There’s been a lot of chatter in the mainstream media in recent days about the return to “normality” in the post-Covid world, which, of course is still a long way off, but we can dream.
Part of that normality is that corporate bosses around the country are apparently devising ways to drag employees who have been allowed to work from home kicking and screaming back into the office. After the initial mass exodus from CBD office towers as the whole country went into lockdown last March, corporate strategists have been trying to work out exactly what is the future of the workplace.
By mid-year it had become apparent that office work was not going to look the same in the foreseeable future, perhaps never, and the great minds high in their empty towers began considering options such as taking up more office space so their employees could be socially distanced, taking up less office space in the CBD and creating suburban hubs for smaller groups, and lastly – deep breath – letting everyone work from home while their productivity was monitored.
The issue of whether you’ll waste more of your time/their money gossiping at the bubbler or the coffee machine at the office, or sneaking out for a quick surf from home during work hours, is a two-way street, of course. I know self-employed writers who rent grubby little offices because they say their solitary toil can’t be done amid the distractions of home. But I’ve always found the reverse to be true.
Apart from half a dozen years of my mid-career spent abroad in the corporate jungle, I’ve spent most of my life working from home. In fact, in a pioneering example of enterprise bargaining, when I agreed to move from an editorial role at Kerry Packer’s Bulletin Magazine in Sydney to become the Queensland correspondent in 1990, the terms were that I could live and work anywhere within a two-hour radius of Brisbane and only commute to the capital as required.
This enabled us to establish a new and wonderful life in Noosa, but it’s fair to say that my renewed focus on surfing every day ultimately led to employer and employee falling out of love and going their separate ways. But as a concept, working from home just can’t be beaten. For a start, there’s the flexibility that enables me to work around tide and wind issues, fitting a few chores and those inevitable coffee meetings around at least two more hours of desk time than I would ever get at an office. And note that my commute time is 0 hours per day.
My productivity is probably double what it would be in an office, but I should note that there is always a temptation to work more and more hours to get the job done. This can be overcome with just a few self-imposed workplace rules, the most important of which in my home office is that at 5pm in winter and 6pm in summer it’s time for a sundowner by the river, two if necessary to ensure that I don’t mount the stairs for a final hour or 500 words before dinner.
As for team-building, if I want a hit of that I’ll go down to Access 11 and have a moan about my crook back and shoulder with the other old salts as we strap our boards back on the roof.
It seems to me that the office, if not dead, is at least being repurposed. More of a meeting hub, less of a prison. But the people who build silver steel CBD towers are not going down without a fight, as recent data and dribble from the Property Council of Australia reveals.
The PCA asked itself late last year: “Office markets around the country have been the subject of concern since the pandemic arrived on Australian shores in early-2020. Questions about the relevance of office space have become increasingly common: Will we see an office extinction in the near future? Will work-at-home arrangements strangle the need for office space? The answer to both questions is apparently no.“PCA obtained 102 responses from members who collectively own or occupy the majority of office premises in Australian CBDs (and) it appears workplace occupancy is finding momentum, as CBD offices in every Australian city (except Melbourne, due to its recent second pandemic wave) saw an increase in occupancy between September 2020 and October 2020. Brisbane led the charge for the major cities, increasing from half-occupancy in September 2020 to 61 percent occupancy in October 2020. More businesses are expected to fill up office chairs as we turn the corner into 2021.”Of course, it might be argued that the PCA has a vested interest and the alternative being too horrible to contemplate, they just keep talking it up, which is why the report concluded with the “heartening” news that Brisbane CBD will see a major injection of new office space this year in the form of a new 27-storey, 24,000-square metre “state-of-the-art building”, to be fully occupied by the Australian Tax Office.Well, obviously you can’t count beans while watching daytime telly on the couch, can you?
FOOTNOTE: Rather than bore you with an artist’s impression of the new Brisbane CBD tax office, I thought we might enjoy one last blast of Fenna De King’s coverage of ex-TC Lucas, the swell that just kept on giving, and wasn’t it fun on the points! You can see more of Fenna elsewhere in this issue, or check out her gallery at www.fennadeking.com
