The latest Taking the Pulse of the Nation survey from Roy Morgan and the Melbourne Institute shows that 88% of Australian workers would like to work at least part of the week at home, and 60% would like some hybrid version where they work at home and in the office.
However, only 49% of workers report that their employers would agree to hybrid work, with workers and employers agreeing on the number of hours spent working from home only 37% of the time:
Women are 25% more likely than men (8% difference) to want to spend more time working from home than their employer would allow:
The benefits of having a higher proportion of staff working remotely are obvious:
- It eliminates the need for workers to waste money, fuel and time travelling into central locations to work, potentially saving workers $10,000 a year.
- Because it reduces demand, it forestalls the need to undertake costly infrastructure investment.
- It provides greater work/life flexibility.
- It facilitates decentralisation – something policy makers have been trying to achieve for decades.
Basically, remote work frees up time and save money.
Ultimately, the hybrid model is the future of white collar work. There is no going back. It provides the best mix of benefits to both employers and staff, and also smooths demand for public transport infrastructure.
In an era of skills shortages, employers need to recognise the shift or risk losing talent to competitors.
The only cohort of white collar workers that could be worse-off from remote work are new entrants to the labour market, like graduates, who will miss some of the face-to-face mentoring and learning that office work provides.
