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It announced its return with an explosive sneezing fit on Sunday afternoon. By Monday morning there was a tightness in the chest, a pounding headache, aching joints and a scratchy throat. A rapid antigen test delivered the dreaded line. Round two of COVID was under way.
But this isn't a sick note.
I'm still here, working and not putting anyone else at risk because I'm at home. That's a benefit of working from home you don't often hear from corporate Australia as it tries to convince and cajole the white collar workforce back into the office.
It's early days still but the sickie might be on the endangered list, a dividend of changing the way we work in the post-pandemic world.
When Medibank trialled a four-day working week, it reported a marked decline in sick days and carer's leave taken by the 250 workers in the trial. The reduction was a whopping 67 per cent, far outweighing the 20 per cent drop in working hours per week. And there was no loss of productivity and no shoehorning of five days' worth of work into four. The workers were just more efficient - able to dispense with low-value work and pointless meetings and focus on stuff that mattered.
Since moving to a work from home arrangement in 2020, the sick call for this echidna has vanished. The only time I was too sick to work was the first brush with COVID but it didn't count because the virus struck when I was on annual leave.
These days, a head cold that would have once kept me at home doesn't stop me soldiering on. And on the flipside, there's no temptation to bravely turn up and risk infecting colleagues - or fellow commuters on the train or bus. The only viruses in my workplace arrangement are transmitted by computer, not aerosolised droplets.
The Fair Work Commission is looking at whether workers should have the right to work from home. The PM has weighed in, saying working from home arrangements have resulted in greater female participation in the workforce. Before the pandemic, more men than women worked from home. Now more women do.
Yet big business persists in its push to claw back working from home arrangements.
I suspect it's being driven partly by the collapsing value of office space in our big cities. Office towers are now selling at 20 per cent less than their peak values. It's a global shift. International commercial real estate company Colliers estimates just 31 per cent of office space in Europe, the Middle East and Africa is occupied to capacity.
In Manhattan's financial district, five former office buildings are being transformed into apartment blocks. Since the pandemic began, 1500 new residences have been added to a neighbourhood which was once a soulless desert after dark. In 1990, just 14,000 people called the district home. Now, 66,000 live there.
Not all office towers can be converted to housing. There's the cost of plumbing every residence and the fact some towers are too large to let light into their cavernous interiors. But smaller and older buildings can. The old David Jones building in Castlereagh Street in Sydney is an example of where low-rise conversion can work.
Of course, for every company insisting its workers return to the office, there's another quietly reducing overheads and operational costs by embracing working from home.
And there's someone like me, doing the responsible thing and staying home when ill, but still able and willing to work.
Surely, that's good for productivity.
HAVE YOUR SAY: Is big business being shortsighted in its push to get white collar workers back to the office? Should workers have a right to keep their working from home arrangements? Do you soldier on when sick? Email us: echidna@theechidna.com.au
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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
- Qantas refused a federal government agency's request to hand over a list of public servants belonging to its exclusive club, after new transparency rules were introduced. The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet requested the airline provide the names of all staff who held Chairman's Lounge membership last year, documents published to the department's freedom-of-information log reveal.
- Amid this Saturday's Dunkley byelection and growing chatter about the timing of the next federal election, federal Labor is being challenged to put to an end the political misuse, even rorting, of taxpayers' money through vote-swaying pork-barrelling. The independent member for Indi, Helen Haines, has introduced the End Pork Barrelling Bill 2024, a private members' bill.
- Senior army officer Lieutenant-General Michelle McGuinness has been named Australia's new chief dealing with events like data breaches and major hacking incidents after her predecessor was recalled to Defence in November over an unspecified "workplace matter".
THEY SAID IT: "A mother deserves a day off to care for a sick child or sick parent without running into hardship - and you know what, a father does, too. It's time to do away with workplace policies that belong in a Mad Men episode." - Barack Obama
YOU SAID IT: The coverage of Taylor Swift's tour reached peak absurdity with the arrival last week of her boyfriend.
Brian writes: "You are so right in what you have written about the media's coverage of Taylor's boyfriend's arrival (I don't even know his name). Who cares? Not every Australian, I'm sure. Yes, I was In Adelaide when The Beatles arrived, stood on the side of the airport road and watched them drive past at speed, all over in two minutes. I recall there was some hysteria over the visit but nothing compared to the current T visit."
"Couldn't agree more about the coverage of Taylor Swift's boyfriend," writes Carol. "I had turned on the television and they were tracing the plane that was supposed to be bringing him to our shores. What? Is this for real? That was the straw that broke the camel's back. I have no idea who Taylor Swift is but can understand why the young people are going crazy, after all I remember The Beatles landing here in Australia to the madness of the their fans, so it is not new. I agree with you. Enough is enough."
Ian writes: "When I was 15 in 1964, I attended The Beatles' first concert in Canada at Empire Stadium in Vancouver. After the 'filler' acts including The Righteous Brothers and Jackie DeShannon, on came the Beatles. They had not reached their second number before the audience turned into a hysterical mob which surged forward towards the stage. So yes, Beatles hysteria was right up there even then despite the modern hype-enhancing tools of smartphones and the web not even having been invented. The ticket to the Beatles show cost me $5.25. By the way I think Taylor Swift is a fine singer and performer."
"Thank you sincerely for your daily dose of saying it as it really is," writes Peter. "When I saw the masses of Swifties around merchandise and concert venues I couldn't stop wondering: Where is Australia's cost-of-living crisis? What is the current per capita credit card debt in Australia? What impact will the huge Swifties spendathon have on inflation? Sorry if I'm boring but I doubt if I'm the only old bloke who's wondering about these issues."
Marcia writes: "I recall as a 13 year old in Adelaide 1964, attending a Catholic girls' college - we actually left our classroom and ran into the playground to form a human 'B' as the aircraft that we assumed was carrying the Beatles passed overhead. Then, at 3pm so many girls caught buses into the city to King William Street and stood on the steps near the Adelaide station across from the Town Hall and waited. When The Beatles appeared the screams (and tears) were deafening and there was quite a crush/surge, stopping the traffic! Some even fainted. Alas, today's pervasive social media and some media as you say has lead to Tay Tay's global fandom as has her expert and carefully crafted marketing - quite a sociological phenomena - at least a 'positive' force, hopefully can hope to defeat the other big T and I don't mean Travis!"
"I haven't gone gaga over Tay-Tay, but clearly the media has," writes Daniel. "I guess it's the old 'more eyeballs for advertising' revenue lark - yet again. Oddly, even the ABC jumped on the bandwagon. I guess they don't want to lose eyeballs to the commercials. I don't buy it! I can't stand the endless sneaky advertising forced upon us. As my young son said to me 'death and taxes and advertising'. But not you, dear Echidna. No ad in sight on your email. That is until you click on a story further down. Oh well, I guess all journalists become clickbait fodder eventually."
Paul writes: "I put your Tay Tay tantrum at 512 words in total - so it could be an expensive article for you. When enough is enough, there is probably no need to add to it."