38: Working From Home In 156 Seconds

Hybrid Working In 156 seconds

No more traffic jams,

Picking the kids up from school - no problem

Tracky dacks, rather than suits or dresses - yes please!

COVID provided wide acceptance for working from home, especially for the 69% of white collar workers making up Australia’s workforce.

During covid, many even migrated from the suburbs to the country, while working the same job.

Bosses questioned working from home productivity.

but severe labour shortages, meant employees had the upper hand.

and couldn’t be forced back to the workplace after covid restrictions finished.

As a result, companies started reducing their office space.

Leasing and other costs declined, providing a welcome increase to company profits.

But working from home, month after month, is now causing issues.

Employees are craving more socialisation, with people other than, their wife, husband or family pet,

Young children at home can be disruptive, especially when there is a looming work deadline

Remember those unexpected coffee machine collaborations which solved difficult problems.

And, it’s easier for ambitious employees to compete for promotions and pay rises, when they’re right under the bosses nose.

Real estate statistics now reveal, a reverse migration, from country to city, is taking place.

Country rents are falling and city rents are rising.

Economists forecast a 1 to 2 % increase in unemployment during 2024.

Employees with growing mortgage payments due to interest rate rises, will be concerned about their job security. Rather than being isolated at home, workers will need constant reassurance of their job that pays their mortgage. That’s only going to happen, when you're at the workplace, bumping into the boss, every day.

And what about the huge marketing budgets, companies spent, building their brands, based on their corporate culture. Those cultures required in person interactions, which are now dissolving due to lack of workplace attendance.

Lets hope the skyscraper office towers, in Australia’s CBD’s, will still contain work stations and coffee machines for workers to return to.

Otherwise, the invisible Australian, working from home, could be replaced by another invisible worker, in any country, anywhere in the world.

Professor Mark Wooden of the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research is Australia’s leading expert on the effects of hybrid working. Settle into a comfy chair with your favourite drink and listen to Professor Wooden discuss the far reaching implications most of us would never have thought of on the Burgernomics podcast, Hybrid Working. The good, the bad  and the unknown.