Employer or Employee? Who will win the debate on flexible working?

Employer or Employee? Who will win the debate on flexible working?

Recently I saw a news piece on The Project TV which revealed on census night in 2021, 1 in 5 Australian workers were working from home. Additionally, with cost-of-living pressures, the price of petrol and the value workers place on their time employees are still pushing for greater flexibility with the work they do.

A US study (according to The Project) mentions that 40% of remote workers would rather quit than be forced back to the office full-time and 7% would take a pay cut to make it happen.

But where do our employers land?

In the findings of Geelong HR Index 2022, conducted by Harvest and released in October 2022, many employers are yet to be clear on the best hybrid working arrangement for staff that don’t need to be at the office to do their work. Of over 100 employers surveyed, only 9% said their employees chose their preferred working arrangement; meaning the majority of our region’s organisations are setting the tone for hybrid work.

A 2021 study by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) found that 74% of people want to work across multiple places and spaces, 16% want to work entirely remotely and only 10% want to return to their office five days per week.

The Geelong HR Index 2022 discovered that our larger employers are more open to diverse hybrid work models where the hybrid working arrangement is decided at a team level; based on the work to be done; or the common three days in office, two at home model. However, many of our small employers (which make up the majority of businesses in the region) are more rigid and want their workers back at the office, with one-third of our small employers (those employing 20 – 100 staff) seeking their workers to be site based.

Further, those employers where the office is secondary to the main product/service being produced or delivered were more rigid. These included property/construction and real estate (60%), while 50% of agriculture and food, education and energy and resources sectors wanted their staff back at the office.

Further, data from Gartner shows that “employees are three times more likely to be high performers when given flexibility over where, when and how they work”. In addition, they found there is increased levels of enterprise contribution and high levels of inclusion that derive from granting such flexibility.

Today, it’s an employees’ market. With severe talent shortages and difficulty in attracting staff (25% of respondents in the HR Index stated a key barrier to attraction is inability to compete with organisations who provide more favourable conditions), it will be the worker that decides their working arrangement. If not offered by their employer they will find one that does.

Over the next 12 months we will see some significant departures. A McKinsey study of 13,382 global workers, reported in July 2022 that in the next 3 – 6 months 40% of workers are considering quitting their current jobs. One of McKinsey’s report authors, Bonnie Dowling, reported that companies need to reshape how we work and build a better model. Further, she stated “It’s everything from embedding flexibility in our credo to re-assessing how we value our employees and provide them with the resources they need to do their job … all employers have the capacity to make these meaningful changes.”

Geelong, is a city full of potential, seen as “Clever and Creative” and our companies and our employers are now, more than ever, going to be challenged to be more creative when it comes to working arrangements and keeping their staff.