RESEARCH

We will soon be releasing our latest report, which investigates the evolution of third places – such as cafes, restaurants and bars – as a potential alternative to working from home. It discusses our findings from a series of semi-structured interviews with third place users and venues, which took place between September and December 2022. 

This research is partnered by Third-Place.org - Australia’s largest digital platform for remote workers ‘looking to find and book inspiring hospitality spaces to work remotely,' - and uses this series of in-depth interviews with third place customers and hospitality venues to understand both ‘user’ and ‘venue’ perspectives of the role hospitality venues play as third places settings for remote work.

Following the success of the 'Making Fair Work FlexWork' report with Deloitte and Swinburne Edge published in June 2022 (see below), the team are back together again to deliver four Industry Insights Packs, each delving deeper into the role of flexwork in particular sectors.

The first pack in this series, which focuses on the Government sector and provides a valuable overview of our key findings in relation to government workers, is available NOW!

Please click on the link below to access your free copy: 

https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/au/Documents/risk/deloitte-risk-swinburne-report-government-insights-120922.pdf?nc=42

WorkFLEX Founder John Hopkins, was recently involved in a research collaboration with Deloitte, and Swinburne Edge - the national survey of 2,084 workers across Australia indicated there are four main flexible working challenges facing employers today:

1. Workers expect better work-life balance and well-being outcomes, 

2. Organisations need to heed their employees’ concerns about unsustainable workload, 

3. Our Fair Work System is not equipped to enable this employee-led flexible working (FlexWork) revolution,  

4. Employers must renew their focus on employees’ connection with the organisation: a team and organisational culture based on developing trust and fostering a sense of belonging and meaningful collaboration.

The research underlines how employers now have a valuable opportunity to engage with their workforce around this fundamental reframe and redesign of work – the where, when, and how it’s done – to improve the employee experience whilst simultaneously supporting the organisation’s overall mission, culture, and values.  

To access a FREE copy of the full report, please click on the link below 👇   

https://lnkd.in/dg3i7GZW

WorkFLEX are currently working together with organisations across Australia to understand what trends and considerations are emerging for the management of hybrid workforces. 

Only by discussing this topic directly with senior business leaders, who are responsible for addressing the challenge of how to get the best out of their hybrid and remote teams, were we able to discover what the key focus areas. 

in the development of our unique hybrid work model, we have identified the key six pillars of successful hybrid work as being; Operations, Communication, Culture, Wellbeing, Technology & Infrastructure, and Future Skills.

If you would like to discuss our hybrid work research with us in more detail, or need help in working out what the best arrangement might be for your organisation, please drop us a line - we love participating in clients' brainstorming sessions and assisting in the development of new hybrid work strategies.  

In August 2020 we ran a poll on LinkedIn, to try and gain a quick understanding of how workers were currently feeling towards working from home, and how often they think they will continue to work from home in the future.. and the results were fascinating.

We joined a current trend on LinkedIn, for running polls using the LinkedIn reaction emojis, to ask whether workers predicted they would work 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 days from home per week in the future, once all COVID-related restrictions had been lifted. After 322 responses the option of working full-time from home (5 days per week) was the clear winner, attracting 35% of the vote, whilst only 5% predicted they would return to working 5 days per week in the office once all restrictions had been lifted.

This was particularly interesting, as the WorkFLEX team asked exactly the same question as part of a survey earlier in the year, and the results were very different (see below). Back in April, only 5% of participants in our survey predicted they would work from home full time in the future, so what has caused such a change of heart in only a matter of months?