Push to return to office life as property values plunge
For millions of Australians, working from home has become a part of life during the pandemic. Many employers are trying to get their workers back to the office and some including ANZ are threatening to cut staff bonuses if they don't return.
Transcript
00:00 It's hard to get an exact figure, but around 60% of the Australian workforce are in jobs
00:06 that they can't work from home.
00:08 But the ones that can are generally spending around two to three days working from home.
00:14 And there has been a slow return to the office in different sectors, particularly in CBDs
00:20 where people are facing long commutes.
00:22 And what's the evidence about the productivity of people working from home as opposed to
00:26 in the office?
00:28 So the research on the whole overwhelmingly shows that people are more productive from
00:32 home and that they can work effectively from home.
00:35 And I think one thing that often gets missed in this debate is that someone who isn't being
00:40 an effective or productive employee who has performance issues, if they're not performing
00:45 well at home, they're also unlikely to have been performing well in the office when they
00:50 were working there.
00:51 And so that's something to really focus on as part of this as well.
00:54 But what about the argument that for teamwork's sake, you've got to be physically together?
00:59 Look, most people don't want to work from home five days a week.
01:03 They do like the new hybrid model where you spend some of the time in the office and some
01:07 of the time at home.
01:08 We do need to get together for face to face communication that's effective for problem
01:13 solving.
01:14 It's effective for innovation and other collaborative activities.
01:17 But research shows we don't need to do that every day.
01:20 And there are different ways that we can do that outside of the office as well.
01:24 So what do you think of employers linking pay or bonuses to actually coming into the
01:29 office a certain amount of time?
01:32 Look, top talent will leave when they have conditions that aren't conducive to, I think,
01:38 a trusted culture or a high performance culture.
01:41 So taking this approach of punishing employees to try and get them back to the office isn't
01:46 the right approach.
01:47 We need to have an approach where employees want to be in the office.
01:51 There's a positive culture.
01:52 You know, there's a good working environment where people actually enjoy being in together.
01:57 But forcing them back to the office under those sorts of threats, we know from extensive
02:02 research against these types of things that that won't be effective and that good employees
02:06 will leave.
02:07 But as I understand it, it's only for, to say, like, if you don't come in at all, you're
02:13 not going to get as big a bonus.
02:15 But if you come in three days a week, you'll get the regular bonus.
02:18 But you're still uncomfortable with that?
02:20 Look, I think we're seeing around the world many top companies in some cases are not requiring
02:26 employees to come in at all or perhaps only a few days of the year.
02:31 So I think it's a mistake to have a one size fits all policy where we're tying attendance
02:37 to promotion or attendance to bonuses, because we certainly know that just being in the office
02:43 doesn't mean that you're being productive.
02:45 It doesn't mean that you're being effective.
02:47 So the idea of face time is not an effective management metric.
02:51 We should be rewarding good performance.
02:53 And we know that the new flexible work arrangements allow much greater participation in the workforce
03:00 from employees who may not be able to attend an office every day for various reasons.
03:06 And we have increasing labour shortages and ageing populations.
03:09 So it's very important that we start to think more broadly around how can we capture the
03:14 best talent and how can we get the best from them.
03:16 And so what would be a better way to approach it?
03:20 Having a positive culture where people understand there's a good reason to come to the office.
03:24 You know, people do enjoy spending time with their colleagues if it is a healthy work environment.
03:29 They want to be there. They want to enjoy that vibe, that collaboration and being around.
03:34 And so if people aren't coming to the office at least some of the week under this hybrid model,
03:39 it really is a case of looking into why is that the case?
03:42 Is there a lack of cohesion in the team?
03:44 Are there problems with leadership?
03:46 Are there issues with the culture?
03:47 So they're the sorts of things to start to uncover, as well as the cost of living.
03:52 For many employees, it's very expensive to commute.
03:55 It's very expensive to park if they have to drive.
03:57 So there could be numerous factors that can be started with a conversation.
04:02 And Libby, I just wanted to ask you, I love your workspace there.
04:04 Are you working from home?
04:08 I am actually working from home, but unfortunately at the moment I was in the office earlier today for most of the day.
04:13 But unfortunately, this is one of the wonderful backgrounds that we saw pop up during the pandemic.
04:18 That's a fakey.
04:19 My office doesn't actually look like this.
04:21 It is very nice, but it doesn't look like this.
04:24 Good stuff.
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