City Hall silent on staff

Council won’t reveal plans for CBD workforce

GEELONG council has refused to say how many of its 860 CBD-based staff have returned to working in the city full-time, after the City of Melbourne ordered its workers back in a bid to revive its own city centre.

Geeelong City Hall’s refusal to reveal its CBD staff numbers also came after the Geelong Chamber of Commerce, traders and a councillor all admitted the return of CBD workers would provide immediate assistance to traders still doing it tough post-pandemic.

Melbourne city council on Sunday said about 1100 of its 1400 CBD staff had returned to working in the city after many months working from home.

“City workers are vital to the business community,” Melbourne council chief executive Justin Hanney said.

“More people back in the office means more people visiting shops, cafes, restaurants and accessing city services.”

“At the City of Melbourne, we are actively encouraging our teams to return to our workplaces, and we’ve seen more and more returning every week.”

But Geelong council has repeatedly avoided questions regarding how many of its CBD workers have returned to the office full-time.

It is understood some staff are working in the city just one day a week, while others only return to the CBD for meetings.

When asked on Monday, the council did not directly say whether it would direct its CBD workforce back to city offices full-time, nor whether it would encourage its staff to return.

Chief executive Martin Cutter instead provided a statement noting that “workplace flexibility and inclusion is a critical part of being an employer of choice”.

“That’s why the city has long promoted flexibility and moved to a workplace model that combines office-based work and off-site arrangements for our employees,” Mr Cutter said. Asked if the City of Greater Geelong’s move to a model with flexible arrangements for staff would affect its need for its new sixstorey $102.5m civic headquarters on Mercer Street, Mr Cutter said “leading flexible working arrangements” had been worked into its design.

“Our major investment in Wurriki Nyal (the new civic precinct) demonstrates our commitment to playing a longterm and major role in the future of central Geelong,” Mr Cutter said.

Councillors last year suggested the council might reconsider the CoGG’s ownership of the major project, labelling it a “significant burden”.

Cr Anthony Aitken last month said the success of working from home for Geelong’s largest organisations meant the CBD could no longer rely on business from the usual pre-COVID sources.

“The reality is flexible work environment is something that might actually continue forever,” Cr Aitken said.