COVID forced millions of Australians into an accidental experiment.
Before the virus disrupted our lives, only 8 per cent of Australians regularly worked at home.
That number jumped to about 40 per cent during the height of lockdowns and has remained high even as the virus starts to recede.
And while many job types do not have the option to work from home, it's something that affects the daily lives of millions of Australian households.
Now we sit at a crossroads.
What the pandemic made us realise was that for many, working from home was a viable, even preferable option.
Now that it's possible again, do we want to return to the office?
"There's no doubt that Pandora's box has been opened," says author and trend forecaster Michael McQueen.
"And it's unlikely we're going to go back to the way that things were in the pre-pandemic days of people working in an office full time."
A study released in September by the National Bureau of Economic Research in the US found 35 per cent of Australians said they would quit their job or start looking for another if their employer forced them to return to the office full time.
In a stark demonstration of how valuable people find having the flexibility to work remotely, Australians equated it to about 5.3 per cent of their pay packet — meaning they would be prepared to take more than a 5 per cent pay cut if it meant the option to work from home two to three days a week.
The Australian government's Productivity Commission released its working from home research paper in September last year, describing the forced experiment as "a major change in the labour market that has occurred at unprecedented speed".
The survey also found that most workers highly value the option to work from home and reiterated that they would be willing to take a pay cut or change jobs in order to keep doing it.
The primary reason? To avoid the commute.
Before COVID, full-time workers in Australia's capital cities spent an average of 67 minutes a day travelling to and from work.
The Productivity Commission concluded: "Working from home represents a potential overall gain to society, and there is a strong case to allow workers and firms to negotiate mutually beneficial outcomes."
Mr McQueen says a large group of workers has settled into a pattern of working from home Mondays and Fridays and heading into the office Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays — earning the nickname "TWATs".
The Australian report said in all likelihood "productivity will remain the same or improve under more widespread working from home".
Since lockdowns eased and most people got vaccinated, companies and their staff are organically figuring out the right balance between returning to the office and working from home.
'The benefits just don't stop'
Tilly Cole works in HR for a law firm. One day in March, 2020, everyone was sent home.
"We knew COVID was coming but all of a sudden, we were told to pack up our laptops and start working from home."
She says that sudden transition changed her life, and the lives of her husband and two young kids.
"I feel fortunate that I work for an organisation that values hybrid working," she says.
"I definitely prefer working from home. It has been life changing for us. We have so much more time with our children and with our COVID puppy."
Ms Cole says she is nowhere near as frazzled or exhausted as she was before COVID hit.
"We'd all be up very early, I'd have to get the kids to before school care. Get on the train or bus, go into the office, and then come back and get them from after school care, feed them, and then put them in bed.
"There was literally no time to spend together as a family.
"And so now I have that time back.
"The benefits just don't stop."
With young kids in the mix, the Cole family still gets up bright and early.
"But the kids have breakfast, we do their homework together, then they can play for an hour before the short walk to school, and then I come back and start my day," Ms Cole says.
"I get through all my washing during the day, which I never used to do, and I guess that goes back to the exhaustion.
"Prior to COVID all of our house duties would have to be over the weekend so there was never really any downtime.
"Also, I take Chloe our dog out for a walk at lunch when I can and I can even be on meetings while we walk, so it's just been life changing."
She says her productivity has improved because she's got more time at her home office without an hour's commute mornings and afternoons.
"And I'm actually connecting more with my national colleagues than I have ever before. Because everything is on Zoom and there's sort of no barriers to who you can meet at any time during the day."
Though she loves going into the office and seeing her colleagues, "I find that I do get easily distracted chatting and talking. Whereas at home, I can have that really deep thinking time to get work done".
The Coles are currently building a new house, which will include two home office spaces.
"Because we think that this is the way that we'll be working into the future."
'Collaborate and keep each other motivated'
Lily Barras is an office administrator at a not-for-profit organisation in inner-city Brisbane.
She loves the dynamism of working in an office.
"I find I'm much more productive when I have everyone around me, motivating me to get my work done and I also just love the collaboration that I'm able to have in person.
"It's so much easier to discuss ideas and ask questions quickly when you're in the office."
The social aspect is also appealing for the 21-year-old.
"Just being able to sit around with the team and have lunch together is just so much fun and such a nice experience, I wouldn't want to miss that.
"Working in a team makes me feel more productive and I'm less distracted by things as I would be at home and being able to collaborate with team members and bounce ideas off each other, I find is really helpful in person."
She also likes the clearly defined lunch breaks at work, which offer a chance to switch off work for a while before logging back in.
"It's really important for wellbeing, I find that human connection and getting to see other people during the day and just bounce off ideas in a much more collaborative way where you can really get in depth and talk about things better than you can over Zoom or Teams.
"I find that home for me is full of distractions."
'It's hard to put a price on that'
Lawyer Andrew Rosenzweig says the perfect balance for him is a mix of working remotely and in the office.
"I think I'm in the privileged position of being in a service industry and am actually able to work from home."
As a Melburnian he was thrown into working from home five days a week at the height of the pandemic.
"We've come to a bit of an equilibrium over the last six months or so, which is about two, possibly three days in the office — although our workplaces are nudging us to sort of change that ratio a little bit to move back towards the office more."
Flexibility is key for Mr Rosenzweig, who has two young children.
"You can get a lot more done around the house … this sort of speaks to lockdown as well, but I've seen so much more of my kids.
"Without sounding too cheesy or sentimental, it's hard to put a price on that."
And he believes that improved home life doesn't come at the expense of productivity.
"I don't think that really comes at a huge cost to work because we're still getting a lot done, if not more than we did before."
Mr Rosenzweig points out there are also cons to go with the pros of the home office.
"Having kids at home, for all the benefits that it brings, can also bring some challenges.
"You'll be in the middle of an incredibly serious Zoom call and there's a 'crash-bang-wallop' from the next room and the kids are fighting or desperately needing your attention right there and then.
"I think the other thing [which] is slightly more insidious is that you never fully switch off, you never actually leave the office."
And physically being in the office a couple of days a week has its advantages too.
"As much as working from home brings the flexibility, you also miss the hallway chats, bumping into people in the tearoom, having that human interaction.
"I would rather have a balance of working from the office and working from home rather than just 100 per cent one thing or the other.
"I actually love going into the office … after two years of lockdown, you realise you did miss a lot of that interaction and bouncing ideas off people.
"Not even work talk, you just sort of miss the day-to-day chat about life."
He can't see himself going back to the office full time again, despite some push from management to come in more frequently.
"I think that can somewhat sit at odds with the fact that a lot of companies are pushing hard on the flexible working arrangements, and at the same time, pushing everyone back into the office.
"It would be difficult to see myself going back into the office five days a week."
Workers hold the power
"[In the past] organisations have been sort of reticent to offer too much. And at the core of that was that sense that 'can we actually trust our staff?' You know, if they work from home, will they actually do their job?" Mr McQueen says.
"For employees, certainly there's lots of benefits.
"One of the key opportunities or benefits for organisations, employment wise, is the ability to attract talent that isn't geographically based. So you can have people working anywhere, not just in Australia, but around the world.
"And that opens up a huge talent pool.
"And that can be a fantastic benefit. I guess the cost of that though … the impact on culture is huge. And the culture in any team is caught not taught.
"So there are certainly swings and roundabouts — the benefits but also the costs of this."
According to the CEO of JP Morgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, working remotely "doesn't work for people who want to hustle, doesn't work for culture, doesn't work for idea generation."
On the other hand, if workers are happy with their work-life balance and have more control over their time, they are generally more productive.
Mr McQueen says it's an employee's market right now.
"So people are calling the shots in terms of where they want to work, how much they want to be paid.
"And so I think for organisations, the reality is you need to adjust to these expectations.
"But at the same time, there is a tricky thing here going on, where organisations want their staff often back to the office more than the staff want to come back."
Flexibility means diversity, equity and inclusion
Another factor at play, Mr McQueen says, is the push for diversity, equity and inclusion, which is a part of every organisation's ethos right now.
"A few months ago, when Apple decided to ask their staff to come back to the office for three days a week, set schedules, the pushback was enormous.
"In fact, the open letter written by Apple staff showed the leadership team was if we do this, if you demand people back to the office, Apple as a company will become more white, it'll be younger, it'll be more neuro-normative.
"And in many cases, we're going to see a lot less women coming back into the workforce too because flexibility has enabled a whole cross-section of the community to engage in work in ways that they just couldn't do when I was in an office full time in that traditional format."
Credits
- Reporting by: Ciara Jones and Dan Colasimone
- Images: Mark Leonardi, Alex Papp, Dan Colasimone and Tara Whitchurch
- Digital production: Dan Colasimone
