Sydney Randwick Council ban working from home order staff into office five days a week

Staff at a local council are up in arms after they were ordered to stop working from home and return to the office five days a week.

Randwick Council, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, has told its staff they must come back into the office for five days a week by September 11 or their jobs will be at risk.

Staff who currently work a hybrid model of non-compulsory attendance for some roles are resisting the move claiming it disadvantages women, will lower morale and lead to an exodus of employees.

A council spokesperson says bringing all staff together into the office will lead to more collaboration, better on-the-job learning, coaching and development and improved customer service.

An anonymous email sent to Randwick councillors last month outlined a number of objections to the order.

‘This decision has failed to consider the impact on staff – family commitments, mental health and wellbeing, commuting times and the financial burden imposed during the current economic crisis,’ the email reads according to the Sydney Morning Herald. 

The email also argued changing work arrangements would ‘disproportionately affects women, who typically bear the majority of care work responsibilities’. 

Union leader Ian Robertson, who is head of the Development and Environmental Professionals’ Association, said he was being told members would quit if dragged back into the office.

‘Already I’m getting feedback from members that if this happens they will look at working elsewhere,’ he wrote in a letter to the council’s acting general manager. 

The council spokesperson argued not all staff preferred the hybrid model.

 ‘We heard from our staff that many worked longer hours when working at home and there was no clear delineation between home and work life,’ she said.

Working from home, which was widely adopted during the Covid pandemic period, is emerging as a major fault-line between workers and bosses as the economy continues to deteriorate.

In an Australian Financial Review survey of corporate heavyweights in June, Telstra chairman John Mullen accused those working from home of abusing the working from home privilege for a drop in productivity. 

Bosses are growing increasingly irritable about staff working from home and claim it leads to lower productivity

‘It is contestable, but I wonder if the very recent declines have not been exacerbated by the working from home trend since the start of the pandemic,’ Mr Mullen said

‘Anecdotally, many people are definitely working harder than ever and being more productive, but I don’t think this goes for everyone.’

Sydney Hydro director Tony Shepherd also said working from home was less productive.

‘During the pandemic, working from home, absenteeism, disruption of supply chains all had a negative impact on productivity and continue to do so,’ he said.

Canstar finance expert Steve Mickenbecker agreed that staff working from home could be more difficult for bosses to keep tabs on their employees.

‘It’s a more challenging landscape for employers to manage input,’ he told Daily Mail Australia.

‘The issue is working from home is that the collaboration starts breaking down a little bit.

‘There’s not somebody right at the next desk that you can “say how do you do this or what about we try this?”. You don’t get those conversations very regularly.

‘Those elements of creativity and spontaneity in the workplace start falling down and so does a bit of the culture and the team kind of feel.’ 

A commercial property business boss went so far as slamming ‘selfish’ employees for choosing to work from home in May. 

Canstar finance expert Steve Mickenbecker says working from home can hurt collaboration

CR Commercial Property Group chief executive and managing director Nicole Duncan told 2GB’s Ben Fordham she was ‘passionate’ about people returning to their offices in city centres.

‘This generation is so selfish,’ she said.

‘In our younger days, we caught trains, buses, and ferries to get to work,’ she said.

 ‘Yes, it did take two or three hours, but you’ve got to be in the office.

‘Until CEOs make a decision and get bolshy about this, it’s not going to change because the unemployment rate is still too low.’