Woolworths CEO Amanda Bardwell recently announced the company — which oversees the supermarkets and other retailers like Milkrun, Big W and Petstock Group — would require 10,000 office support workers to return to office three days a week by October.
A staffer, who spoke to Yahoo Finance on the condition of anonymity, lives in regional Australia and would have a six-hour return commute to get to his new office.
Despite earning over $200,000 a year, the worker immediately started looking for another job after being denied an exemption to the nationwide mandate.
“I mentally checked out as soon as the announcement came," the millennial worker said.
“I immediately switched my LinkedIn search to ‘open to roles’, applied to [roughly] 100 roles, did several interviews in the next few days and made a decision eight days later."
The Woolworths Group staffer landed a job with another Australian company that guaranteed he would be able to work from home for as long as he wanted.
Do you have a story to tell? Email stew.perrie@yahooinc.com
But he had to cop a significant pay cut.
The remote worker said it was worth it.
“Making $1,000 less per week is definitely a negative, but it won't prevent me from living a meaningful life,” Steve told Yahoo Finance.
“I'd rather make less, work with leaders that embrace remote work and be happy."
Australian remote workers revolt against return to office push
The staffer isn't alone, with a poll of more than 8,400 Yahoo Finance readers finding 59 per cent would leave their jobs if they couldn't work from home.
He said many other colleagues — who were also advised of the policy via email — had packed up following the news and didn't return for the rest of the week.
"Everyone in middle management was reinforcing that by saying, 'Let this sink in, go to the beach, or go for a swim, let the emotions pass and then come back when you're ready'," he claimed.
And that could represent a more permanent shift.
“The people closest to my team have also said in private conversations that their peers are already on the lookout for other roles,” he said.
Angela Anasis, executive general manager of Randstad Australia, warned the "genie was out of the bottle" in terms of workplace flexibility.
The recruitment company found that 24 per cent of people were "prepared to walk away from a job" if they were forced back into the office.
Randstad Australia's Angela Anasis said workers were willing to push back against return to office mandates. (Source: Getty/Supplied)
“After four years of remote and hybrid work, officer workers feel they have earned the right to work from home and many have made life choices, such as buying a pet or relocating further away from the office based on the assumption that this flexibility was here to stay," she told Yahoo Finance.
Return to office but not with your team
One of the biggest grievances the worker had with the RTO mandate was that his team was based all around the country.
When Woolworths Group announced the change in policy, Bardwell said office workers would benefit from in-person collaboration.
But he said that wouldn’t be the case for his co-workers as they would be operating in different offices.
“For some, the main reason for searching isn't even to do with going back to the office - but rather going to the office and still not having their team mates there given the remote nature of the organisation.”
He claimed that when the RTO announcement was first delivered to office staff, many were told they could apply for exemptions.
The remote worker thought he was a shoo-in considering how far away he worked from any Woolies office.
“Less than a week later, someone part of the decision making for exemptions said everyone who was currently waiting for one (90 per cent of the subsidiary I'm part of) would not be granted one,” Steve said.
His understanding was if one person was given an exemption then everyone would want one, so it was easier to say no to virtually everyone.
The staffer said while he understood that Woolworths and many other companies want office staff to return to pre-pandemic ways, the world had ultimately changed.
“They lack the courage to think outside the box and try things in a different way,” he said.
How will the Woolworths RTO work?
Woolies is staggering its return to the office, rather than forcing everyone back in at once.
The move will affect 10,000 out of the entire 180,000 Woolworths workforce, and there are 10 locations dotted around the country where they can attend.
From June 2, office-based workers will only have to come in one day a week. That will get upgraded to two days a week from August 4.
Three days a week will be implemented from October 6.
Unlike competitor Coles, workers won’t be forced to come in on a Monday or a Friday, and will be able to pick the three days that work with them and their team.
“Over the last few years, we have seen many of our support team members successfully embrace hybrid ways of working, while delivering our group purpose of creating better experiences together for a better tomorrow,” Bardwell said.
“A key priority for us in 2025 is to create more opportunities for in-person connection to increase our responsiveness and better serve our customers.
“To support this, we are evolving our hybrid ways of working to ensure we better balance the needs of our customers and business, with the needs of our team.”
Woolworths and Coles have joined other major companies like Dell, Amazon, Tab Corp, the NSW government and many others that have ended full work-from-home rights for workers.
Some have introduced hybrid arrangements, while others have forced staff to come in five days a week.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics found one in three Australians were working remotely — with only a less than one per cent drop from 2023 to 2024.
"People who worked from home were more likely to have an agreement to work flexible hours", the ABS said.
