Now people have had a taste of working from home, it’s hard to shake the habit. Photo: File.
At the height of the COVID pandemic I, like many of you readers, worked full time from home.
To be honest I had no choice. At the time I was living in a different country to where I worked, and there was no way I could commute. And even if I had been able to, I wouldn’t have been able to get into the office. It was locked and no-one was allowed in.
I can hand-on-my-heart say working from home for myself and all of my colleagues proved very effective. But to be fair, we didn’t have a heck of a lot happening at the time. The pandemic had dried up all our work, so we weren’t exactly run off our feet.
As restrictions eased, and our office was opened again, several of our staff ventured back in. Mostly it was our young and single staff. Parents especially took the opportunity to continue working from home, which suited them because in many cases schools were still closed.
Unfortunately this arrangement caused some resentment and ill-feeling between the office-goers and the work from home brigade.
Many believed those not coming into the office were bludging, a feeling that was reinforced when people didn’t answer their phones within five rings, or took longer than two minutes to answer emails.
(The bar was set ridiculously low, such was the conviction shared by many office staff that those still “working from home” might actually be at the pub, kicking the footy around, walking the dog or catching a sneaky nap).
As you would have expected, once people got a taste for working from home, it was a hard habit to shake. Now employers and employees are grappling with how to get the balance right.
The Australian Public Service Commission has just announced Commonwealth public servants can request to work full time from home. It’s a very generous offer, and you can guarantee many public servants will jump on.
But in the same week, the Commonwealth Bank and the Finance Sector Union headed to the Fair Work Commission, determined to battle out a bank demand that all employees must spend at least 50 per cent of their monthly hours in the office.
Both the APSC and Commonwealth Bank arrangements will have their supporters, but also their detractors. You can be certain there will be many who are none too happy their colleagues are working from home, and not putting in the hard yards.
Conversely, those who are forced to go into the office run the risk of becoming disgruntled employees – and what is the worth of a workplace if the staff are grumpy and feeling under appreciated?
My office situation is now in the hybrid model. Some of the staff, who are based overseas, are no longer required to turn up for a couple of weeks each month. I won’t pretend everyone is happy with it.
And to be fair, I suspect a couple of my colleagues may have been taking the mickey a little when they were meant to be working.
COVID has caused a lot of long term issues, of which future working arrangements is just one.
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