New stats in the WFH tug-of-war and how COVID changed Aussie commutes

The debate over working from home has intensified this week.

A snap poll by?AFR Success?revealed that employees at three of the big four banks are coming into the office?less often, on average, than their chief executives would like.

Average actual attendance is below target at Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank and ANZ, the latest available data shows. And our snap poll suggests other big employers could also be struggling to get their staff to spend most of their working hours in the office.

The most common expectation is that employees come into the office two or three days a week, or at least half their time each month, on average.

Business leaders reckon this strikes a balance between offering staff flexibility ? which is essential to attracting and retaining talent in a tight labour market ? and supporting workplace culture and innovation through in-person collaboration.

But employees are reluctant to come in more frequently than they already are. Many believe they are more productive at home than in the office, and so wonder why they should come back.

They adapted well to remote working when they had no other choice during the pandemic. Plus, WFH helps them save time and money by avoiding lengthy commutes. So, it is up to employers, they argue, to show with hard data and not just rhetoric why it is so important that they come into the office more regularly.

It is a debate that is not going away anytime soon. And?AFR Success?will be following it closely.

Elsewhere this week, we review the?inflation-busting pay rises for senior executives?at Australia’s largest listed companies, and report on the rising number of?women running Australia’s biggest companies.

Plus, Melbourne bureau chief Patrick Durkin talks to Carsales CEO Cameron McIntyre about the vehicles he drives, and what it’s like to run a business that?draws in close to a billion dollars each year.

You're missing out!?These stories and more are available in full when you?sign up?to our free?Work & Careers?newsletter: direct to your inbox, every Thursday.

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It’s still so hard to get staff back to the office

REA Group ’s Dominic Cataldo is a 23-year-old finance graduate who joined the company in February. He fits into two categories of workers for whom business leaders believe office attendance is crucial: younger workers and new starters.

CBA and NAB have made this point recently as fresh data shows?staff are coming into the office less frequently than the management would like. And Cataldo understands where they’re coming from.

He says he heads into the office four days a week as he wants to learn as much as possible from his more experienced colleagues and also derives “a sense of belonging” from working with others.

“It’s not that I am less productive or anything like that from [home]. I just really enjoy being around people,” Cataldo says.

Why the Carsales CEO doesn’t drive sports cars

Cameron McIntyre is far from the only Australian who loves his truck.

New vehicle sales in Australia jumped 12 per cent to a record for May as the industry cleared a large backlog of orders. And the top sellers were two utes: the Toyota HiLux and the Ford Ranger.

McIntyre says there is a trend towards utes and bigger cars in a market that has defied predictions about the rising prominence of the sharing economy.

“You go back four or five years, we were talking about the shared economy and that people would share their vehicles, but COVID-19 changed all that,” McIntyre says.

“Consumers came out of public transport during COVID-19 and got into car ownership. It brought a generation of non-car owners into car ownership and once they are there, they tend to stay there. Like I said, we came out OK.”

This week, Melbourne bureau chief Patrick Durkin finds out why McIntyre avoids sports cars, and?where the chief executive believes the market will head next.

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