Flight Centre chief executive Graham Turner says the ability for an employee to work from home depends on whether they are paid for output or for a process they perform.
While the Brisbane-based travel company’s default position is to “have people working from work”, Turner said: “There is a case for people who can work remotely, particularly if they are paid directly on productivity, on output.
Flight Centre chief Graham Turner says some roles can be done from home.Credit: AFR
“But if they’re not, for example, if they’re there to develop products ... it really is important that they work from a place where they can co-operate face-to-face with other people.”
Turner says this dividing line is key to determining who should be eligible to work from home.
Turner’s intervention in the national productivity debate comes as corporations wrestle with the impact of working from home on the profitability and processes of companies. The issue has been reignited after Premier Jacinta Allan proposed enshrining working from home as a right in Victoria. It’s occurring against a backdrop of lingering worry for Australia’s lacklustre productivity.
The debate about the role of remote working has grown more heated five years after the COVID-19 pandemic sent employees to work from home in arrangements that have become entrenched, even as they lack clear rules.
Citing comments from CSL chairman Brian McNamee, who lamented the effect of working from home on the pace of development of molecular treatments, Turner said there was a connection between sagging profits and working from home.
A slump in productivity in Australia has been blamed by policymakers and economists for the slowing growth in living standards and real wages.
“I think it’s probably over the last seven or eight years that our productivity hasn’t risen at all,” said Turner. “I don’t see anything that’s going to change that, and work from home is probably one factor.”
Chief executive of plumbing giant Reece, Peter Wilson, has also pointed to working from home as a contributor to an annual profit loss.
But the issue really depends on the nature of a given business.
Turner said: “There are probably some roles if people are paid on outputs that can be done remotely at least some of the time, but generally things that need co-operation between people really needs to be a work-from-work process, we believe.”
Turner’s comments come as Flight Centre posted lower earnings, and a flat outlook for the first half of the financial year, pointing to potential gains through improved processes.
Flight Centre blamed the worsening news from the Middle East and the impact of the Trump administration in the United States for a fall in profit in its full-year results.
The company’s underlying profit before tax sank 10 per cent from 2024, “driven by significant impacts of escalating tensions in the Middle East” as well as a $22 million loss from South-East Asian operations, where a botched rollout of a system produced incorrect invoices, forcing the company to take provisions.
Flight Centre boss Graham Turner says the Middle East turmoil and the impact of the Trump administration has affected the company’s full-year results.Credit: Attila Csaszar
The travel company posted underlying profit before tax of $289.1 million, down from $320 million in 2024.
The fallout of a second administration of US President Donald Trump had also taken a toll, the company said. “In Australia, bookings to the US decreased by 11 per cent during the fourth quarter – a sharp turnaround from the 7 per cent increase during the first nine months of the year,” Flight Centre results said.
Turner added: “The last 12 months has been reasonably volatile, particularly coming out of the states, with Donald Trump’s tariffs and other things, and it has meant that generally corporates are trading down, particularly out of Canada into the states.”
He said, “this seems to be starting to come back”, but the company believed the first six months of fiscal year 2026 would probably be “reasonably flat”.
Total transaction value for the company was nevertheless 3 per cent higher in 2025, rising to $24.5 billion from $23.7 billion in 2024. The company announced a 29¢-a-share final dividend, fully franked.
Despite a robust market for travel, Turner said 2025 “proved to be a more challenging trading period”.
He said the challenges were “generally cyclical and potentially short-term in nature” or within the company’s control.
The company flagged a number of propriety technology investments for booking platforms and apps, the relaunch of a virtual travel assistant, and an increase in customer experiences to “drive productivity”, including the integration of AI “as an enabler of strategy”.
“To boost earnings in a volatile climate, we have implemented strategies to hold underlying costs at [fiscal year 2025] levels, while pursuing total transaction value growth opportunities.”
Turner has been a fierce critic of work-from-home policies, saying many jobs could not be done from home.
“It ends up being very unequal and non-egalitarian,” he said.
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