INTHEBLACK March 2025 - Magazine - Page 43
Employees who work from
home two days a week are
just as productive, likely to
get promoted and far less
prone to quit than their fully
office-based peers.
x
e
i
l
F bl
Since the pandemic, Australian
workers have saved an average
of A$10,000 a year by working
from home, saving costs
related to travel expenses,
food and entertainment.
There are environmental
benefits in the hybrid model,
with remote workers reported
to have a 54 per cent lower
carbon footprint compared
to onsite workers.
g
n
i
e t i nk
h
Five years on from the start of the pandemic, the merits
and downfalls of hybrid, remote and in-office work models
are still up for debate. Which one makes more financial sense?
Words Susan Muldowney
IN AUGUST 2024, SIMON DRAPER,
secretary of the New South Wales Premier’s
Department in Australia, issued a surprise
directive to the state’s 430,000 public
servants: hybrid work arrangements for the
government sector’s employees were largely
coming to an end. The new mandate was
issued for “all staff to work principally at
an approved workplace, office or related work
site”, and attendance was to be spread across
“all days of the working week”.
Ways of working were upended by the
COVID-19 pandemic, with office workers
across the globe forced to work remotely
due to public safety requirements. As the
health risks subsided, a hybrid mode
of work emerged as the new normal for
office workers, enabled by widespread
adoption of videoconferencing and
file-sharing technology.
However, as the recent NSW Government
directive illustrates, the push to get workers
back into the office more frequently
continues, and organisations are trying
different approaches.
While companies like Intel have
moved to a hybrid-first model in response to
workforce preferences, Australian
energy giant Origin now requires all
office-based employees to spend at least
40 per cent of their time in the office and
has linked compliance with office
attendance rules to annual performance
reviews and bonuses.
While research shows that workers are
generally in favour of hybrid work, how
does it stack up from a financial perspective?
What are the costs and benefits of different
ways of working and which mode is more
financially favourable when considering
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