The changing face of the global workplace

Andrew Buerckner is a Director of Platinum Travel Corporation.

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FOR those with the space, the (right!) company, the temperament, and the means; working from home can work. And it can work well.

We can save money on petrol and public transport.

We can replace our commute with exercise, healthy cooking, and more time with our families. Maybe in a perfect world.

For me, at least – and for many others – these well-laid plans went out the window around QW2 (Quarantine Week two), and stayed there.

The loneliness and feelings of isolation crept in early for me.

It affected my mood, and it affected my work.

But what if there was a version of the modern office that catered for both camps? Could our business work in tandem with, say, four others of a similar size, each of us working from a reimagined ‘collaboration’ space one day a week, with staff working the other four days from home? Would it work?

Thankfully, we’re not the first business to be weighing these pros and cons.

In fact, one of the most comprehensive and revealing studies about the Working From Home movement was conducted over two years by Stanford University, using one of the world’s largest travel agencies as its subject!

Check out the TED talk HERE, it’s well worth a watch.

And the results were definitive.

Over a nine-month period the study found that employees working from home showed a 13% improvement in overall performance.

In fact, by the end of the experiment it was up by a whopping 24%; not because the employees got better at working from home, but because they were given a choice about whether they wanted to do it. The ones it worked for stayed home, the ones who hated it returned to the office.

So, it turns out it’s not rocket science after all: empower your employees, and they’ll power your business.

It’s still a hard one to grapple with for me.

We’ve spent the better part of 10 years at Platinum investing in and refining our efforts to create a supportive, dynamic work environment for our staff.

We moved our Melbourne Headquarters to expansive new digs in 2018 at great expense, which by all accounts was a positive and meaningful change for our staff.

It hurts to think the most valuable thing we might have offered them was... well, none of it at all.

On the plus side, though, with the reduced cost of rent we could afford to invest more in staff training, team building and social events; all of which we place enormous value on.

It’s also a proven combination when it comes to employee satisfaction and staff retention.

The long and short of it? Working from home isn’t for everyone. I’m not sure it’s for me. But if you’re in the business of running a profitable business and hiring (and holding onto) the best staff, then you had better be ready to have the conversation.

The ones it worked for stayed home, the ones who hated it returned to the office. So, it turns out it’s not rocket science after all