The proportion of employees working from home in 2023 has hardly eased since the COVID-19 lockdown, with 35% of workers doing some WFH and 15% performing most of their hours away from the office, according to the latest HILDA report.
A model working from home clause in a key award should avoid contributing to remote workers working "long and unsociable hours", address employer provision of equipment and apply to all employees, according to a Centre for Future Work report.
The "labour productivity bubble" that arose during the COVID-19 pandemic can provide lessons for the future, and hybrid working can be more beneficial to productivity than wholly working from home or the workplace, according to a new Productivity Commission report.
Just 6% of clerical workers who seek WFH arrangements are knocked back by their employer, according to a new Swinburne University study commissioned by the FWC as part of the work from home test case.
The Coalition has reversed its stance on working from home in the federal public sector, while also shifting its position on slashing the APS workforce by 41,000, saying it will now be achieved over five years by natural attrition and hiring freezes, but the CPSU is warning this will still have a "devastating" effect on services.
The number of workers covered by agreements has risen by 36.5% over the past three years, according to the latest triennial FWC general manager's report, while applications to deal with bargaining disputes rose 73.5% over the same period.
Nine in 10 women responding to a major CPSU survey say it is "very important" to be able to work from home and those who do are more likely to be satisfied with their work-life balance, while the ACTU says Coalition plans to force public servants back to the office if it wins government will hurt productivity and women's job opportunities.
Interested parties have until 4pm next Monday to comment on draft employer and employee surveys commissioned as a key component of the FWC's bid to develop an award clause removing impediments to working from home.
The FWC has become overly focussed on verifying workers' eligibility for flexible work requests by imposing onerous evidentiary requirements on them, which has limited the effectiveness of its new dispute power, a researcher has told the review panel in her response to its Secure Jobs, Better Pay draft report.
The ACTU has told a review of the SJBP Act that employers should be compelled to accommodate flexible work requests - such as working from home - unless it causes "unjustifiable hardship", while unions should not have to demonstrate majority employee support for contested single-interest bargaining authorisations.
