Employers and workers split over WFH hours

New research suggests women continue to endure an unfair share of household work.

Despite the WFH revolution, women continue to endure an unfair share of household work.

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Four in 10 clerical employees working from home say they have often or occasionally worked longer hours than when office-based, compared to 13 per cent who said they worked fewer hours, new research for landmark Fair Work Commission proceedings has found.

However, just 26 per cent of employers believed employee hours had occasionally or always increased while 22 per cent said employee working hours had tended to fall.

Just over half of employers and 47.5 per cent of employees said workers performed the same hours when working from home.

The main reason for employers refusing working-from-home requests was due to concerns about productivity but, conversely, improved productivity was cited by other employers as the main reason for approving requests.

Female managers were the employees most likely to have a working-from-home request rejected and female employees were seven times more likely than men to have a request declined.

However, more female employees reported being able to work from home without formal approval, and more males were found to have no interest in working from home.

The research by Swinburne University academics, which ­involved separate surveys of 398 employers and 799 employees covered by the clerks award, will be used to inform the commission proceedings to develop a model working-from-home clause for the clerks award.

Eighty-six per cent of employees who have had the ability to work from home said it had a positive impact on their work-life balance; 76 per cent said it had a positive impact on their mental health; and 67 per cent said it had a positive impact on their physical health.

Female employees (52 per cent) were more likely than male employees (39 per cent) to identify “household management” as a working-from-home benefit.

Three in five surveyed identified “time saved” as a benefit of working from home, while 48 per cent said financial savings and 46 per cent said ease of managing household chores.

Only 5.5 per cent of employees said they experienced no benefits from working from home.

Female employees reported experiencing greater levels of ­benefit for time saved (67 per cent versus 53 per cent) and household management (51.5 per cent versus 39.4 per cent), while male ­employees reported experiencing greater benefits for sport/­exercise (36 per cent versus 24 per cent).

The researchers said the household management findings supported previous commission findings about the unequal burden of household work for females that work from home and suggested this had not changed since the Covid ­pandemic.

Fifty-five per cent of clerical employers offered working-from-home arrangements for all or most clerical roles, 25 per cent ­offered it to some employees on a case-by-case basis, and 20 per cent rarely or did not offer a working-from-home option.

Primary reasons for employers rejecting requests included productivity (35 per cent), work tasks unable to be performed at home (24 per cent) and employee ability to work remotely (20 per cent).

Conversely the primary ­reason for approving requests was productivity/efficiency (42 per cent); because an organisation offers work from home as a standard practice (40 per cent) and because an organisation has supportive flexible work policies (37 per cent).

Employer level barriers to WFH uptake are that the role cannot be performed remotely (43 per cent); requires in-person client interaction (28), and collaboration is more difficult remotely (36 per cent).

Other reasons cited include managerial preference, legacy management styles that rely on visibility to override productivity concerns, company policies and the absence of a right to work from home.