Work from home about more than achieving your goals | David Penberthy

This might be why Australia’s experiencing an unprecedented low for productivity, writes David Penberthy.

Next time one of your colleagues says they can’t attend a meeting because they have got something on, the reality might be that they have got nothing on and are getting it on.

Anyone who still doubts the dubious work-related benefits of working from home should acquaint themselves with the findings of last week’s Body+Soul 2024 Sex Census which, roughly speaking, is the horizontal folk dancing version of Newspoll.

In what may be an unprecedented low for Australian productivity, the authors of the report reported that 48 per cent of respondents under the age of 30 are having sex more often thanks to working from home.

With a reported 48 per cent of respondents under the age of 30 having sex more due to WFH, that be why Australia’s unprecedented low for productivity is happening.

Now, I am not a prude.

Being a journalist, I have worked with more than a couple of aberrant libertine weirdos over the past 30 years.

But I was always under the impression that doing the business wasn’t one of your KPIs when you were at your place of business, and that if you do feel like some enthusiastic and consensual fornicating you should schedule it out of hours when you’re not on the clock.

The Body+Soul people spoke to psychologists to examine the findings of their report.

The psychologists speculated that a more sexually satisfied employee was a happier employee.

But I question whether workers are really becoming more productive on account of forgoing their 10am Tuesday WIP so they could lather themselves in baby oil.

The fact that such an outcome could even be suggested is the most 2024 thing of all, in line with all that modern wellness tosh that infects many workplaces, and seemingly all schools, with the mush-headed concept of “me time” now elevated to the status of a human right.

Australia risks becoming a safe haven for malingerers. Through the continuation of WFH we are seeing a set of circumstances necessitated by a pandemic being strung out for reasons of slackness and selfishness.

I was talking to a mate the other day who has a senior role with one of Australia’s most successful homeware stores.

He said the difficulty of obtaining staff amid near-full-employment and a labour shortage was being made worse by applicants demanding to know if their retail role includes a work-from-home component. When he explains that, no, and derrr, there is no work-from-home component in a job that involves standing in a showroom selling things to people, many applicants turn up their noses and look for cushier work elsewhere.

There is nothing wrong with workplace flexibility.

For too long bosses ruled with an iron fist. Women in particular missed out as they tried to covertly juggle parenting demands or chose to forgo promotions due to their child responsibilities.

Men felt embarrassed taking a greater role in parenting.

Many years ago I used to put a made-up meeting in my diary so I could leave early once a week for 15 weeks to coach my son’s football team.

I figured I was working stupidly long hours anyway, but didn’t want to risk the embarrassment of not looking like a fully-fledged company masochist.

If you’re in a workplace that can accommodate it, and are achieving all your tasks, there is no issue with leaving early to get your kids if the time is made up elsewhere, or vanishing for a day or a half-day every fortnight and having that factored into your contract and pay.

Where it has gotten ridiculous is the idea of work-from-home being a normal proposition Monday to Friday.

It denies workplaces the benefits of collaboration and mentoring. You can’t bounce ideas off yourself in your spare room.

Zoom is no substitute for genuine face-to-face human interaction.

And also, as with retail, there will always be some jobs which by definition do not lend themselves to WFH at all.

In fact much of it looks like a white-collar indulgence as there aren’t many landscape gardeners, fruit cannery workers or boilermakers reading this piece who spent the past week revelling in the flexible delights of WFH.

The punchline to what is apparently now a genuine orgy of indolence are the federal government’s pathetic “right to disconnect” laws.

Now, I have no doubt there are some professions where this has become a problem.

But industry-specific problems need industry-specific solutions, not some ham-fisted blanket approach with the absurd threat of fines for any boss who dares send an email after 5pm.

And the reality is that these days most bosses would be loathe to hassle their staff anyway because it is currently a buyer’s market for employees.

As with the Body+Soul sexologists, Anthony Albanese even suggested the right to disconnect laws would lead to increased productivity. Two questions spring to mind for the PM: Why? And how?

The great double standard with it all is that people want the flexible benefits of WFH but would simultaneously reserve the right to explode in rage and race off to the Fair Work Commission if their manager contacts them out of hours. What are “hours” these days anyway?

We live in a country where it’s apparently fine to have a quick shag on the boss’s time but where you can also prosecute your boss for emailing you out of hours.

Australia should remember that one of the big drivers of the GFC was the collapse of the economy in countries such as Greece, which had mastered the art of endless reward for sod-all effort.

With the crass pun intended, the Body+Soul research suggests we are taking a similar route to penury.