Employers offer staff the option to ‘work from anywhere’ in retention drive

Employers are allowing their staff to sign in and work from anywhere in the world over the Christmas holidays, as businesses offer unprecedented levels of flexibility in a bid to retain staff.

KPMG’s Daria Toschi packs her suitcase in her West End, Brisbane home before flying to Italy to visit family while working. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

Employers are allowing staff to sign in and work from anywhere in the world over the Christmas holidays, as businesses offer unprecedented levels of flexibility in a bid to retain staff.

Amid a post-Covid-19 worker shortage, the nation’s top firms are letting their staff leave the country for months at a time to allow long-awaited family reunions to go ahead.

Professional services firm KPMG’s “work anywhere” policy allow staff to take advantage of Covid-19-driven flexibility to work for up to six weeks overseas and combine that time with annual leave. The firm’s national managing partner for people and inclusion, Dorothy Hisgrove, told The Australian

“This is offering the flexible conditions the number of our people who have families and connections overseas need to connect with people they haven’t seen for ages.

“We want to retain our talented people and the easy thing to do was extend our ‘work flexibly’ policy to work anywhere, so your contribution to your work can be measured anywhere.”

Ms Hisgrove said the industry, along with banking and other professional sectors, was grappling with a staffing crisis as many people, bolstered by post-lockdown optimism, seek greener pastures.

“You could say it’s retention, but people have personal lives and professional lives and they are almost seamless with technology, so having a policy which allows anyone to work anywhere in a way that suits them makes perfect sense to me,” she said.

Ernst & Young Oceania talent director Alison McLeod said her firm had also begun offering an international remote work option for suitable employees for up to three months.

“We’re no different to any organisations, attrition rates are higher than they have in recent years,” she said. “I don’t know any internal recruitment manager who hasn‘t seen an increase in the amount of vacancies.”

Ms McLeod said that for many people work had been the only aspect of their lives they could change during the pandemic, and many were leveraging the economic comeback and high vacancy rate to find new opportunities. “There are a lot of people out there who want a change.”

PwC launched a similar policy this month called “Together Anywhere”, allowing employees with workers’ rights in eight different countries, including India, Ireland and the UK, to work from anywhere in the world.

Media company VCCP Sydney has launched VCCP Reunite, allowing its employees to reunite with family overseas and work remotely for up to two months.

KPMG manager Daria Toschi is setting off this week to unite with family in Perugia, Italy she hasn’t seen since 2017, and will base herself there for three weeks and extend her trip to the full six weeks if working remotely works.

“I think people are now used to flexibility and I don’t think people are ready to give it up,” she said.

“This is the silver lining of Covid … we have this flexibility and this allows us to have a more balanced life. We work in a team, it’s not important anymore if you work from 9am to 5pm, what matters is the quality of the work you do and your commitment.”