Bunnings managing director Michael Schneider has warned Victoria’s incoming work-from-home laws could create “structural inequity” in workplaces across the state.
The legislation, which will give employees the right to work from home two days a week, will come into effect on September 1.
Bunnings managing director Michael Schneider. Supplied
Regular casual and part-time workers will be covered by the laws.
Small businesses with fewer than 15 employees will get an extra 10 months to prepare, with the new rules set to start for them on July 1, 2027.
Schneider said while Bunnings offered a flexible environment, he wanted to see a fair situation for workplaces across the state.
“We offer an incredibly flexible work environment, both for our support team and also our store team,” Schneider told radio station 3AW.
“But when I look at this legislation, it’s actually building in a structural inequity in our working environment.
“We’ve got a whole lot of teams who have to go to work and perform their duties – our store teams, our distribution teams, our manufacturing teams.
“They do amazing work all the time, but all of a sudden we’ve got a situation where our support teams under this proposed legislation would actually have a legal right to work from home a couple of days a week.”
Schneider said businesses were already managing flexible working arrangements.
“Our view is as a business, we understand the needs of our business, we understand the needs of our team, we have no problem with our support team working from home, but we think we’re really well-equipped to manage that ourselves,” he said.
“I’m just a big believer that it has to be fair for everybody in our society.
“We offer flexible work in our stores – we’ve got part-time team [members], casual team [members], team [members] can flex their hours up, flex their hours down, depending on what’s going on in their lives.
“It’s the same for our support centre team.
“For us, it seems to work perfectly well in everywhere else in the country, and I’m not sure that it needs to be different just because it’s Victoria.
“Employers do want to offer flexibility, I haven’t spoken to a business leader who doesn’t think flexibility is a good thing, but does it need to be legislated?
“Every business is different and their needs are different.
“I think business leaders are really well-placed to manage that.”
More than 3.7 million Victorians are employed, based on data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and more than a third already regularly work from home.
The Allan government has estimated work from home saves Victorian workers more than $5000 a year.