Premier Jacinta Allan says Labor is prepared for a ‘fight’ with bosses and lobby groups who ‘cling to outdated ways of working because they don’t want to give up control’
The irony is that that need for control is actually shooting them in the financial foot. There’s been a few different studies showing that the WFH and other flexible work arrangements (e.g. 4-day-work-week) increase productivity.
But yes, I agree it’s about control (as well as the investment in office space, often in the expensive CBD, which businesses hate the idea of not being used near capacity).
The issue is that a lot of people consider WFH to be “stay at home and don’t do any work”.
You can usually pick them out because they are either;
Extroverted and spend more time at work socialising than work.
Most people in Management/Decision Making roles also suit this profile; they project their own unmotivated malaise on their employees and assume that all their employees would behave exactly how they would.
Oh, there are definitely those that would take advantage of WFH arrangements, but on the whole the productivity increase from everyone else seems to more than offset them. I’d also argue that a lot of the issue should be resolvable through appropriate employee management without being invasive or too overbearing (e.g. many companies already have daily standups or weekly progress meetings as well as employee development processes which should make it obvious whether an employee has become less effective after starting WFH).
It’s not “taking advantage of”, it “squandering the opportunity of”.
Those that abuse WFH are the ones who miss out.
Those who treat WFH as an office away from the office are the ones who can take advantage of the increased productivity to get more done.
The irony is that that need for control is actually shooting them in the financial foot. There’s been a few different studies showing that the WFH and other flexible work arrangements (e.g. 4-day-work-week) increase productivity.
But yes, I agree it’s about control (as well as the investment in office space, often in the expensive CBD, which businesses hate the idea of not being used near capacity).
The issue is that a lot of people consider WFH to be “stay at home and don’t do any work”.
You can usually pick them out because they are either; Extroverted and spend more time at work socialising than work.
Most people in Management/Decision Making roles also suit this profile; they project their own unmotivated malaise on their employees and assume that all their employees would behave exactly how they would.
Oh, there are definitely those that would take advantage of WFH arrangements, but on the whole the productivity increase from everyone else seems to more than offset them. I’d also argue that a lot of the issue should be resolvable through appropriate employee management without being invasive or too overbearing (e.g. many companies already have daily standups or weekly progress meetings as well as employee development processes which should make it obvious whether an employee has become less effective after starting WFH).
It’s not “taking advantage of”, it “squandering the opportunity of”.
Those that abuse WFH are the ones who miss out. Those who treat WFH as an office away from the office are the ones who can take advantage of the increased productivity to get more done.