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Key Points
- The Fair Work Commission will hold a hearing on developing a ‘working from home’ term for clerical workers on Friday.
- The Australian Council of Trade Unions has welcomed the move, saying it could increase workforce participation.
- The CEO of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has called it an “unnecessary” step.
The Fair Work Commission (FWC) is conducting a hearing that may give millions of clerical workers more rights to work from home.
According to the FWC, Friday’s hearing will be about developing a ‘working from home’ term in the Clerks Award — the document that legally covers clerical and administrative workers in the private sector and sets the terms and conditions of their employment.
Issues to be determined include whether such a term would give employees the right to request working-from-home arrangements, under what circumstances, and when a request could potentially be refused by an employer.
The FWC’s president Adam Hatcher said in a statement it intends the term to “facilitate employers and employees making workable arrangements for working at home and remove any existing award impediments to such arrangements”.
The Fair Work Commission is holding a hearing in NSW that may determine whether millions of clerical workers should have more rights to work from home. Source: AAP
What does this mean for employees?
Georgie Champan, a workplace relations and safety lawyer at HR Legal, said it would “likely” mean there would be “a basis on which an employee can seek a work-from-home arrangement under the modern award”.
“Where an employer and employee agree to a remote working arrangement, they may be able to mutually agree on certain terms of the award and how their application might be modified,” she told SBS News.
“We don’t know what that will specifically look like until we’ve heard the decision of the Fair Work Commission.”
Under the Fair Work Act, employees who have been with the same employer for at least 12 months can currently request flexible work arrangements if they are carers, persons with disability, aged 55 or older, pregnant, experiencing family and domestic violence, or supporting an immediate family or household member who is experiencing family and domestic violence.
The FWC’s assessment could entitle millions of workers covered by the Clerks Award to new rights to work remotely — whether or not they meet the criteria above — and may serve as a model for incorporation in other awards.
According to the FWC, workers covered by the Clerks Award include administrative assistants, receptionists, bookkeepers, and clerical employees in a retail head office.
Chapman said there is a “possibility that the Fair Work Commission will want to look at other awards where the type of work performed by employees under those awards is conducive to work from home”.
‘Minimum standard’ or an ‘unnecessary step’?
The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has welcomed the hearing.
“For many workers whose jobs can be done from home effectively, being able to work from home means that they can improve their work-life balance, job satisfaction and productivity,” ACTU president Michele O’Neil told SBS News.
“It can increase workforce participation, particularly by women with young children or people with disabilities or other conditions.”
She said the remote working term would “set a minimum standard”, and the “enterprise agreements can improve on that”.
‘We think that’s not a good thing’
But Andrew McKellar, CEO of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said it was an “unnecessary” and “negative” step.
“From a business perspective, we would argue that we don’t need a specific term relating to either a right to work from home or a right to request to work from home,” he told SBS News.
“These sorts of things should be agreed upon at an enterprise level. We don’t need that sort of provision specifically put into awards.
“We think that’s not a good thing in terms of making it easier for businesses to create jobs and employ more people to achieve the commercial outcomes they’re looking for.”
How have work-from-home rights shifted since the pandemic?
While some workplaces permitted remote work before 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced offices around the world to rapidly pivot and provide employees with working-from-home arrangements.
As pandemic restrictions eased, ‘hybrid’ working arrangements remained in place for many. Last year, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that almost four in 10 Australians worked from home at least once a week in 2023.
Earlier this year, a survey of 14,700 Australians commissioned by employment website Seek found , with a quarter of respondents listing it as a must-have.
But some workplaces have since sought to reverse or restrict working-from-home arrangements.
In August, the NSW government, the biggest employer in Australia, reversed its hybrid work policy and issued a asking government sector staff to work mainly from the office.