Overview
The new world of work is characterised by a hybrid model incorporating a level of home based duties. We can help you engage a remote workforce, deal with the challenge of ‘quiet quitting’ or ensure that you are across newly emerging legislative changes such as the right to disconnect.
Remote Work – Post Pandemic
The new world of work has ushered in many challenges from a people and culture perspective. According to PWC’s report: ‘Balancing Act: The New Equation in Hybrid Working’ (02/2022):
- Pre-pandemic, almost half of workers were in the office every day (48%). Today, that figure is (4%) [p 6];
- The average number of days that knowledge based workers want to work from home is 3.2 days [p 7];
- Almost half of workers surveyed reported that their “organisation doesn’t genuinely support hybrid working” [p 8];
- Saving money on travel is reported as being the highest ranked benefit of working from home “reflective of the decline in real wage growth, concerns around inflation and rising fuel costs” [p 9];
- 73% of survey respondents reported that their mental health and well being had improved with hybrid arrangements [p 12].
- The Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) Company Director Magazine (03/2023, Volume 39, Issue 3) also reported that 77% of ‘future work survey respondents’ agree or strongly agree that offering remote/hybrid working will be critical to retaining talent (p 45).
How we can help you and your business
We continue to observe some high profile organisations receive media attention for requiring their people to return to offices.
This policy position may involve either a return to full time office based work, minimum office attendance mandates each week or mandatory attendance on given days of the week such as Monday and Friday. This type of policy stance appears to be particularly targeted towards those staff members who have worked predominantly from home particularly in recent years post pandemic.
Also emerging is evidence of implementation over a period of months to facilitate gradual adjustment to office mandates and in some cases, the linking of annual bonus payments to compliance with office attendance requirements.
Be assured that we can assist you with all of your hybrid and/or work from home policy requirements including:
- Work from home/hybrid work arrangement policy
- Work from home policy refresh and review
- Work from home risk assessment safety checklists
- Difficult conversations regarding work from home
- Phase-in processes for new office attendance requirements
- Directing people to attend the workplace when reasonably required
- Assistance with determining the appropriate work from home policy arrangement for different work groups in your company
Work from Home: Updated (12/2024)
The Fair Work Commission (FWC) has now scheduled a timetable into 2025 in order to develop a model work from home term to be inserted into the Clerks (Private Sector) Modern Award 2020. This particular modern award is amongst the most common. With that, the Work from Home term to be contained in this modern award will have significant impact and application across workplaces in Australia. It will likely also be seen as a baseline or yardstick for the development of work from home provisions in workplace policies as well as workplace instruments such as enterprise bargaining agreements (EBAs). Elements to be covered in this term are set to include:
- A ‘work from home‘ definition
- any right to request work from home arrangements
- modifications or amendments necessary to other award terms that may impede a work from home term
- to what extent (and which classifications) the work from home term will apply
There is a dedicated website in relation to the progress of the development of this work from home term which you can access here:
You can also read the most recent statement released by the Fair Work Commission in relation to this matter (AM2024/34 as at 02 December 2024) here: https://www.fwc.gov.au/documents/sites/am2024-34/2024fwcfb447.pdf
Contact us today for immediate assistance with your work from home related enquiries.
Quiet Quitting and Quiet Vacationing
If you are struggling with employees who are simply turning up each day and going through the motions, you may be interested to know that there are actually a variety of tools and interventions in the HR space available to you. Depending on the nature of your business, one or more of the following may be relevant:
- Engagement initiatives
- Contract provisions (including in relation to monitoring)
- Coaching contracts
- Performance objectives and measures
- Variable compensation metrics
- Absence management (especially for dealing with ‘quiet vacationers’ working elsewhere including overseas or interstate without approval)
- Re-establishing and articulating reasonable boundaries.
Contact us today and we can help you explore options to strengthen engagement and reduce the impact of the silent resignation movement and/or quiet vacationers.
Right to Disconnect
A newly enacted workplace right in the world of work is the ‘right to disconnect’. It can be tricky to correctly grasp and apply this provision, though with HR guidance and advice we can help you:
- Understand an employee’s right to disconnect vs an employer’s ability to still make contact outside of ordinary working hours
- Understand the scope of ‘contact’ – ie: telephone calls, email and other communication
- Develop practical steps you can take right now – such as contract administration and revising position descriptions and duty statements
- Understand the factors to inform an assessment of whether an employee’s refusal of contact was reasonable – including:
- The reason for the contact in the first place
- The nature of the contact (ie: how contact was made)
- The level of disruption to the employee
- Seniority and scope of the employee’s role (such as the need to be available for contact outside of regular hours across time zones)
- Compensation already payable to the relevant employee to remain available
- Relevant family and/or personal circumstances.
- The Fair Work Commission have now finalised the ‘Employee Right to Disconnect’ modern award term (08/2024): https://www.fwc.gov.au/about-us/news-and-media/news/right-disconnect-modern-award-term-published
Contact us today to best ensure that you understand the new ‘right to disconnect’ and the industrial implications of this workplace right.