With home ownership out of reach, the workplace as we know it is dead

For a little over 1000 days, the Australian software company Atlassian has been allowing its employees to work pretty much wherever they like. Last week, it reported what it had learnt.

Its employees were more productive. On average, they worked an extra 40 minutes. They saved 10 days a year by not commuting. They spent 13 per cent less time in meetings.

The work from home debate is set to be a major issue for Labor and the Coalition.Credit: Jim Pavlidis

To some, this won’t be a surprise. Pre-pandemic, one of the most famous studies of working from home found a 13 per cent increase in productivity. Some more recent studies, though, have found the opposite: that workers are significantly less productive at home (though one of the authors of the original study suggests this might be due to poor management, as companies too-rapidly adapted to pandemic conditions).

The tedious conclusion is that it’s too early in this grand experiment to know. Which should prompt the question: why are so many large businesses so desperate to get their workers back into the office? Atlassian executive Annie Dean said this: “What we found is that these decisions tend to be made on a gut basis or on feelings”.

We should be wary when feelings dominate, because they can be the product of unexamined assumptions.

A Forbes magazine article noted that business leaders have been taught that face-to-face time is a proxy for worker productivity; that we tend to be more influenced by what we first learn about a subject, meaning older leaders cling to this belief; and that once we form beliefs we become good at ignoring evidence to the contrary.

These assumptions go beyond individuals, though: they are part of a wider ideology, in the sense that literary critic James Wood explains it: “Ideology is always trying to mask itself, and pass itself off as natural or even invisible.”

The emphasis on “face time” does not exist in isolation: it is part of a set of seemingly “natural” ideas most of us have about work being good, more work being better, hard workers being admirable, and that it is impossible to be both an effective employee and someone with other priorities.

Which is why this moment can sometimes feel electrifying. We are witnessing the first widespread challenge to an invisible ideology that has dominated not just businesses, but our societies and our governments since the last century.

Because “natural” beliefs tend to exist within webs of such beliefs, when one begins to crumble it can be an indication of others falling away too. Part of the reason work, as a way of life, is under threat is because of the significant shift in our understanding of home ownership. Once, it was seen as a goal attainable by all. Now that it has become unaffordable to almost everyone without inherited wealth, the connection between work and home ownership has snapped. This weakens the place of both in our society, which, in turn, weakens the place of big business, which no longer provides a reliable path to middle-class stability.

Similarly, as I wrote at the end of last year, drawing on the work of economist Claudia Goldin, the culture of office work relies on the idea that workers should be available, which has historically meant that, in heterosexual relationships, women are available for childcare while men are available for work. In that sexist model – the one now being pushed again by many businesses – lie many outdated assumptions about marriage, child-rearing, gender and sexuality.

Which is why I was struck by the language PwC Future of Work leader Caitlin Guilfoyle used when speaking to this masthead on the push to return to offices: “I think there is some element of chief executives having nostalgia for what has worked previously”.

It is easy to understand big businesses wanting to return to the past: a world in which they were taken to be forces for good, CEOs respected for their wisdom, people grateful for their jobs. But in trying to go back to this, they risk being seen as nostalgic for an old model of society too, one that now seems misguided to many.

For the Liberal Party, long tied to big business, the challenge of these shifts are clear; what is interesting is how bluntly the party is acknowledging them. As John Roskam, of the Institute of Public Affairs, noted last week, this is part of a broader refashioning of the party into the party of the “working class”. As Peter Dutton recently said, “We’re not the party of big business.” Scott Morrison, before him, proudly declared, “I’m no darling of big business.” This is a significant strategic shift.

Its implications for Labor may be more important. The times are tricky: inflation is tough and voters hard to reach. But if perceptions of big business have shifted as much as they seem, shouldn’t this be a fortuitous time for Labor? Labor, that is, as traditionally conceived, rather than the modern ALP which often seems bamboozled into thinking business is its friend.

There are glimpses of Labor understanding this, as with Anthony Albanese’s action on supermarkets. A more interesting sign – because it differs from the usual softly, softly approach of this government – is how little space Industrial Relations Minister Tony Burke has been willing to give to some arguments made by business.

In the current dispute between DP World and the Maritime Union, to the suggestion that higher wages are driving prices, Burke simply said, “Australians are sick to death of having highly profitable companies say everything is the fault of them having to pay their workforce the same as their competitors.”

On many fronts, we are witnessing a new society come into being, as invisible assumptions become visible and are unpicked. Judging the pace of that change is a difficult task. For the politicians and businesses who judge it right, and play their part in helping change along, there are huge gains to be made.

Sean Kelly is author of The Game: A Portrait of Scott Morrison, a regular columnist and a former adviser to Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd.