Australian companies risk experiencing a mass exodus of staff if they push ahead with efforts to make their employees return to the office on a full-time basis.

A new study by Robert Half, based on a survey of 1,000 full-time office workers across Australia, found that remote and flexible working conditions are still highly important to a large majority of Australian workers, and that many would leave their current role if they were forced back into the office permanently.

Robert Half director Nicole Gorton said that companies which push ahead with return-to-office mandates without making other flexible concessions to their employees risk losing a significant portion of their workforce.

“If companies force a return to the office without addressing the underlying reasons for this preference, they risk forcing the hands of a significant portion of their workforce to resign,” Gorton told Information Age.

“While it’s difficult to predict the future with certainty, the potential for an increase in employee turnover when return-to-office mandates are implemented is very real.

“Many workers have reshaped their lives based on the flexibility hybrid working provides.”

Just under 80 per cent of those surveyed said that the ability to work remotely is important to their overall job satisfaction, and nearly 40 per cent said they would resign from their current role if they no longer had this flexibility.

More than a third of those surveyed also said they would turn down a job offer if the role did not have flexible work available.

Returning to the office

The majority of office-based companies in Australia were forced to quickly switch to remote working conditions due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

With restrictions entirely eased, many organisations have been attempting to roll back these flexible conditions and require workers to attend the office at least a certain number of days per week, with some moving to a full-time return-to-office mandate.

Just under 40 per cent of Australian workers are expected to be working from an office full-time this year, up from under 20 per cent in 2023.

Gorton said that companies often prefer to have their workers in the office to foster strong collaboration and boost productivity.

But employees have been reaping the benefits of flexible work, and several studies have found that workers are happier and more productive when allowed to work from home.

According to the Robert Half survey, just 22 per cent of Australian workers think that flexible work is not important.

Some large tech firms have started to move back to full-time office-based work.

Earlier this month, Amazon announced that all of its near-300,000 corporate employees would be required to work full-time from an office from the start of next year.

In Australia, New South Wales public servants have been ordered back to the office, with a directive in August stating that the “starting position” for all employees is to “work principally in an approved workplace”.

Luring workers back in

Australian companies that want their staff to return to the office in a full-time capacity may have to be prepared to pay for this.

According to the report, 44 per cent of those surveyed said they would need a salary premium to be lured back to the office, with a top-up of 10 per cent most favoured.

But providing significant pay risers to workers to lure them back into the office will not be feasible for many Australian organisations, Gorton said.

“We know salary is king, so offering a salary premium to bring workers back into the office would certainly soften the blow if staff are not happy about it,” she said.

“However, this may not be a feasible option for businesses in a cost-driven environment. There are other incentives organisations can offer in lieu, like training opportunities for long-term career growth or extra paid time-off, which fosters work-life harmony if being present in the office is mandatory.”

Gorton said that organisations need to find a balance between a want to bring workers back into the office to boost productivity, and employees’ needs to be flexible.

“Well thought-out approaches to return-to-office mandates are a solid strategy for protecting workplaces from losing valued employees and struggling to secure new candidates at a time when a tight labour market continues,” she said.

The rise in companies implementing return-to-office mandates has seen the emergence of a new workplace trend dubbed “hushed hybrid”.

This is when managers are quietly going against company-wide return-to-office mandates to allow their employees to continue working flexibly and remotely.