As the majority of employees farewell their summer holidays and return to the Monday to Friday grind, the director of a global recruitment firm has warned younger workers to reconsider remote working.
Jane Lowney, from Robert Walters, said the trend was losing favour among some of the biggest hirers in the country, with the employers noting a lack of productivity, a loss of office culture and less learning opportunities for employees.
“There’s a general acceptance that some sort of hybrid working from home is here to stay, but what my clients are certainly saying is that there needs to be a little bit more thought around best for business and best for stakeholders, not just best for me, the individual,” Ms Lowney told NCA NewsWire.
“I think that at the start of the pandemic, there was data that productivity had been maintained or improved, but that has quietened down significantly.
“Certainly, from a managerial and leadership perspective, companies have definitely noticed that remote working has not improved productivity for those people.”
According to Australian Bureau of Statistics data collected in August 2021, 36 per cent of employed people had a flexible work agreement, with 41 per cent of people regularly working from home. However, it should be noted that metro and Greater Sydney were also under strict Covid lockdowns that month, with parts of regional NSW also under intermittent stay-at-home orders.
‘Hugely critical’ warning for young workers
The dominance of working from home also came with dangers to the career progression of younger workers, especially for people who were less than five years into their career, Ms Lowney said.
She said shared working space and “informal touchpoints” allowed junior staff to connect with senior members of their team and were “hugely critical” as learning or networking opportunities.
“I would say to anyone at the start of their career, who have less than five years of experience, is that the learning opportunity by being close to colleagues and close to people who are more senior is a lot easier to benefit from in an office environment,” said Ms Lowney.
“They haven’t had that opportunity to build those relationships yet and normally the best mentoring relationships happen organically, and that’s very hard to do in an online or virtual environment.”
Ms Lowney warned that remote working also reduced the chance for employees to take on new projects or roles.
“If you’re sitting in the suburbs and not interacting with anyone but your online environment, then it’s very hard to build out those networks,” she said.
“It’s not because anybody is deliberately not including them, but the squeaky wheel gets most of the attention and if you’re sitting in the office, you’re visible.”
As for the future of blended work, Ms Lowney said hiring difficulties and the pressures around maintaining staff would prevent employers from a “hardcore” return to work; however, stricter processes could be the norm within six months.
She said this wouldn’t apply to industries like software developers who benefit from quiet workplaces free from distractions. The same argument, however, cannot be made for sales, client engagement and business development environments.
Ultimately, Ms Lowney urges workers to think about the long-term consequences of a virtual workplace.
“Where will the people who fully embrace remote working or working from home, where will they be in the corporate ladder in three to five years? Will they progress as quickly as those who have maybe been more present in the office”
“That’s an unknown that’s a question rather than an answer at this stage, but I think it’s a question worth asking ourselves.”
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