Westpac chief insists his bank’s work-from-home rules are equitable

Fresh from losing a seismic Fair Work case over the right of staff to work from home, Westpac chief Anthony Miller has defended the lender’s policy of two days a week in the office.

Westpac chief Anthony Miller. Picture: Dylan Robinson

Westpac has got its work-from-home policy of two days a week in the office right, despite a landmark decision going against the lender, it’s chief executive insists.

Karlene Chandler, who has worked for Westpac for 23 years and is currently a part-time employee in the lender’s Sydney mortgage operation team, last month won a Fair Work Commission claim against the bank.

The mother of two had asked to work from her home in Wilton, 80km southwest of Sydney, permanently in order to allow her to do the school run for her twin girls.

But Westpac refused, and a senior manager told her “working from home is no substitution for childcare”.

Ms Chandler proposed an alternative of working two days at a branch closer to her home rather than her designated office in Kogarah, 70km away, which was also rejected by the bank.

After lodging a claim, the Fair Work Commission subsequently ordered Westpac to accede to Ms Chandler’s requests, saying she had a track record of working from home “very successfully”.

Ms Chandler’s story made headlines across the country, and the Finance Sector Union claimed the decision “puts all employers on notice that they will need to have genuine business reasons to refuse a flexible working arrangement request”.

Now, Westpac chief executive Anthony Miller has defended the bank’s policy of two days per week in the office, but would not reveal whether an appeal would be lodged againt the ruling.

Westpac CEO Anthony Miller says that working in person helps people to work more flexibly on other days. Picture: Dylan Robinson

“We have one of the most flexible work-from-home policies positions in the marketplace,” Mr Miller told investors on Monday.

He later told The Australian that “we do think we’ve got it right with our policy”, claiming two days a week helped foster teamwork and that working from home was not possible for everyone.

“We just find that getting people together, working together physically just does help drive better outcomes,” Mr Miller said.

He said working in-person helped people to work more flexibly on other days.

“If they’ve worked well together, they know what needs to be done. They can work from home a little bit more effectively,” he said.

But he said that flexible working was not suited, or even possible, for every employee and he had to strike a balance.

“All my magnificent branch staff, they’re in the office, ie, the branch five days a week, every week,” he said.

“This idea that perhaps you have a right to something, when many of our staff who really help us be a bank in the community and doing business in the community have to be in the office five days a week – it’s just something that we have just got to recognise.”

Mr Miller said he was concerned for Ms Chandler’s wellbeing, given the intense media scrutiny there has been about the case.

“While we disagree with her in the context of what we’d like to do from a work-from-home perspective, she’s a valuable employee at the bank, and I don’t want to have her unhappy or unsettled,” Mr Miller said.

Westpac has until Monday 10 November to lodge an appeal.