By Nina Hendy
After Liz became pregnant, she soon realised that her workplace wasn’t going to afford her any flexibility when she returned to work.
“The managers weren’t willing to be flexible at all. They were pressuring pregnant women or those with young babies to take overnight work trips. No wasn’t an option,” says Liz, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Working from home some days of the week is important for many workers. Credit: iStock
She had planned to return to work when her son was eight months old but, as the deadline approached, she knew she wasn’t ready to leave him in childcare five days a week.
“I tried to negotiate some flexibility to work from home, but they made it very clear that they wanted me back in the office full-time,” she says.
So, she quit, returning to freelancing. “We have a mortgage, and I had to beg my husband to support me drum up some work within my network.”
She hasn’t looked back. “Quitting has been the best decision I’ve ever made. So many women in my workplace are forced to go back to jobs they hate or get looks when they need to leave early to pick up a sick baby from childcare. His daycare is five minutes away, I work from home, and I’ve got the flexibility I need,” she says.
Finding balance
Working from home some days of the week is also critically important to Perth tech worker Emma Ruben.
In fact, the 27-year-year-old made a conscious decision to seek out a role that offered genuine workplace flexibility.
Emma Ruben: “I looked for roles that were more flexible.”
“I don’t like getting in the car and driving into an office five days a week, so I looked for roles that were more flexible,” she says.
Before accepting her current role, she had conversations with a competing firm, but quickly decided the role wasn’t for her. “It was clear from the conversations I was having with that workplace that there was not going to be a lot of flexibility to work from home,” she says.
She accepted her current role two years ago because she felt her needs would be met and hasn’t looked back.
She works in the office three days a week and from home two days but can switch the days around. She can even work an extra day from home if that suits her without having to ask permission.
“We just communicate within our own team at the end of each week what works best for us the following week based on our own schedules,” she says.
Back to work
Liz and Ruben are part of a growing number of workers opting out of workplaces with rigid rules on where they need to work in favour of roles that openly promote work from home days.
Ruben says she designed a life that works for her. “Work is a big part of your life and there’s no point being miserable.”
However, large Australian companies are continuing to mandate hard and fast work from the office arrangements, creating tensions in the workplace.
Nearly 39,000 staff members at National Australia Bank were asked to increase the number of days they spend in the office each week. The bank is one of a growing number of businesses moving away from the work from home model.
Other companies pushing for staff to get back to the office five days a week include Amazon, Dell, CommBank and the NSW government.
Meanwhile, Sydney father Paul Collins took his employer to the Fair Work Commission seeking a continuation of the flexible working arrangements he had been enjoying since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Collins, who works for global software company Intersystems Australia, wanted to continue working from home on Wednesdays and Thursdays to care for his children and because he needed “work-life balance”. His workplace refused his request under a new ruling requiring all staff to return to the office full-time.
But his request was overruled by Fair Work, which said the application he had lodged because of his preference to continue working from home did not relate to his parental responsibilities.
Workers are required to show they have a good enough reason to request to work from home, while Fair Work Deputy President Lyndall Dean found a “preference” to continue working from home wasn’t enough.
In Victoria, the state government is seeking to legislate a right to work from home.
But Ruben says it’s always worth asking the boss for more flexibility.
“If that’s not something they will do, remember, there are a lot of other jobs out there that would be willing to accommodate your needs,” she says.
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