most office-based professionals for years to come.
This week the largest employer in the southern hemisphere, the New South Wales government, issued a directive to public sector workers that they should now work “principally in an approved office, workplace or related worksite”.
In the missive, the secretary of the NSW premier’s department, Simon Draper, wrote that public sector employees “all have a higher purpose in building and replenishing public institutions”.
“I am sure that there will be mixed views,” he continued, perhaps unaware of the intense media glare the government order would attract.
Despite not strictly prescribing a pattern of attendance – such as minimum number of days to work from an office – headlines soon insisted the NSW government was forcing its workers back into the office, with no flexibility.
Days later, Draper was forced to explain the new rules on ABC Sydney radio .
Within hours, the Victorian government had chimed in, stating it had “no plans to roll back the existing flexible working arrangements”, largely working three days a week from an office.
“We know that flexibility in the workplace helps more women stay in work and more women in the workforce is better for everyone,” a Victorian government spokesperson said.
“Any public servants from New South Wales who like flexibility in their workplace should consider moving to Victoria,” they added.
Initially the NSW premier, Chris Minns, defended his state’s move. He noted most public servants, such as nurses, teachers and emergency services workers, had no option to work remotely. So the directive, he said, was in the interests of fairness.
Minns said the directive was about “building up a culture in the public service that’s about teamwork, a common and shared sense of purpose, as well as mentoring the next generation of young public servants”.
Minns conceded no minimum number of office days was being enforced in the directive.
“The expectation is that our public servants will work predominantly from their office – that could be three days a week for someone who works five days,” he said. “We want to get the balance right.”
The directive prompted resistance from NSW department heads wanting to reassure workers. NSW Health and Transport for NSW swiftly told staff they did not need to change working from home arrangements.
The Public Service Association union head, Stewart Little, expressed concern at the directive. He rubbished the idea workers could ever return to a status quo of five days a week in the office.
“I don’t think anyone in their right mind thinks that we’re ever going to return to pre-pandemic ways of work, that’s just a thing of the past,” he said.
With Minns clarifying the example of three office days for a full-time worker, the state’s directive appears no more forceful than other states or large employer groups.
Later in the week, the Queensland premier, Steven Miles, insisted public servants in the heavily decentralised state would maintain work from home privileges. No tightening of rules was planned, he said.
Commonwealth public servants agreed to a landmark deal as part of their enterprise bargaining in 2023, including no caps on working from home days.
The big-four bank NAB sealed a similar deal with the Finance Sector Union, with flexible working arrangements weighted towards approval.
Last year, the finance sector union challenged a Commonwealth Bank ruling that employees must spend 50% of monthly hours in the office and filed a dispute in the Fair Work Commission.
Despite the NSW move seemingly retaining remote working flexibility, the business community welcomed the development as a way to reinvigorate CBDs.
The executive director of Business Sydney, Paul Nicolaou, said the move would increase foot traffic in the CBD.
Nicolaou said the state’s peak body for business has “consistently called” for the government to end work from home arrangements.
“[It] will be a huge encouragement for the private sector … to bring their people back to the workplace,” he said.
The NSW executive director of Property Council, Katie Stevenson, called the move from Minns a “gamechanger”.
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“More workers means more life, more investment and more business for our cities,” she said. CBDs are “the heartbeat of the economy”, she said, “powering jobs, investment and thousands of businesses that rely on bustling commercial centres”.
Office vacancy data from City of Sydney council showed CBD vacancy rates at 11.6%, a historic high; while in Parramatta, home to several NSW government offices, the rate is 19.4%.
Across the country, the average vacancy rate was 14.6%. In Melbourne, almost one in five offices are empty, while in Brisbane the figure is 9.5%.
When pandemic restrictions led to office usage and business travel dipping well below historic levels, governments began talk of converting CBD offices to residential homes as a way of breathing new life into city centres while also addressing housing shortfalls.
However, a Victorian government target to convert almost 80 under-utilised commercial office buildings into up to 12,000 apartments has so far yielded no results. Still firmly in planning stage, many buildings were deemed not feasible for conversion.
Ensuring natural light and balcony access for such buildings has proved challenging, especially with construction costs rising.
Akshay Vij, an associate professor of business at the University of South Australia, has researched Australian workers’ attitudes to remote working flexibility.
Surveys he conducted of 1,200 people who had jobs that had some capacity for remote work found that about one-fifth would be prepared to sacrifice between 16% and 33% of their salaries for the right to work from home.
Vij also found more than half of the workers surveyed would be prepared to sacrifice no significant chunk of income for the freedom, suggesting they were ambivalent or actively preferred to go into the workplace.
Most were willing to give up about 4%-8% of their full-time wages to secure rights to work remotely for at least part of the week, he said. His research found broad appreciation of the money and time saved by avoiding commutes.
Attitudes to working from home split workers into two broad categories, Vij said.
More mature workers who had built a career before the pandemic, and might have caring responsibilities at home, preferred working from home as the norm. Younger workers looking to make professional and social connections were eager to be in a vibrant workplace most days.
“Most people we surveyed actually saw significant benefits to health and wellbeing from working from home, and did not see negative impacts to productivity. While on an hour-to-hour view people came to report being less productive working from home, they would work more hours as their work-life balance was blurred.
“A lot of people were, however, concerned with not being seen, and potentially forgotten by employers, so you don’t get those ad hoc opportunities for collaboration, and less chance of career advancement.”
Vij’s research also found strong incentive for employers to require their staff to work from an office most days.
“There’s less organisation loyalty in places where there’s not a sense of team spirit,” he said. “Without camaraderie, workers don’t feel as tied to an organisation, which is a concern for management in terms of attrition and retention.
“I imagine the NSW government move is motivated by these issues.”
Vij said maintaining full flexibility for employees added to a company’s cost, including requiring more tech support for those working remotely.
Research showed hybrid working really doesn’t favour the employer, he said. Any money saved in terms of using less office space is very little and might lead to hot-desking, “which people frankly don’t like”.
Among businesses thriving now, the goal is a CBD presence, Vij said.
“Employers who couldn’t afford CBDs are now wanting to move in,” he said.
“There’s still something about that handshake that is just hard to replicate online.”
– with Australian Associated Press
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