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A disagreement has been brewing in Australian workplaces.
It's been almost four years since a pandemic exploded our notions of how — and, more specifically, where — employees can do their work.
As 2024 kicks into gear, there's a strong push from office workers for hybrid work; that is, to be able to work at least partly from home.
But some employers are pushing in another direction.
Two-thirds of CEOs expect most staff to be back in the office full time in the next two to three years, according to an October 2023 KPMG report surveying over 1300 CEOs across the world.
And while Australian employees might have the upper hand in the current climate of low unemployment, some company heads are holding out for that situation to shift, says Ben Hamer, a futurist and adjunct professor at Edith Cowan University's Centre for Work and Wellbeing.
"There's a whole lot of CEOs who are waiting until the market dynamics shift, for unemployment to increase — which we expect that it will — to a point where they feel that they can comfortably come out and say, 'Alright, game over, we're going to go back to coming into the office,'" he tells ABC RN's Life Matters.
It's a move he cautions against.
"That's really dangerous, because you're going to really erode trust [and] you're going to impact engagement, which will then have a flow-on effect to productivity and performance as well.
"Hybrid working is here to stay," he argues.
The real question, as Dr Hamer sees it, is how to make it work for everyone.
Designing around work risks
Roughly 35 per cent of jobs in Australia can be done from home.
And about a quarter of those who have the ability to work remotely are currently going into the office full time, while "the vast majority" are splitting their time across the home and office, Dr Hamer says.
Increasingly, and across generations, people are seeing not being able to do hybrid work as "a real deal breaker" when applying for jobs, he says.
But working from home isn't a positive experience for everyone.
The University of Newcastle Business School's Christina Boedker says working solely from home is associated with less co-worker support and higher conflict with both supervisors and co-workers.
"There is also [the suggestion of] increased hassles, especially administrative hassles, and higher job target pressure."
Professor Boedker says research shows those working only from home also experience negative impacts on their psychological wellbeing, including "increased frustration, increased negative emotions … increased loneliness and also some degree of anxiety".
According to Dr Hamer, the key to mitigating those risks is "designing our weeks with intentionality".
"We know that the office is best for collaboration, for social connection, building relationships, coming together so we can [then] work better apart," he says.
"And the home is better for deep thinking, for research, for writing reports, for getting through all those endless emails that seemed to be clogging up our inbox."
A well-designed working week — for example, one in which someone isn't in back-to-back video meetings when they do get into the office — can draw out the best of both worlds.
Skilling up managers is another way to make hybrid work run more smoothly.
Manager training is incredibly important but largely under-utilised, says economist Sarah McCann-Bartlett, the CEO of the Australian HR Institute (AHRI).
"Our research shows that under 30 per cent of organisations have trained managers on how to manage hybrid or remote workers," Ms McCann-Bartlett says.
"That is something that we all need to be looking at."
Evolving hybrid models
Ms McCann-Bartlett says KPMG's isn't the only research to suggest "that remote working [will] be dead within five years".
But she says those findings contradict data from her own organisation's research in 2023.
That research involved surveying HR professionals, rather than CEOs, and Ms McCann-Bartlett sees that as a key difference.
"While not being disrespectful to CEOs, [they] have these visions for what they want and how they like to work that doesn't actually necessarily work in terms of … what employees want.
"Our research found that hybrid working is here to stay."
But Ms McCann-Bartlett says hybrid work models will change over time — not least because how people want to work is changing, too.
"[In 2022] the most popular model was where employers said, 'We'd like you to come back into the office a bit, but we're not going to tell you how much.'"
She says in 2023 that shifted to workers preferring to be asked to come into the office for a mandatory minimum of days.
'Not a huge change'
Working from home in some capacity "is not a new thing", says Michele O'Neil, president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU).
"Sometimes people talk about it like it was just a COVID phenomenon," Ms O'Neil says.
But she says prior to the pandemic, 32 per cent of people in Australia worked from home at some point in the working week, and "now it's sitting at 37 per cent".
"So that is not a huge change."
What has changed is the legislation surrounding flexible work arrangements. A federal bill introduced last year means workers now have more rights to flexible — including hybrid — work.
"What's changed in the law is that you now have a right not just to request flexible work, but your employer has got an obligation to consider that work and have discussions with you about it. And they can only refuse it if there's reasonable business grounds. And they've got to give you reasons for that, they've got to consider other options.
"And ultimately, the worker's got a right to go off to the independent umpire at the Fair Work Commission ... if there's a disagreement between the worker and the boss."
Flexibility promotes diversity
KPMG's global survey also found that company heads want to set incentives, including offering promotions or paying more salary, for those who work in the office more often.
But Dr Hamer says that would signify a shift from unconscious bias to conscious bias, and would be a hit to "advancements we've made around diversity and inclusion within our organisations".
"What the research shows us is that more females than males work from home. And so we'll be disproportionately favouring the males who come into the office, and that goes against efforts to close the gender pay gap."
For working male parents, lack of flexibility can limit their ability "to be able to take on [their] fair share of the domestic duties as well".
Ms McCann-Bartlett says flexibility, including hybrid work, "promotes diversity in your workforce."
She says that's something every workplace should be striving for, not just because it broadens the jobs pool.
"You want your employees to actually reflect your customers and the general population," she says.
Dr Hamer believes workplaces that push back against flexibility reveal a problem at an executive level.
"This is where I think CEOs are disconnected from their people," he says.
"CEOs come from a position of privilege. They often drive into the office, they have a car space, they're on a comfortable salary where they don't have to worry about the cost of the commute," he says.
"But in a survey I did with Australian workers, we found that the number one reason why they like to work from home is not so they can do a load of washing in between meetings. It's the money that they save in a cost-of-living crisis. And that's not recognised and appreciated by the decision makers who are mandating them to come in.
"One size fits nobody," he says.
"Every role is different. Some roles might be best suited in the office five days a week. Others might be best suited one day a month.
"It's that nuance that we have to ease into and lean into."
The Australian Industry Group (Ai Group) was approached for comment but wasn't able to meet the article deadline.
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