WFH expectations

It had to end at some point. Not sure why people are surprised.

COVID working from home changes spark uptake in regional-city commutes

 

not sure what is this 'it' you're talking about. it kinda says right there:

that's basically the crux of it, if the employers will insist on bringing people into the office for no real reason, they will lose all their major talent or they'll have to pay way more than competitors.

 

The major talent who decided to move permanently regional is already a small percentage though.
And who will they lose the major talent to?

 

Unless the competitors are insisting staff return to the office too.

I see some merit for being able to work from home at times, but personally I think it should be a privilege not a right. I work for a large ASX company and the work from home thing is a pia when trying to get matters sorted - to the point it almost feels like a giant rort.

 

well, i don't think anyone has a right to talk about remote work being pia, while at the same time offshoring jobs, especially to countries in different timezones.

when half of someone's team is in India, China or Philippines, it's laughable that managers would demand for local staff to come into the office, just so that everyone sits on a phone call in the office instead of their homes. or if you have face to face interaction, then you end up excluding half of the team, or the team members that aren't present have to suffer through poor meeting room audio.

the WFH bit should be decided based on each individual case. there are jobs that can be done from anywhere in the world that has an internet connections, and there are jobs where face to face contact is a must.

then there are jobs where its desirable but not essential.

maybe they should start with bringing offshore jobs back into the country.

i personally cannot say that 'getting matters sorted' has been any different due to WFH, because usually the matters that need sorted related to offshore people not being around, not someone local who's dropping off kids or whatever.

there are plenty of companies that made it work successfully, others just need to learn from them

 

I don't have a dog in the fight because my role cannot be done from home.

If being in the office is desirable but not essential, then its not unreasonable to expect those people to actually be in the office.

I agree about the offshoring element, and I even commented here a year or so back that wfh could backfire if pushed too agreesively. Afterall if someone can do the task from home, someone can probably do it from Delhi too.

 

i'm actually of the opposite view, if it's not essential, it would be unreasonable in my books, as it leads to worse outcomes for those people, with little to no impact to the employer.

that's the thing about offshoring though. if a particular job still hasn't been offshored, it's usually not because it cannot be done remotely, but because it needs someone with Australian knowledge/language skills, or you simply cannot find people with required experience/industry knowledge over there.

 

Each to thier own of course, but perhaps I'm just old fashioned thinking that while being employed it's not an unreasonable expecation of an employer that I actually show up - regardless of whether it's essential or not.
To not be required to do so I'd merely consider a privelage.

 

i look at it differently. it's unreasonable for an employer to demand anything that has no relevance to the job at hand.

there are a lot of things that fall into that bucket, like requiring back office staff to wear uniforms (or formal clothes), requiring them to travel when no travel is needed (for example flying people around the country for meetings that could've just as well been a call, or even an email/chat discussion) etc.

i believe some of that stuff now also falls under workplaces anti-discrimination regulations as well (like not promoting someone because they have to spend time with kids etc)

 

The problem is that whether your job can be done from home as effectively as going to the office is a matter of opinion. Your opinion vs the employers opinion, but only one of you are paying the wages.

IFA provisions already exist to help facilite employees balance thier out of work responsibilities, but these do not give an assumed right to anything - including wfh.

 

the bigger problem is that in a corporate world everyone is an employee (even the CEO). and half of those employees wouldn't be able to tell a good job from bad job even if their life depended on it.

and the people who are actually paying everyone's salaries (the shareholders) don't have a say in it and don't get a view into how the company is actually run, and how individual employees are performing.

but that's whole other discussion

 

My ex-colleague had her role made redundant while she was about 6 months pregnant. So bad. And she was in the process of building her first house.
Anyway, now her baby is 5 months old, she's just started a new job, and her new employer allows her to work full time from home because she's still breastfeeding. Now that's very family friendly.

 

Yep - very 1900s thinking ... and who says being in the office means they are actually "working" versus working from home but putting in the hours ... either system can (and is) abused by a very small percentage - being in the workplace doesn't mean one is actually "working" (cue the wandering around with and empty folder or talking to the dial tone on the phone)

However, by giving an employee the option - with benchmarks or KPIs - does it really matter if they achieve those results sitting in their PJs or in their pencil skirt? At 2pm or 2am (assuming the role isn't time of day sensitive)?

From personal experience, I've noticed that those who WFH actually put in more hours because they don't "leave" work - but also spend commute time on emails and getting physically ready for the day.

I see it as the way of the future - another of those "get on board or get left behind" moments.

 

Whether someone decides they can work more productively at home is a seperate matter to whether or not its unreasonable for an employer to expect staff to front up to the office.
Taken to the exteme an employer would be quite within thier rights to expect you to show up even if there is nothing much for you do there - they are paying you for your time afterall.

Wfh might be a good negotiation/compensation tool, but it does seem to have become an expectation bordering on a right to some people after the last couple of years.

 

Not all contracts are based on hours worked

 

Not all have wfh provisions either.

 

companies cannot 'expect' anything, as expectation is something only people can do. and like i said before, in most large companies, everyone is an employee. so who would be this 'employer' you are speaking of?

 

APS wide should formalise formal WFH min 2 days by March 24. Already in practice