(Image: Gorkie/Private Media)

Due to the latest outbreaks of COVID-19, millions of workers are temporarily back to working from home (WFH). But should they — and all of us — have WFH as a permanent option?

The federal government has so far shown little support for ongoing flexibility. Scott Morrison bluntly told workers to “get back to the office” in early June, on the back of a Business Council of Australia campaign to drive city foot traffic for the benefit of inner-city shops. But other nations are moving the other way.

Take the UK, for instance, which plans to lift WFH orders on July 19. Leaked reports last week suggested the Johnson government was considering legislating an ongoing requirement for employers to prove employees’ presence was essential before forcing them to physically attend the workplace. After staunch resistance from major employers, Johnson walked back the scope of the potential reform to merely allowing employees to request remote working arrangements.

Here’s why Australia should follow the UK’s muted lead and support an ongoing mix of in-office and remote working, even after the looming threat of lockdowns has subsided.

The benefits of continued remote working

About 90% of Australians want to keep working from home some of the time, largely due to the potential savings on commuting times and childcare costs. Some have even moved house on the assumption they won’t need to commute into the CBD every weekday.

The benefits of hybrid offline-online workplaces not only accrue to knowledge-sector employees, but to the whole community through fewer cars clogging our roads and polluting our atmosphere, eased demand for housing proximate to CBDs, more socially beneficial uses for commercial real estate and more.

It also enables greater workforce participation among people who could not conform to pre-pandemic standards of presenteeism, such as people with disabilities. Growing the talent pool could unleash innovation and productivity growth, which Monday’s intergenerational report shows is increasingly flaccid.

Many naysayers are invested in commercial real estate

Some might protest that shared workspaces better facilitate teamwork. But experts have recently argued there is no evidence that mandating working in person five days a week is essential for productive group work — technology platforms can be just as effective.

The standard design of “open plan” offices, with their isolated desk cubicles, can even hurt collaboration. Harvard Business School academic Ethan Bernstein found they led to 70% fewer face-to-face interactions than alternatively designed spaces.

Those standing in the way of ongoing flexibility also often have a financial stake in the matter. A major booster of Morrison’s “back to the office” speech were his former colleagues at the Property Council, whose members stand to lose out from a major rebalance in the uses of metropolitan buildings.

The Daily Telegraph also devoted a recent front-page report titled “Parasites” to property billionaire Harry Triguboff’s pronouncement that employees working from home are only “working half the time”. Triguboff would say that, of course, given he is Australia’s richest high-rise developer.

The right to switch off

Employers are also under increasing pressure to improve the conditions of digital labour.

While most employees who can work from home want the option, it can have nasty pitfalls. The ACTU found 40% of Australians who worked from home during the pandemic have been working more hours than previously, mostly unpaid.

Again, Europe has galloped miles ahead of us in policy deliberations on this issue. UK unions are now calling for a legislated “right to disconnect” from out-of-hours work messages.

The proposal is modelled on a French law that prohibits employers emailing employees after work hours unless it’s an emergency. Maltese lawmaker Alex Agius Saliba is leading a push for a similar right continent-wide at the European Parliament, which received initial majority support earlier this year.

It is only a matter of time until such proposals are debated here. In April, Victoria Police officers secured the same right in their enterprise agreement, the first workplace in Australia to do so.

Workers are starting to push back

The strength of employee sentiment around working from home and associated conditions has surprised many business leaders. But they should get used to it.

Workers across the globe are increasingly exploiting tightening labour markets to be choosier about which jobs and what conditions they will accept. For the first time in a long time, employers are starting to feel the pressure to actively attract workers by better matching their preferred working conditions.

Just as employers are loudly complaining about “labour shortages” instead of simply raising their wages to attract workers, painting images of slovenly employees watching Netflix on the couch instead of knuckling down stands in for employers’ growing fear — that they can no longer fully rely on a dearth of other options to make prospective employees so desperate as to accept whatever conditions their bosses wish to impose.

What do you say? Do you think working from home is the future? And should everyone get a choice as to their own circumstances? Write to letters@crikey.com.au and don’t forget to include your full name if you’d like to be considered for publication.