Work-from-home rates fall but skill shortages may delay full return to Australian offices

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The number of people regularly working from home has declined – but remains higher than pre-pandemic levels – as many bosses force a staggered return to the office.

Some workplace experts believe the rate may hold steady in 2024, due to ongoing demand for better work-life balance and a skills shortage in some industries that may give workers more negotiating power.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has revealed that 37% of people regularly worked from home during August, when it conducts an annual survey on working conditions.

The ABS’s head of labour statistics, Bjorn Jarvis, said that was less than the 40% reported in August 2021 – when parts of the country were in lockdown – but still 5% above pre-pandemic levels.

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“[This shows] that many of the changes in behaviour and working arrangements have continued beyond the pandemic,” Jarvis said on this week. “Prior to the pandemic, the percentage of employed people working from home regularly had been steadily increasing by around a percentage point every two years.”

Dr Connie Zheng, the co-director of the University of South Australia’s Centre for Workplace Excellence, also expected working from home to continue in 2024 despite calls for staff to return full-time.

“The skill and talent shortage in Australia has not eased yet, despite the recent change of migration law that seeks to attract more high-end skills,” Zheng said. “This could only encourage those workers who are more likely to demand that flexible work arrangements, like working from home or remote working, be offered by their employers.”

But Zheng also said some workers might have been more eager to return to the office if they felt their career progression was being limited at home, or if they felt a sense of loneliness and isolation without social interaction with colleagues.

Some of Australia’s biggest employers now require staff to spend at least 50% of their working time in the office. The Commonwealth Bank, which issued return to office orders in July, said this would allow “connection, innovation and the ability to build and strengthen relationships”.

Other workplaces, including ANZ, Suncorp and Origin Energy, have started linking bonus payments to office hours. Many of these businesses have also paid for office real estate that was not being fully utilised.

The Australian Public Service has taken a different approach. It struck a deal with unions this year to ensure it could not cap the number of work from home days public servants could take.

Unlike Zheng, Jane Menzies, a business academic from the University of the Sunshine Coast, said she expected working from home to be less common in 2024.

“There are only so many Zoom meetings one can do and sometimes email is not always the best way to solve problems,” Menzies said. “So I think increasingly, people are returning to the office to have that human-to-human contact when it is needed.”

Prof Christina Boedker, of the University of Newcastle business school, has said staff would probably return to the office full time over the next five years. Hundreds of chief executives expect employees would be back full time within three years, according to a KPMG report.

Menzies said bosses who force staff to return for all working days, rather than adopting a staggered return to perhaps two or three days a week, could be punished by workers.

“It could also be that organisations have put their foot down around wanting employees to return, however this approach is very autocratic, and not participative, and could result in employee turnover,” Menzies said.

The ABS data revealed managers and professional workers are far more likely to regularly work from home (60%) compared with the workforce average (22%).

“While the pandemic has seen a large shift in people working from home, there haven’t been similarly large changes in other arrangements like working flexible hours,” Jarvis said. “Apart from working from home, most other arrangements have generally followed pre-pandemic trends.”