Opponents of working from home (WFH) are having a hard time of it. NAB staff recently secured an enterprise agreement embedding the right to ask to work from home and limiting the grounds upon which NAB can refuse — despite CEO Ross McEwan spending months railing against working from home. The Community and Public Sector Union has obtained an agreement with the federal government for a similar positive attitude to working from home for public servants. For the segment of the workforce that can work from home, pandemic necessity is morphing into an established right.
There are prominent holdouts. The Commonwealth Bank is fighting a desperate rearguard action against WFH, demanding all of its workers return to the office — ironically while CEO Matt Comyn was isolating due to COVID-19. The Financial Services Union is fighting the order at the Fair Work Commission.
As offices lie vacant, their owners are increasingly worried, especially watching the commercial property sector overseas in tumult due to lower occupancy rates. The arrival of the commercial property crisis here can be tracked by the increasingly worried articles in the Financial Review — commercial property giant Dexus wiping a billion dollars from its assets, super funds downgrading their assets, Dexus rival Charter Hall limiting redemptions in one of its funds.
The commercial property giants hate working from home. Charter Hall’s CEO warned employees working from home that they’d be replaced by robots and predicted they’d surge back to the office after the pandemic because they were sick of being “cooped up” at home. And business lobby groups hate it as well for the impact on CBD businesses that cater to office workers — even though money not spent on lunches and coffees in CBDs will eventually make its way into other sectors, leaving overall demand levels no different whether employees are working from home or not.
But the penny is dropping for a growing number of employers that working from home is here to stay and the best they’ll get is a hybrid model of having employees come in a couple of days a week. According to the Productivity Commission’s latest trade and assistance review, the historic shift towards working from home is not only seemingly locked in, it opens up significant trade opportunities for Australia:
The new frontiers of global economic integration will likely include real-time data sharing between countries, and the growing international tradability of labour. The demonstrated viability of ‘working from home’ during the COVID-19 pandemic may evolve into a ‘work from anywhere’ approach to labour sourcing by companies over time. Associated growth in the international tradability of labour, beyond the trade in accounting or IT services witnessed over the past 20 years, will likely see a broader range of workers participating in foreign labour markets from their own countries, increasing global economic integration in the process.
Nonetheless, the insistence that working from home harms productivity persists as a key employer objection, with the magical benefits of bumping into colleagues in the office kitchen seemingly the source of most innovation and productivity growth of recent decades.
There’s been a proliferation of studies on WFH productivity recently. You can pick whichever one suits your agenda, though studies that are simply polls of whether workers think they’re more productive at home aren’t worth tuppence, and there are very few studies that examine working from home productivity prior to the pandemic, when it was voluntary, and during the pandemic, when a large chunk of the workforce was forced to remain at home, along with their families, regardless of whether they wanted it or had the right environment for it.
The irony of employer objections to working from home is that for decades we’ve been hearing from employers about the need for industrial relations “flexibility”. As we’ve always known, this meant flexibility only in the interests of employers, not workers. That’s been borne out by the reaction to working from home. The Financial Review even editorialised that it was a shame workers were allowed the flexibility of working from home when employers weren’t allowed the flexibility to not pay penalty rates, or not recognise qualifications. It even cited Jeff Kennett, who thinks people working from home should be penalised with pay deductions.
That isn’t just the normal hypocrisy of employer groups. The “productivity” debate is primarily a tool to justify further undermining workers’ pay, conditions and rights. Working from home is one of the few areas where Australia’s industrial relations system has actually delivered for workers over the last decades. In that time, workers have experienced substantial real wage cuts — first as a result of years of wage stagnation and then of profit-driven inflation that smashed purchasing power. Even now as wages growth finally lifts, real wages are continuing to plummet. Yet despite all this, working from home is attacked as a form of employee indulgence.
Given how shabbily workers have been treated for the past decade, they’re perfectly entitled to ignore employer demands to come back to work.
What has the shift to working from home meant for you? Let us know your experience by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
As well as the benefits of WFH there should be a full recognition of
But what about the incredible amount of work done while standing around the water cooler discussing the most recent Game of Thrones clone, or whatever misfit failed at Dancing With Masterchef.
Dancing with Masterchef was my favourite show, dammit.
Actually true, much of our workplace, community and other learning is informal, described formally as ‘Connectivism Learning Theory’
Agree. (Not sure why someone down voted your comment).
I’m not sure either. Perhaps there is at least one Crikey subscriber heavily invested in CBD office developments and feeling a bit vulnerable.
Fairly sure we’re all somewhat invested in CBD via our super, but I’m not downvoting
Not everyone. Some of us saw the writing on the wall when COVID lockdowns started.
Can’t disagree with point 1.
My experience of the commute is that homeward bound, I have time to switch my brain off from work and re-engage with the world via ABC Radio in the car. That might not work for everyone but, as BK notes, it’s the personalised flexibility that matters.
True, although my main point is that during the commute the employee is not doing much productive work. Quite a few people say their car is their favourite place, ahead of either work or home. Comfortable seat, sound system, complete control inside their armoured box on wheels… Gary Numan’s 1979 song In Cars perhaps sums it up:
Here in my car
I feel safest of all
I can lock all my doors
It’s the only way to live
In cars
Here in my car
I can only receive
I can listen to you
It keeps me stable for days
In cars…
My friend and I call that lovely downtime you choose to spend in a parked car, away from other people’s voices and all your responsibilities, ‘carcooning’.
But from the outside looking in, drivers, especially lone ones (the vast majority) usually appear isolated and sad, divorced from each other and the environment they foul with noise and stink.
Ah yes, as opposed to the average PT commuter, overjoyed to be stuffed under someone’s armpit. 🙂
Depends on the pheromones, though not something to be worried about from a bicycle seat, even if cycling too can have drawbacks.. (shrug)
It’s amazing how a 1/2 hour or 1 hour walk can have the same effect, keeping you both mentally and physically healthy. I used to have to jump off the bus some distance from home to fit that in. Now I can do it any time of day that suits, often at the end to celebrate and relax.
appalling waste of time and environmental cost associated with commuting — not ‘just’ environmental cost, but personal cost when you’re spending $100+ a week just to get to work and back again
And those office buildings, with their status as the worst thing for the environment to build outside a fracking rig or cruise ship – monumental construction costs coupled with ongoing heating, lighting, cleaning costs…
‘f Kennett thinks people working from home should be penalised with pay deductions? Maybe the unions should be looking at pay bonuses for all that money that businesses don’t have to waste on office space, or mandatory compensation in the form of weekly rent to the employee for ceding home space to work, and an allowance for the time spent cleaning and preparing the WFHspace to ensure it is WHS compliant?
The really interesting thing about open plan offices is that numerous studies have shown that they lower productivity by a significant amount. Anyone who has been forced to work in one (i.e. most of us) will know about the noise and the constant interruptions that make it difficult to perform complex tasks.
And the interesting part? Have you ever heard an employer group calling for them to be removed in order to increase productivity? That would require expensive fit-outs and the need for more floor space. (I have “fond” memories of a couple of upper-level managers crawling around the floor with a tape measure and using paper cut-outs on graph paper trying to figure out how to pack more contractors in while still remaining dubiously legal.)
Exactly. It is one of the great mysteries of the age that those employers, who talk so much about how they value their staff and care so much about productivity, give no regard to either staff or productivity by insisting on open plan offices. It’s easy to believe the employers do not in fact care about whether work is being done or its quality, they just want to gaze across crowded offices with people stuffed in like animals in a badly planned zoo.
And for any who are not aware, there’s a brand new series out.
It’s too traumatic to watch for many people who’ve escaped the public service in recent years.
I agree – I cant watch it – its a documentary for me…
Such urban design (Chicago plan?) has been very productive for auto/leasing, fossil fuels, building/construction and energy sector with CBDs, long car commutes, to open plan energy sinks…..
The use of open-plan, which so obviously prevents or obstructs work by replacing it with substitute or work-imitating activity, also supports the late David Graber’s theories set out in his book Bullshit Jobs, first published 2018, following an essay he wrote in 2013. From the Wikipedia page:
The author contends that more than half of societal work is pointless, both large parts of some jobs and, as he describes, five types of entirely pointless jobs […] Graeber argues that these jobs are largely in the private sector despite the idea that market competition would root out such inefficiencies. In companies, he concludes that the rise of service sector jobs owes less to economic need than to “managerial feudalism”, in which employers need underlings in order to feel important and maintain competitive status and power.
The use of open-plan, which so obviously prevents or obstructs work by filling time with substitute or work-imitating activity, also supports the late David Graber’s theories set out in his book Bullsiht Jobs, (my misspelling of the actual title is forced by ModBot) first published 2018, following an essay On the Phenomenon of Bullsiht Jobs: A Work Rant, which is easily found on the web, is well worth reading and which he wrote in 2013. From the Wikipedia page:
The author contends that more than half of societal work is pointless, both large parts of some jobs and, as he describes, five types of entirely pointless jobs […] Graeber argues that these jobs are largely in the private sector despite the idea that market competition would root out such inefficiencies. In companies, he concludes that the rise of service sector jobs owes less to economic need than to “managerial feudalism”, in which employers need underlings in order to feel important and maintain competitive status and power.
bUT wE nEED moRe PEoPLe fOr ECOnOmiC gRoWTH
I was actually referring to house design made to use maximum amounts of energy, but can relate to office design.
However, on open plan office, it’s not the end of the world nor is WFH vs. office; there is probably an advantage in balance.
On Graber…..seems sceptical of service jobs, but they dominate the economy and cites management issues related to feudalism.
One has acquaintances working in the PS etc. who could retire, but seem to need the office hierarchy, socialisation and ‘space’ away from home (where they maybe bottom of the pile), and they seem uncomfortable about retirement in the suburbs… one says you can only play golf so often….
Yes Sining Ship Rat, you’re right. There has been organisational psychology research for decades that has shown the loss of productivity in open plan offices, due to distractions and inability to concentrate. Sadly, the cost accountants who determine how money is spent, don’t read this research, nor do they care about either productivity of employee wellbeing. Gradually they may recognise the increased cost of psychological injury which is now the bulk of worker compensation claims and this was less of a problem before open plan offices.
Oh my spelling mistakes! Distracted again.
Talking to a manager at a large office in Sydney recently. We in Melbourne are at min 2 days a week at office one of which is an everyone in day. They are at 1 day a week and 1 day a month everyone in. Was surprised, since Melbourne had the longer lockdowns to get used to it. Oh if we want good staff they expect no more than 1 when they apply was told. Both of us agreed that, with some swings and roundabouts productivity had not dropped. I suspect both employers and employees are getting a share of the saved commute time. And the planet surely thanks us for that as well.
As for the whinging property sector, ‘twas ever thus. All capitalists like the market when it suits them but run screaming to the government for protection and compensation when it doesn’t. Suck it up, it’s capitalism. Start figuring out how to turn your property into residential perhaps.
There are examples of such conversions, but not very encouraging ones. To make such projects commercially viable in high-rise office buildings there is usually a significant relaxation of residential building standards. The result has sometimes been described as ‘vertical slums’. There’s a relevant Guardian article by Lisa Green, 6 May 2021 ‘Chip off the old blocks: would Australia’s empty office towers be better off as housing? Converting office space into residential buildings may sound appealing but experts suggest that in Australian cities the parameters are limited’
Sounds like more whinging to me. The previous generation had fun gentrifying warehouses and other inner-city industrial spaces into cool accommodation. I’m sure people will figure out satisfying ways to live in ex-office buildings.
They were typically converting well-constructed old buildings with the help of architects for their own use. The modern version takes a a jerry-built office block and sub-divides it into badly laid out flats without through ventilation, very little sound-proofing or thermal insulation, inadequate plumbing and sanitary facilities and many rooms either dominated by vast expanses of glass entirely unsuited to any normal domestic use or no windows at all. The provisions for egress, either routine or in emergency, are inadequate as are the provisions for rubbish bins and rubbish collection. That is why exemptions from normal building standards have to be allowed, which is quite something given that Australian building standards are bad enough to begin with. The result is generally places where nobody would live from choice, so they are filled with poor and vulnerable tenants as well as anti-social ones who have been evicted elsewhere.
Would still beat sleeping rough (t’was -10C this morning in Canberra).
Exactly, they are the sort of places that only suit the desperate.
A major structural issue is the utility ducts, especially plumbing which is centralised and requires significant investment in expanding across floors (if possible) for residential units; though has been done, and across the board if robust regulation and compliance, not an issue, but…..
Cities will evolve and converting B or C grade office buildings into residential will occur. Not only that age care, medical centres for some procedures, universities and school could also take over office buildings and space lost to WFH.
Good points Joe and super funds could support sensible changes that are put forward.
Agree absolutely, and has been occurring to an extent including international student accommodation (eg. projects change from office to accommodation during construction) and many complexes inc. education campuses pre school, K12 & higher ed; one would prefer to be in CBD/inner city to access amenities and services ‘in house’ or nearby vs. relying on car or PT in suburbs.
What it’s meant for me is I haven’t been sick in a year as I don’t catch every cold and bug going around the office. I haven’t been late ever since working from home as I don’t have to commute and get through traffic. I haven’t had any tech issues either as my own PC and home network are much more reliable than those at work ever were. I’m incredibly suspicious of reduced productivity claims by employers. In my sector anyway the benefits are clear as day which is probably why my employer has happily moved to a WFH first model.
Australia suffers from mismanagement, the third rate bogan micro managers can’t bear not having their mignongs in the panopticon.
not sure if we needed to throw in the word “bogan” – but yes, mediocre managers anxious to be seen “managing” are one of the major drivers of anti-WFH rhetoric
A big problem is that these mid-level so called managers are really just supervisors. If there is none around in the office for them to hover over and call to meetings then their irrelevance will become clearer. This may lead to actual productivity improvements by the removal of a layer of ‘management’.
By ‘bogan’ I had in mind people not intellectually gifted, not well educated but not lacking self esteem. I have suffered from many of them.
I wonder if some of the pressure from execs and CEO’s to get into the office is due to the fact that the execs usually have their own offices, free parking and probably live close to work.