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Flexible working

This Month

Lendlease chief executive Tony Lombardo says senior leaders should be back in the office.

WFH is a mess for ASX giants. It will only get messier

While Australia’s biggest companies have accepted hybrid work is here to stay, they remain uneasy about its impact. The debate is far from settled.

  • James Thomson
Working mums were among the biggest winners of the working-from-home revolution, CEDA analysis shows.

Study reveals the biggest winners from working from home

New research finds flexible working has boosted workforce participation for carers, working mums and people with a disability or health condition.

  • Euan Black

October

There’s nothing stopping staff from asking their bosses for compressed hours.

Office mandates on the rise as jobs market softens: experts

The trend back to the office has further to run in the short term as power swings back toward employers. But there may be limits to that shift.

  • Nick Lenaghan
Japan has created a special visa for digital nomads.

Japan joins the race to woo digital nomads

Meet-ups, start-ups and special visas. Japan is doing everything it can to attract the work-from-anywhere crowd.

  • Yuichi Negi

Four-day week comes to the finance industry

Insignia has become the first company in financial services industry – known for its long hours – to trial a four-day week for workers, under a union deal that also includes greater recognition of AI.

  • David Marin-Guzman
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September

The benefits of working in the office might be overstated.

WFH is hugely more productive than CEOs admit

Demands for workers to return to the office full-time have a rose-tinted view of in-person work.

  • Emma Jacobs
A WeWork hub in Sydney.

Auditors warn WeWork hubs face ‘uncertainty’

Even though the co-working giant’s US parent has emerged from bankruptcy with considerably less debt, its local loss-making operation faces “significant doubt”, its auditors say.

  • Nick Lenaghan
Amazon

Amazon orders staff back to the office five days a week

The new rule appears to be the most stringent return-to-office decision among big tech companies and could be a harbinger of more to come.

  • Karen Weise and Emma Goldberg
A surge in people wanting to work from home, and leaving our cities for regional areas, means our infrastructure needs have changed sharply.

Deloitte monitors staff logging in from overseas

Businesses that offered flexible “work from anywhere” perks after the pandemic now struggle to keep a lid on workers who relocate around the globe.

  • Adam Mawardi
AFR. NEWS. GOLD COAST. Lawyers Sienna Marshall and Charles Lethbridge on Coolangatta Beach on the Gold Coast. Picture by Paul Harris. Wednesday 11 September 2024 .

Happy lawyers are better ones: Firm provides unique ways to decompress

Attwood Marshall’s location next to Snapper Rocks means lawyers can catch waves to decompress from the stresses of legal work.

  • Maxim Shanahan
Investors are trying to work out whether it is time to buy bombed-out office property owners.

Office values drop 22pc in two years. When will they bottom?

That is a big fall in defensive, long-life assets. It’s part working from home, part interest rates. It can’t continue forever, but it hasn’t slowed yet.

  • Anthony Macdonald
London commuters at Waterloo station.

London and Sydney workers slow to return to office: study

London workers spend 2.7 days in the office and Sydney 2.8 days, well behind Paris, New York and Singapore.

  • Irina Anghel

August

Commuters cross London Bridge on their way to work at the City of London.

UK workers to gain right to four-day week, business ‘petrified’

A new package of legal rights is set to include “compressed hours”, which lets an employee work their contracted week’s hours in four days rather than five.

  • Ben Riley-Smith
Work points to staff ratios for federal hybrid working work places is moving from one to one, to eight work points to ten staff members.

Remote working drives down federal office costs

More workers are sharing desks and work stations as part of flexible work, pushing average staff costs down by $850 per worker.

  • Tom Burton
Newport Beach

Why CEOs working from home may be the new trend

Starbucks’ new boss Brian Niccol has decided to base himself in California rather than headquarters, dividing opinion among workplace experts.

  • Michael O’Dwyer and Emma Jacobs
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Digital nomads are roaming the world, looking for locales that will most benefit them.

The best countries for digital nomads to call home

Nine of the top 10 countries for digital nomads’ quality of life are in Europe, including some surprises such as the Netherlands and Norway.

  • Lebawit Lily Girma

July

‘I’m going to get a margarita, and I’ll be back’: why CEOs work on holidays

With remote work now the norm for large numbers of professionals and connectivity at near constant levels, for many senior people in business, switching off completely is unrealistic.

  • Oliver Balch
Taking a break but still working – known as a working holiday – is an increasingly common way for workers to get some clear air.

Working from beach is the new WFH (just don’t tell your boss)

Work from anywhere policies – allowing staff to spend some time abroad on the clock – makes people more likely to stay at a company for longer, a survey found.

  • Lauren Shirreff

The 19 corporate giants behind Sydney’s tumbling office values

Australia’s biggest companies have cut close to 200,000 square metres from their Sydney CBD office footprints. And so far, only Westpac is considering expanding again.

  • Campbell Kwan

Just 7pc of British bosses say they go into the office full-time

The findings could open employers up to accusations of hypocrisy from angry staff who have been forced back to their desks.

  • Lucy Burton

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/topic/flexible-working-5xc