WFH a non-negotiable and why you shouldn’t try so hard

The news | Recruiters say working from home has become a non-negotiable for many white-collar workers despite a recent slowdown in hiring.

Why it matters | Employees’ unwillingness to compromise on flexible working suggests they still hold the upper hand in today’s jobs market, and that bosses hoping for a return to pre-pandemic working patterns won’t get what they want anytime soon.

The impact | With the unemployment rate at just 3.7 per cent, recruiter Andrew Hanson said it was “exceptionally difficult” to fill a vacancy for an employer if they demand their employees work from the office full-time , with others agreeing that it had become a deal-breaker.

Driving the news | The resistance to return to the office could be another manifestation of what senior Chanticleer columnist James Thomson recently referred to, in a column about Tim Gurner’s now-infamous comments, as “the eternal power struggle between capital and labour” .

Work & Careers’ take | It is certainly a nuanced issue that affects everything from productivity and team building (and not necessarily in a bad way) to diversity and inclusion and workforce participation. But at its core, it is arguably just another power tussle, and one that employees seem to be winning.

The other side | Neue Media boss Vanessa Lai recently experienced the flip side when she tried to hire a new media assistant. In a story that suggests we may have reached “full employment” , Lai told Work & Careers she made three unsuitable hires in just six months before finally finding a suitable candidate in migrant Juan Gomez.

Other news | Elsewhere this week, we reveal the three leadership lessons this PayPal executive picked up from singing in the Vienna Boys’ Choir, and find out why we should focus less on our to-do lists if we want to become more productive .

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BOSS Best Business Schools of 2023

This is the top business school for second year in row UNSW tussled it out with the University of Melbourne - both widening the gap over the rest of the field, writes Sally Patten .

Revealed: the uni with the best career outcomes Canberra University business school ranks highest in the career category by staying abreast of changing needs.

The Matilda who waltzed into an MBA Former Matildas star Moya Dodd is one of many prominent Australians who have undertaken an MBA to help move into new roles or prepare for more senior positions.

Want to be more productive? Don’t try so hard

The sight of your ever-expanding to-do list might encourage you to grit your teeth and redouble your efforts to get on top of your crushing workload.

It is a strategy that might work in the short term. But it will soon come undone if you don’t step away from the grindstone and experiment with new ways of doing things.

This is one of the key ideas in Stanford-trained mindset expert Eduardo Briceno’s new book, The Performance Paradox: Turning the Power of Mindset into Action.

Briceno tells Work & Careers “the performance paradox is the counterintuitive reality that if we focus only on performing, our performance suffers ”. And the key to addressing it, he says, is to regularly access what he calls “the learning zone”.

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