Generative AI at Work - Empowering employee mental wellbeing (October 2024)
GenAI is a rapidly evolving technology that is increasingly being adopted in the
workplace to improve efficiency. While the potential productivity benefits of this
technology have been widely discussed and publicised, this report focuses on
GenAI’s potential to support employees’ mental wellbeing.
During a two-week period in late 2023, an online survey of 2,050 Australian workers was undertaken about their experiences and perceptions of GenAI in the workplace. This research was led by WorkFLEX Founder John Hopkins, for Swinburne University of Technology, and conducted by global public opinion and data company YouGov.
The following report explores the benefits and drawbacks of using GenAI to help address workforce mental health challenges. The aim of this report is to examine the experiences of Australian workers and to use those lessons to support organisational leaders as they deploy GenAI and execute effective strategies that can make a difference to improving mental wellbeing for workers.
A free copy of the report is available here:
The right to disconnect is coming to Australia. What does this mean for you? (July 2024)
In August 2024, changes to the Australian Fair Work Act were made to give workers the formal right to disconnect from all work communication outside their usual work hours.
The main driver for introducing “right to disconnect” laws is to protect the health and wellbeing of workers in an increasingly hyper-connected world. But what exactly do these new laws mean for Australian businesses, managers and employees?
WorkFLEX Founder John Hopkins shares some of his insights on the topic - based on a recent research paper he published for a special issue on digital wellbeing in MDPI's Sustainability journal - in this article for The Conversation.
Emerging Four-Day Work Week Trends in Australia (June 2023)
Since the pandemic, there has not only been significant growth in demand for flexible work arrangements – like hybrid and remote work models – but also for work time reduction strategies, such as the four-day work week (4DWW).
In order to learn more about 4DWW trends emerging in Australia in 2023, we interviewed a range of organisations who had already adopted the 4DWW, to ask them about the benefits, challenges, success measures and worktime reduction strategies they have adopted, that have enabled them to increase productivity whilst reducing the number of hours their employees work each week.
A free preview of our findings is available NOW:
Third Places - A healthy alternative to working from home? (February 2023)
This collaborative project with Swinburne University of Technology and Third-Place.org, investigates the rising trend amongst ‘laptop workers’ for using hospitality venues – such as cafes, restaurants and bars – as casual places of work, and was recently featured in Forbes magazine.
Whilst working from cafes and pubs has been commonplace amongst freelancers and digital nomads for many years, it is the newly-hybrid workers who are now driving significant growth in this trend, capitalising on the improved flexible work arrangements they now have access to.
We discovered that users typically visit third places for a mental break, and organic social interactions and spontaneous conversations, which help them to think more creatively and re-focus on work tasks. They are particularly attracted to venues where they are made to feel welcome, that offer easy access to Wi-Fi and a power socket, and where working behaviour like this is normal and accepted.
Our findings revealed that third places are great for deep individual work, creative thinking, reading, admin tasks, emails, and small meetings, but not for larger meetings, tasks which require bulky equipment, or confidential work which might carry security or privacy risks.
🩺 When asked, 'to what extent do you think working from third places contributes positively to your overall wellbeing?' – the average answer was 4.3 out of 5.
For hospitality venues, third place customers present an opportunity to expand upon traditional revenue streams and increase takings during their quieter periods.
A free copy of the full report is available to view and download below 👇
Reset, Restore, Reframe - Enabling wellbeing through flexible work
WorkFLEX Founder John Hopkins, and his colleagues from Deloitte and Swinburne Edge, developed the following report to provide practical guidance to organisations, in their journey towards implementing flexible working practices to support employee wellbeing.
It does so by:
• Exploring the link between flexible work and wellbeing.
• Highlighting the growing incentives to manage wellbeing through flexible work
• Providing guidance on effective practices to realise the wellbeing benefits of flexible work
Please click on the link below to access your free copy:
FlexWork is an Opportunity for Government to Embrace the Future of 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:
First national study of working arrangements in Australia since government WFH advice was removed
Some highlights from our latest hybrid work study, the first national study of working arrangements in Australia since government work-from-home directions were lifted, were recently featured in The Conversation and other leading national media outlets.
Our survey of 1,421 Australian knowledge workers, conducted in the week of 21-25 March 2022, found that 54% were now following some sort of hybrid work pattern.
Reset, Restore, Reframe - Making Fair Work FlexWork
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 👇
Hybrid Working - the story so far
In February 2021, we starting interviewing senior business leaders from around Australia, to ask them what the likely post-pandemic work arrangements would be for their organisations.
Even at an early stage in our research, it was clear that many organisations were heading in different directions, in terms of how they thought the future of work would look at their organisations.
We plan to continue with this program of interviews until the end of 2021, with the aim of publishing a report and an academic journal article sometime after that, but in the meantime we would like to present you with this preview of some of the trends we have already identified.
Please click here to download a free copy of our hybrid work research preview report.
Key working from home trends emerging from COVID-19
Our report to the Australian Fair Work Commission discusses findings from a range of different research projects, conducted between April-November 2020, including our own survey, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Roy Morgan, and the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA).
The objective of the report was to identify important work from home (WFH) trends emerging in Australia as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, investigate the impacts of this move towards WFH in more detail, and discuss the key challenges, benefits, gender effects, and implications for health and wellbeing, in addition to future predictions for this trend.
The Impact of Hybrid Work on UN Sustainable Development Goal
With increased participation in telework expected to continue in the aftermath of the Covid-19, as part of hybrid work arrangements which are rapidly gaining in popularity, it is important to consider the what long-term impacts this practice could have on future sustainability outcomes.
The team behind WorkFLEX were involved in a scoping review that identifies a range of connections between telework and sustainability from previous research. Those connections were categorized, analyzed and discussed, based on their contributions to the United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
A SWOT matrix technique was used to illustrate the strengths and weaknesses in the current research, as well as threats and opportunities for future sustainability improvements. Overall, our impression is that increased rates of telework present an important opportunity to improve sustainability outcomes, however, it will be important that integrated and holistic policy is developed that mitigates key risks.
Australian Productivity Commission - Working from home research paper
The pandemic has demonstrated that many jobs can be effectively done from home, and it appears likely that the number of people working from home will remain much higher than it was previously.
This new paper from the Australian Productivity Commission considers how decisions about location of work will be made as firms and workers continue to learn how to organise their work, and what an increase in working from home might mean for workplace regulation, urban centres and wellbeing more generally.
WorkFLEX's John and Anne had the great privilege of being invited to participate in the PC's roundtable discussion, alongside a range of key individuals, firms, industry bodies, and government agencies, as part this national study.
A copy of the report is available here: https://www.pc.gov.au/research/completed/working-from-home/working-from-home.pdf
Academic Papers
WorkFLEX was born from our passion for academic research into flexible and remote work trends. Listed below is just some of our recent academic publications:
Managing the Right to Disconnect—A Scoping Review
Sustainability (2024)
Could the 4-day week work? A scoping review
Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resource Management (2023)
The Future Is Hybrid: How Organisations Are Designing and Supporting Sustainable Hybrid Work Models
Sustainability (2023)
The WFH Natural Experiment in Sydney, Australia: A Theory of Planned Behaviour Perspective
Sustainability (2022)
Telework, Hybrid Work and the UN's Sustainable Development Goals: Towards Policy Coherence
Sustainability (2021)
Investigating 'anywhere working' as a mechanism for alleviating traffic congestion in smart cities
Technological Forecasting and Social Change (2019)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162518301549?via%3Dihub
Anywhere working as a system for accelerating the transition of HCMC into a more liveable city.
Journal of Cleaner Production (2019)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095965261833289X?via%3Dihub
A review of work and family research in Australia and New Zealand
The Cambridge Handbook of the Global Work-Family Interface (2018)
The work-family interface in Australia
The Work-Family Interface in Global Context (2017)
The impact of technology on work in the twenty-first century: Exploring the smart and dark side
The International Journal of Human Resource Management (2016)
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09585192.2015.1021155.
Does the quality of information technology support affect work-life balance?
The International Journal of Human Resource Management (2016)
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09585192.2016.1232293?journalCode=rijh20