Aussie bosses insist their staff work five days a week in the office - here's what their employees have to say about it

• Companies are offering return to office perks 
• More employers demanding staff come to office 
• READ MORE: Why the new ‘right to disconnect’ laws could leave millions of Aussies with FEWER perks

A growing number of bosses are demanding their staff return to the office five days a week – with some offering extra perks to soften the blow.

Just seven per cent of Australian employers had full-time office attendance rules in 2023, but the number is rising quickly.

That number has almost doubled since 2022, according to the Australian Human Resources Institute, and is further increasing in 2024 as the pandemic years and lockdowns fade from memory.

In order to speed up the process and make the transition smoother, some companies are offering perks such as work drinks, meals and games of lawn bowls.

One employersinsisting staff work five days a week in the office is ES Concierge & Co – a ‘business and lifestyle’ firm with high-end clients.

Mandi Ford, who founded the company in 2010, said ‘everybody in the team has different strengths and backgrounds’ which requires them to be in the office to easily share their knowledge.

Employer Mandi Ford (right) and manager Jacqui Walker (left) both prefer to work from the office

‘We could be doing anything from sourcing a restaurant (booking), planning a conference or a leadership retreat, to currently sourcing last minute tickets for Taylor Swift,’ Ms Ford told Daily Mail Australia.

ES Concierge & Co also handles tasks from finding a cleaner, to helping somebody relocate to a new country and organising a person’s travel arrangements.

‘Every day is very different. In order for us to be effective and to be able to find the right product or service to fulfill the task request… you really need to have a collaborative approach to action it,’ Ms Ford said.

She added the chain of communication can easily get muddled if some people are working from home.

‘If somebody has a question and they’re working remotely then they might call you, you could be in a meeting, you could be on a phone call, you call them back, then they call you back and then they’ve got to reach out to the suppliers, so the chain of fulfillment slows down,’ she said.

Jacqui Walker, a life and business concierge manager at Ms Ford’s company, prefers working in the office instead of at home, as was necessary during the Covid lockdowns.

She said being in the office leads to better quality work because she likes being around other people and working together.

Excite Technology Services CEO Bryan Saba (pictured) also wants workers back in the office

‘With the type of work that we do, you often want to discuss with someone and say, oh, what do you think about this or is this the right solution? (Being in the office), the people are right there around me to discuss it.’

During the pandemic lockdowns, Ms Walker said she ‘missed being part of things, meeting with people, collaboration, discussing’.

‘I think that’s part of being human, being able to interact with others … I’m certainly someone that, I think, my employer gets a lot more out of me if I’m able to be in that environment,’ she said.

READ MORE: Aussie boss’ extraordinary response after worker asked to work-from-home because of their bad hay fever

Ms Ford agreed, saying ‘how we deliver is a team approach and it’s in the best interests of our customers’.

‘Part of that is listening, hearing and learning. And if you’re not interested in listening, hearing and learning, then you’re in the wrong business,’ she said.

Excite Technology Services CEO Bryan Saba also wants workers back in the office.

‘It’s important because we’re a cybersecurity company,’ he said.

‘So some of the issues that we deal with have a lot of urgency and need really rapid collaboration.

‘And being in the presence of each other, you’re able to read body language and tone a lot better than over the phone or via email or video call for that matter.’

Mr Saba said because of the nature of his business, after the Covid lockdowns most of the staff were keen to get back to the office.

‘The culture in the office was something that a lot of our team enjoyed anyway,’ he said.

Mr Saba said part of encouraging people to come back to the office was about ‘retaining our people and culture and promoting flexibility’.

That flexibility means there are still some people who work four days a week in the office and one from home, or nine days a fortnight in the office and one day at home.

‘So encouraging people to come into the office, to promoting flexibility and so forth, it actually translated into a lot of people coming to the office anyway,’ Mr Saba said.

A major reason being in the office works best for Excite Technology Services is that the company promotes from within.

He said this means new hires are often juniors and they need to be in the office to learn from more experienced employees.

There are also some non-work perks to being in the office.

‘After our quarterly business reviews, and any sort of big announcements within the organisation, rather than just sending out an email we’re actually doing that over a team lunch and some drinks in the office,’ Mr Saba said.

‘Then we’ll head out to lawn bowls or something like that.’

Though full-time office working is not yet being widely enforced, 90 per cent of employers have implemented some mandatory in-office days, according to a survey of 300 hiring managers commissioned by recruitment agency Robert Half.

The move is not universally popular with staff, though, with almost a third of respondents saying at least one employee quit in response.

Legally, the situation in Australia favours the employer over the employee.

Whether someone is employed on a permanent, casual or short-term contract, they must follow ‘lawful and reasonable’ directions from their employer.

Even if this requirement isn’t clearly written in a contract, Australian courts have ruled it is ‘implied’.

READ MORE: What Fair Work Commission WFH ‘doom’ ruling means for every Australian worker 

A Fair Work Commission decision requiring a worker to go into the office is being celebrated by some bosses. A woman working from home is pictured

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