Yahoo Finance Work from home: How often Aussies 'should go into office' after claim 'lazy' approach will cost you
Is WFH a dead end?
A techie has slammed working from home as a "trap" for the young and inexperienced who are "lazy", "miserable" and "lacking serious social skills" because they’re spending too much time out of the office.
Career coach Tech Toby argued more young people in the corporate world should head into the office as one in three Australian employers indicated they were going to pay staff less if they didn't attend face-to-face, according to a global survey by Herbert Smith Freehills.
An Australian expert has agreed there's absolutely advantages to returning to the office, but said there's benefits to hybrid working, with an optimal number of days workers should be able to work from home.
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"One, you're all miserable, two, you don't have any confidence and three, you lack serious social skills and you don't know how to communicate with people," he said on TikTok. "And I only see this problem with recent Gen Z people that have started working from home because of the impacts of Covid."
He levelled the accusation that those who want to work from home are "just lazy", however many parents and people who don't benefit from work-place collaboration have found flexibility helps their productivity.
To find out if your boss can force you back into the office, check out our interview with a lawyer about your rights here.
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"I understand it, you've been brought up in a different generation to what I was brought up in," Toby said.
"You want everything given to you on a plate but you really need to understand that's just not how it works."
Dr Caroline Knight, a Senior Lecturer at the University of Queensland's Business School, told Yahoo Finance "there's definitely an advantage for people entering the workforce to go into work".
"I do think it's really helpful for people new to an organisation just to get to know people, to start networking, to work out who's who, to develop their social skills and just to connect." she said.
"And I know that some research does show that people who are in the office are more likely to be seen and potentially more likely to be offered opportunities when they come up."
She said working from home can work well for some groups more than others, particularly those with caring responsibilities. But, without putting a "blanket rule" on it, she did have an idea of how many days workers should go in.
"I'd say roughly around two days a week from home and three days in the office for a full-time person would probably be optimal," she said. “Because at home there are certain tasks that are just easier and you can concentrate more than at work, and at work people might get the connection they need in the office."
But can how often you work from home have an impact on how much you earn?
Fears WFH will impact Aussies paycheque
Toby has argued a consequence of working from home is being overlooked for internal promotions and pay rises as they aren't being exposed to more senior members of the team.
"You're missing out on vital knowledge from older people or people that have gone through your process,” he said.
"But some of you are going to be stuck on [$57,000 - $76,000] a year, probably for the rest of your life, because you don't know how to negotiate. You don't know how to get promoted. And also there might be some interesting work that gets brought up in the office that you just aren't going to hear about because you're at home."
Interestingly, it could be that those working from home have their whole wage reduced.
Of the companies that responded to the global survey, 37 per cent said they were planning to differentiate pay between remote and in-office staff in the next three to five years. Around the same amount said the right should be earned through trust and seniority.
A KPMG survey of 1,325 CEOs, including 50 from Australia, found nearly two-thirds of bosses believe workers will return to the office five days a week within the next three years.
The majority of bosses - 89 per cent globally and 75 per cent for Australia - said they would reward employees who made the effort to come into the office through benefits like pay rises, promotions, and better projects.
Nearly 90 per cent of Aussie businesses had now introduced mandatory in-office days, research by recruitment agency Robert Half found.
Four days in the office was the most common requirement (28 per cent), followed by three days (26 per cent) and then five days (19 per cent).
But John Hopkins, associate professor of Supply Chain Management for Swinburne's School of Business, said a "full scale" return to offices wouldn't happen anytime soon.
"I think hybrid work arrangements are here to stay. As a compromise solution, it works well; employers still get to see their employees in the office, while employees get to retain some of that flexibility they’ve gained since the pandemic," Hopkins said.
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