Should business owners lose the right to determine where their staff should work? It’s a radical notion, but it’s being proposed by the Victorian government.
Employers have always had the right to say where their staff should be sited, but the proposal is to take away this foundational right and force employers to accept two days of work-from-home for employees who want it. Lest governments in other jurisdictions are tempted to go down this path, let’s be more specific about the flaws in this proposal.
The key point is to allow individual firms the choice of whether to have work-from-home or work-from-work arrangements, or indeed some sort of hybrid arrangement.Credit: Getty
I’ll start by explaining how businesses maximise productivity regarding work arrangements and what we stand to lose. The critical element is that each employer has the right to set those work arrangements themselves. Having this choice allows employers to decide on work-from-home arrangements that work best for the business, depending on their individual circumstances.
A travel agent in town A, for example, might have lots of work-from-home employees, and that works for them for the type of staff they’re looking for and, as a result, they enjoy high productivity levels. That’s great.
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On the other hand, a consulting firm in town B might insist all staff be on deck to foster teamwork and camaraderie, which result in high productivity. That’s also great.
The key point here is to allow individual firms the choice of whether to have work-from-home or work-from-work arrangements, or indeed some sort of hybrid arrangement.
Allowing that choice allows the town A as well as the town B business to thrive. Denying that choice would – by definition – cause one of those businesses to suffer a productivity hit. The importance of allowing individual businesses to choose is critical not only to the success of millions of businesses across the country, but also to the national economy.
Some people make the mistake of making sweeping generalisations about what level of work-from-home is best for Australian businesses, but these one-size-fits-all proposals fail to account for what works best for each enterprise. They come in all shapes and sizes, with all sorts of business models, meeting all sorts of customer needs, and that is as it should be in a modern, dynamic economy.