Category Archives: Working from home

Victorian government faces backlash from small businesses over right to work-from-home laws

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Small employers won’t be exempt from proposed legislation designed to allow offsite working two days a week

Business groups have criticised a decision to rule out exemptions for small businesses in the Victorian government’s plan to legislate the right to work from home two days a week, saying some companies could move interstate or overseas.

Cabinet met on Monday to greenlight the work from home plan – a key pillar of Labor’s re-election campaign – with further announcements expected during the parliamentary sitting week.

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Italian woman awarded compensation after breaking ankle while working from home

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University of Padua employee fractured ankle when getting up to fetch documents during video meeting

An Italian woman who fell and broke her ankle while working from home has obtained compensation in an unprecedented court ruling hailed a victory for workers’ rights.

In April 2022, the woman, an employee in the University of Padua’s law department, fractured her ankle in two places. The injury, which happened during a Zoom meeting where she fell after she got up from her desk to fetch documents, required surgery and treatment lasting more than four months.

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Victorians could soon have the right to work from home two days a week under Australian-first laws

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Premier Jacinta Allan to announce proposal that if legislated would make Victoria the first state to enshrine in law the right to work remotely

Victorians could soon have a legal right to work from home two days a week, under proposed Australian-first laws to be introduced to parliament by the state Labor government in 2026.

The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, will use Labor’s state conference on Saturday to announce the proposal, which, if passed by parliament, would make the state the first in the country to legislate the right to work remotely.

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Victorians could soon have the right to work from home two days a week under Australian-first laws

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Premier Jacinta Allan to announce proposal that if legislated would make Victoria the first state to enshrine in law the right to work remotely

Victorians could soon have a legal right to work from home two days a week, under proposed Australian-first laws to be introduced to parliament by the state Labor government in 2026.

The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, will use Labor’s state conference on Saturday to announce the proposal, which, if passed by parliament, would make the state the first in the country to legislate the right to work remotely.

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UK employees work from home more than most global peers, study finds

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Exclusive: Staff in Britain now average 1.8 days a week of remote working, above global average of 1.3 days

UK workers continue to work from home more than nearly any of their global counterparts more than five years after the pandemic first disrupted traditional office life, a study has found.

UK employees now average 1.8 days a week of remote working, above the international average of 1.3 days, according to the Global Survey of Working Arrangements (G-SWA), a worldwide poll of more than 16,000 full-time, university-educated workers across Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa that began in July 2021.

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Somerset detective sacked for pretending to work from home

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Philippa Baskwill, who worked on child protection, found to have weighed down laptop keys with phone

A detective working on child protection, who was found to have weighed down the keys on her laptop to give the impression she was working at home, has been sacked without notice for gross misconduct after a disciplinary hearing.

Suspicions were raised when keystroke data – the record of the number of times the keys had been struck on the keyboard – revealed DC Philippa Baskwill had pressed the keys on her laptop nearly 3 million times in a single month – compared with the 80,000 to 200,000 average of her colleagues, the hearing was told.

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Parents working from home is affecting school attendance, says Ofsted chief

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Martyn Oliver says less office-going since pandemic has led to a shift in attitudes among pupils in England

School attendance rates are being affected by parents working from home after the pandemic, the head of Ofsted has said.

The chief inspector of the schools watchdog in England, Martyn Oliver, told the Sunday Times that the widespread change in working habits after the pandemic had led to a shift in attitudes among pupils.

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Work-life balance more important than pay for employees worldwide

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Annual survey finds workers have ‘multifaceted expectations’ after changes cause by Covid pandemic

Work-life balance has soared in importance for workers around the world, becoming their top motivator and pushing pay into second place, according to an annual international survey of thousands of employees.

It is the first time that finding or keeping a job that fits in with the rest of their lives has outranked salary in the 22-year history of the international recruitment company Randstad’s annual review of the world of work, highlighting the corporate revolution caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

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Lloyds bankers could face bonus cut if not in office two days a week

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Group reviews office attendance as part of performance-related bonus targets forsenior employees

Senior bankers at Lloyds could be at risk of having their bonuses docked if they fail to follow company orders to be in the office at least two days a week.

Lloyds Banking Group – which owns the Halifax, Lloyds and Bank of Scotland brands – has confirmed it is reviewing office attendance as part of performance-related bonus targets for its most senior employees. That includes hybrid staff who, in 2023, were ordered to be in the office at least 40% of the time, which typically amounts to two days a week for those on full-time contracts.

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‘They refused to let me go’: Japanese workers turn to resignation agencies to quit jobs

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One in six workers has engaged a firm to hand in notice for them, as younger workers reject traditional work ethic

Mari was just two months into her new job when she decided she had had enough. The position at an online bank in Tokyo, found through a staffing agency, had looked like a perfect fit for the 25-year-old, a member of Japan’s legions of temporary workers.

But she quickly became despondent. “On my first day they gave me a thick manual to read, and when I went to my boss with questions he said: ‘What the hell are you asking me that for?’”

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The great divide: are office workers more productive than those at home?

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Amazon has told staff they must return five days a week – but experts don’t all agree that flexible working cuts output

Four years ago when the world of work was upended by the Covid pandemic, confident predictions were made that a permanent shift in remote working would follow the removal of lockdown restrictions.

Much has clearly changed since. Some of the earliest preachers of the brave new teleworking world – including the US tech companies Google and Microsoft – are among the most vocal to repent.

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Santander to insist UK workers are in office three days a week

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About 1,000 of those affected work in London and 4,500 at the bank’s new Milton Keynes headquarters

Santander has joined the ranks of employers herding reluctant British workers back to the coalface, telling office staff they must turn up in person for at least three days a week on average.

While the bank’s back-office staff will still be able to work from home more regularly than before the pandemic, the minimum requirement now tips the balance in favour of the traditional workplace rather than home.

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PwC to start tracking working locations of all UK employees

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Accounting firm tells its 26,000 workers move is to ensure workers spend ‘minimum of three days a week’ in office

The consultancy PwC has told its employees it is going to begin tracking their working locations to ensure that all workers spend “a minimum of three days a week” in the office or at client sites.

In a memo sent to its 26,000 UK employees, the big four accounting firm announced that it will start monitoring how often employees work from home in the same way it monitors how many chargeable hours they work.

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London workers slower to return to office than New York or Paris, study says

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Office attendance in UK capital similar to levels in Toronto and Sydney, thinktank finds

Workers in London have been slower to return to the office than those in other global cities such as Paris and New York, a report has found.

London was near the bottom of the pack, with office attendance similar to levels in Toronto and Sydney, according to research by the Centre for Cities thinktank, which surveyed employees and employers in six big cities.

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‘Hold them captive’: Australian billionaire boss aims to end staff going out for coffee

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Chris Ellison, of Perth-based mining firm Mineral Resources, has already banned working from home

A billionaire mining boss who has already banned home working has said he does not want staff to step out of the office for coffee either.

Chris Ellison, the managing director of Mineral Resources, said the industry could not afford to continue down the path of flexible working, and that his company was investing in amenities at the firm’s head office in Perth, Western Australia, to keep people from leaving the building.

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US bank Wells Fargo fires employees for ‘simulating’ being at their keyboards

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Workers were sacked after review found they were ‘creating impression of active work’, says filing

The US bank Wells Fargo has fired more than a dozen workers for alleged “simulation of keyboard activity”, in an apparent attempt to fool their employer into thinking they were working.

The employees were “discharged after review of allegations involving simulation of keyboard activity creating impression of active work”, according to a filing with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

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Tribunal cases to rise as UK firms push back on remote working, experts say

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Some employers emboldened by ruling against FCA manager’s claim over working at home full-time

Lawyers and HR experts expect an increase in employment tribunal cases as companies increasingly clamp down on working from home and staff become resentful that the flexibility they have enjoyed since the pandemic is being slowly rolled back.

A number of companies are now advocating a full five-day return to the office, with others enforcing a minimum number of days in the workplace. Administrative staff at Boots, who previously worked in the office three days a week, will return to the office five days a week from September. Many US banks, such as Goldman Sachs, also expect senior staff to come in for the full week, and its chief executive, David Solomon, labelled remote working an “aberration”.

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NSW Catholic school sparks four-day week debate with ‘learn from home’ Mondays for senior students

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Opportunity to learn from home will ‘set students up for success’, principal of Chevalier College says

Parents at a regional Catholic college in New South Wales are welcoming a proposed change to the school week that would mean seniors spend Mondays at home.

Chevalier College, based in the southern highlands, has announced a proposal that would see students in years 10 to 12 learn and work from home on Mondays, a move the principal says would “set students up for success”.

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More Australians head back to the office and most prefer Thursday or Friday, study finds

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Exclusive: Transport Opinion Survey says in September workers spent 21% of their week working from home, down from 27% in March

As an increasing number of Australians favour the office over working from home, Friday has emerged as one of the most popular days to commute and be among colleagues, new research shows.

On average Australian workers spent just 21% – or between one and two days – of their work week at home during a two-week survey period in September, down from a corresponding data point of 27% in March. This is according to the latest Transport Opinion Survey conducted by the University of Sydney’s Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies, based on data from 1,029 respondents, who were also asked about priorities and transport attitudes.

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Bad management has prompted one in three UK workers to quit, survey finds

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Study shows widespread concern over quality of managers, with 82% of bosses deemed ‘accidental’, having had no formal training

Almost one-third of UK workers say they’ve quit a job because of a negative workplace culture, according to a new survey that underlines the risks of managers failing to rein in toxic behaviour.

Research carried out by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) pointed to widespread concern about the quality of management, and its impact on workers’ daily lives.

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