Working from home? These are the rules
Workplace rules are catching up with the COVID-fuelled working from home revolution.
The COVID-19 crisis has caused a seismic shift in the world of work, up-ending management resistance to employees working from home and producing real-time evidence that working remotely can meet the goals of both the boss and the employee.
The Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work estimates up to two million workers could feasibly work full-time from home as of today, including large numbers of managers, professionals, administrative and clerical staff whose work is done mainly on a computer or by telephone.
Alison Pennington, the centre’s senior economist, says the number working from home could eventually rise to four million, or 30 per cent of the workforce.
“Public health orders combined with an employer push to reduce crisis-era labour costs means working from home will be part of the working lives of millions for the foreseeable future,” Pennington tells The Deal.
Back in April and May, 46 per cent of Australians who still had work said they were working from home, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. In Victoria, many workers have been obliged to work remotely since March.
Employers and workers know the office environment will be very different when they return. The attraction of social interaction with colleagues could prove illusory as employers restrict access to shared spaces, confine workers to designated sections of offices and, in some cases, roster employees on alternate days.
Lifts will be reprogrammed to limit capacity forcing many large companies to introduce staggered start and finish times to avoid workers having to wait long periods before they can get to their desks.
Employee surveys identify the public transport commute as a cause for concern among returning workers, particularly for those required to cram onto trains and buses during peak periods. In Melbourne, returning workers face having to wear masks in the office.
Experts predict the post-COVID workplace will see the emergence of a hybrid working week model where employees work some days each week in the office and some days from home.
A recent survey of 1000 workers by the Boston Consulting Group found up to 60 per cent wanted to work two to three days a week from home, with these employees believing working remotely had increased their productivity.
Chris Mattey, a partner with Boston Consulting Group, says just 21 per cent believed their productivity had fallen while working from home.
“I think it has shown that remote working can work. What we’re seeing though is a bit of a pullback to say remote working has worked because everybody has had to do it but it could be even better if there was some working in the office,” he says.
Responding to the surge in employees working from home, Fair Work Commission president Iain Ross this week released a new award flexibility schedule. Acknowledging most awards are not equipped to deal with working-from-home arrangements, Ross says the increase in remote working had been “one of the most significant shifts in working arrangements since the start of the pandemic”
“It is likely the direct economic and social impacts of the pandemic will be felt for some time to come and that there will be a continuing need for flexible work arrangements to assist employers and employees in adapting to the changed conditions and to support the recovery,” he says.
The schedule’s working from home provisions aim for agreements that balance the personal and work responsibilities of the employee with the business needs of the employer.
Casuals will be able to request flexible working arrangements after six months, rather than 12 months, of regular and systematic employment.
As well as employees being able to take twice as much leave at half pay or to buy extra leave, the schedule allows for a change in the span of hours.
If they desire, workers will be able to work in the early morning or late evening without employers having to pay penalty rates or overtime.
Employees will be able to share a reduction in hours where an employer cannot usefully employ all workers. The schedule also provides for a compressed working week in which employees work the same hours over fewer days.
Enterprise agreements
About 350 federal enterprise agreements have provisions for home-based work or telework, enabling employees to perform some or all their work at home or at another site away from the office. While these agreements represent only 3 per cent of agreements, they cover more than 20 per cent of employees. Ross says the evidence suggests enterprise bargaining is not readily accessible by small businesses.
“While working from home is currently possible and permissible in many workplaces, the absence of express provision to facilitate working from home can impose practical constraints on these arrangements,” he says.
“For example, absent an express provision, other award provisions such as the span of hours within which ordinary hours can be worked, continue to apply.
“This can constrain the utility of working from home arrangements from both the employee and employer perspectives as it requires the employer to pay overtime or penalty payments in circumstances where the employee has sought the additional flexibility in order to meet their preferences.”
Attorney-General Christian Porter, welcomes the Ross move, which came as the government negotiates with unions and employers over changes to the workplace relations system.
“The FWC’s move is welcome and an appropriate recognition that, as a result of COVID, working arrangements in many industry sectors need to be much more flexible than is currently provided for in some awards,” Porter, who is also Industrial Relations Minister, says.
“A cooperative approach is key to maximising the ability of businesses to keep operating through the pandemic and in the post-COVID economic recovery and ensuring all parties work towards the key objective of creating jobs.”
Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox says the draft schedule is “an important initiative that will deliver much needed flexibility to employers and employees during the pandemic and the recovery”.
“A very large number of employees are currently working from home, and it is evident that workplaces will never be the same again,” he says.
But Pennington says the schedule is “all take and no give”, and risks smoothing out award distinctions between ordinary hours and hours subject to overtime or penalty rates.
“This would cut employee pay for unsociable and long hours, and incentivise one work regimen over another,” she says.
“Working from home would become second-rate work, banished to the outskirts of labour protections that are extended to the same workers in a formal workplace. A compressed working week and hours sharing across teams may be more popular measures with employees, but expanded JobKeeper IR flexibilities will still allow employers to pick and choose what they adopt.”
Responsibilities for employers
Mark Morey, the secretary of Unions NSW, says many workers had enjoyed working from home but “we can’t overlook the strains it has placed on mental and physical health”.
“In some cases, women have found themselves more vulnerable to domestic violence,” Morey says. “Working from home is also likely to generate a significant windfall for employers. Already, many white collar employers are scaling back on floor space, and making a major saving.
“Employers have a responsibility to plough these savings back into worker wellbeing. This spans everything from correct ergonomic assessment through to appropriate psychosocial support. We are living through a moment of immense social flux and we need to be attuned to all of the consequences it brings.”
Pennington says hundreds of thousands of private homes have become workplaces since March with high economic and social costs incurred by the “WFH workforce”.
“Employers have a full suite of COVID-era tools to adjust labour supply and costs, from revised awards, delayed increases to the minimum wage, and Fair Work Act exemptions under the JobKeeper scheme,” she says.
“But COVID-era labour protections are silent on the risks and costs mounting on employees in the home. These include upfront and ongoing costs of running a home office, long-hours working, income and job insecurity for employees with high caring demands, and the absence of national work, health and safety measures.”
According to a survey by Swinburne University researchers in April, more than 75 per cent of managers believe their staff will work from home more often after COVID-19. The main identified benefits of working from home were no commute, greater flexibility and financial savings while the main challenges identified were the work/home boundary being blurred, distractions at home and trouble switching off after work.
Pennington says “one silver lining of the WFH regimen could be a relaxation of top-down, command-and-control-style workplace practices as employers are forced to shift their focus to output rather than presence”.
Mark LeBusque, a management consultant who worked at Australia Post for 11 years, says he supports a more flexible working model where employees do not just work from home but can be rewarded for meeting non work-related goals on top of their work KPIs. “It’s about finding the sweet spot through negotiation and putting work/life balance at its foundation,” he says
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