Hamish Macdonald, Carrie Bickmore lock horns over work from home

Hosts on The Project have argued over the perennial work from home debate, with one attempting to shut down a corporate advisor over the “new normal”.

Hosts on The Project locked horns tonight over the perennial work from home debate, with Hamish Macdonald and Carrie Bickmore disagreeing over the “new normal”.

While speaking to corporate advisor Tina Paterson on Wednesday, Macdonald argued absence from the workplace was detrimental to young workers, imploring workers to get back to their desk to learn from senior staff members.

“Isn’t work about more than just the outcomes?” Macdonald said

“If you don’t offer your employees flexibility, others will,” Ms Paterson warned.

Macdonald said work was about “culture” and attempted to make the case that someone’s occupation should always include more than just their workload.

“You want a culture, you want a space that people can come to and have friendships, have relationships, that build networks and you learn from,” he said.

Co-host Bickmore — who on Tuesday announced she would be leaving the show — interrupted and said she agreed with Ms Paterson’s take.

“They don’t, they want to be at home,” she said.

Ms Paterson said the power was now in employees’ hands due to the burgeoning skill shortage across Australia.

She said business leaders now need to shift their mindsets to overall outcomes and efficiency rather than ensuring their employees meet an “acceptable” amount of hours spent in the office each week.

But Macdonald continued his argument and said he thought “the whole working from home thing is nonsense”.

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The latest census data has revealed that Australian workers are still enjoying working from home, and there’s very little bosses can do about it. pic.twitter.com/y3klhuyuIh

— The Project (@theprojecttv) October 12, 2022

“I hate it. I think if you’re a young worker you want to be in a workplace where you can learn from people,” he said.

“Unless we think really clearly about this, I think you’re actually just pulling apart what the purpose of a workplace is.

“I think it’s diminishing the value that you can get from having a job.”

A new study in August showed more than four in every 10 companies no longer expect their staff to show up to the office.

A survey of nearly 1200 companies, conducted by the Australian HR Institute in July, found just 4 per cent required employees to work in the office full-time.

Of those surveyed, 7 per cent of organisations allowed employees to work from home continuously, while 34 per cent had no set number of days required in the office but did encourage it.

The average proportion of employees working continuously from home has increased from 5 per cent before the pandemic to 18 per cent.

Almost 30 per cent of companies are requiring a minimum of three days a week in the office and 16 per cent request two days.

More than half of the organisations revealed they were offering incentives to lure staff back to the office, such as social events and free coffee or meals.

“Work from home” is the top keyword searched on employment marketplace Seek, with many jobseekers choosing to search it over any job title or industry.

“Instead of just searching for ... a software programming job, instead of putting those words into the keyword search, they’re putting work from home,” Seek senior economist Matt Cowgill told news.com.au.

“People are telling us as well when we ask them that they are likely to resign and look for a different job if work from home isn’t offered.”