ANZ has strongly hinted to staff that their pay packets could take a hit if they fail to meet the “behavioural expectation” of showing up to the office at least 50 per cent of the time.
The bank last year set a target for staff to spend half their time in the office because “high-performing teams need regular in-person contact with each other”.
Similar targets have been set by rivals CommBank, NAB and Westpac, which, like most other large companies, are gradually winding back Covid-era work-from-home policies.
But many employees appear to be flouting the attendance rules — The Australian Financial Review reported in June that average attendance at CommBank, NAB and ANZ remained below 50 per cent despite the directives.
Now an internal memo to ANZ staff, first shared by The Aussie Corporate Instagram page, shows the bank issuing a stern warning linking office attendance to end-of-year salary reviews and bonuses.
“Workplace attendance with regards to performance ratings,” the title of the note begins.
“Working in line with ANZ’s expectations for hybrid working, as well as any specific commitments within your team, is just like any other behavioural expectation at ANZ. This means if you don’t meet the standards expected it may factor into your performance rating and PRR [Performance and Remuneration Review] outcomes at the end of the FY24 year.
“As we look to 2024, now is a good time to reconfirm our hybrid working practices as a team. Our expectations remain the same, we have the flexibility to work up to half the time remotely, whether that’s from home or another location. This is something you have told us you value.
“On average, we expect our people globally to spend a minimum of 50 per cent of their scheduled work time in the workplace in order to nurture the ANZ culture at scale, get the best outcomes for our business, and for our own development.
“However, there may be some employees who have exceptional circumstances which warrant greater flexibility. In these cases, a temporary period of greater flexibility (i.e. up to two months) may be considered by your people leader as an informal exception to the 50 per cent minimum attendance expectation. Longer periods of flexibility will require a formal exception signed off by a [senior] leader and then by your Exco leader.”
An ANZ spokeswoman confirmed to news.com.au the email had been sent to staff in Australia, New Zealand and service centres in India and the Philippines.
“The 50 per cent expectation is not new for ANZ,” she said.
Speaking to 3AW radio in July, ANZ chief executive Shayne Elliott admitted that fewer than half his staff came into the office “on a good day”.
A survey last month found more than one-third of large Australian employers were planning to reduce the pay of staff who continue to work from home in the next three to five years.
A similar number said they expected working remotely would become a privilege earned through trust and seniority, according to the Future of Work Report 2023 by law firm Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF).
The report, which surveyed 500 senior managers at companies with more than 1000 employees around the world — including 100 respondents in Australia — found employers were using a mix of “sticks and carrots” to get workers back behind their desks.
“In Australia, we’re seeing a range of approaches for getting people back in the office,” said HSF Melbourne partner Natalie Gaspar.
“Some employers are still doing soft encouragement — such as team lunches on Wednesdays, team drinks, or extra-curricular activities on certain days. Some are using more of a direct approach — you must be in the office on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, for example. There’s only a handful of organisations mandating a full return to the workplace.”
Former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett has previously suggested public servants working from home should have their pay docked because “they are saving money”.
“The most appropriate method is if a person chooses to work from home, whatever the number of days a week, their salary is reduced by the reduction in costs they would have otherwise incurred,” he told the Herald Sun.
‘You lack social skills’
The HSF report also noted flexible arrangements may be harming employees’ prospects, with 71 per cent of respondents saying those who work in the office will inevitably have more opportunities.
Return-to-office advocates have repeatedly issued similar warnings.
UK-based TikTok career coach “Tech Toby”, responding to the findings, warned Gen Z that working from home was a “trap” for young people.
“The reason I recommend young people to go to the office more is because one, you’re all miserable, two, you don’t have any confidence, and three, you lack serious social skills and you don’t know how to communicate with people,” he said in a video earlier this month.
“And I only see this problem with recent Gen Z people that have started working from home because of the impacts of Covid. Barely any of you get paid good money and I can categorically tell you, you aren’t going to get these internal pay rises by not showing your face and staying at home.
“You’re missing out on vital knowledge from older people, people that have gone through your process. Some of you are going to be stuck on 30, 40 grand a year probably for the rest of your lives because you don’t know how to negotiate, you don’t know how to get promoted.
“Also there might be some interesting work that gets brung up in the office that you just aren’t going to hear about because you’re at home. That could be new projects you could say I’ll take that on, that’s something I can add to my CV. When I worked in the office five days a week from the ages of 17 to 22, there is no way I would have got the internal promotions I got sitting at home.
“That’s the sort of things you will miss out on. A lot of you guys are just lazy. I understand that, you’ve been brought up in a different generation. You want everything given to you on the plate, but you really need to understand that’s just not how it works.”
New York University marketing professor Scott Galloway has previously warned young people about the perils of staying home. “You should never be at home,” he told The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit in May.
“That’s what I tell young people. Home is for seven hours of sleep and that’s it. The amount of time you spend at home is inversely correlated to your success professionally and romantically. You need to be out of the house.”
100pc WFH request rejected
Earlier this week, Australian employers won another victory in the return-to-office battle after the Fair Work Commission (FWC) rejected an employee’s request to work from home 100 per cent of the time.
Describing the employee’s reasoning as “perplexing”, the FWC found that “the worst of the pandemic” was over and as such the company involved was “within its rights to require its employees to return to the office”.
The FWC ruled against Charles Gregory, who works in Adelaide for Maxxia, a firm which organises tax-efficient salary packaging services for staff working in companies across Australia including the South Australian government.
Mr Gregory said he should work at home all the time so he could care for his child every second week as part of a custody agreement. He also has an inflammatory bowel condition which means he needs to go to the toilet “with urgency and more frequently than usual”, the ruling said.
But the FWC declared Maxxia had “reasonable business grounds” to deny Mr Gregory’s request to never return to the office regularly. Maxxia’s hybrid working policy now requires staff be in the office for at least 40 per cent of the time.
The commission said Maxxia “genuinely tried to reach an agreement with the employee”, however Mr Gregory rejected these offers.
This included scheduling his in-office days to the weeks when he didn’t have custody of his child. The company also said it could move his desk closer to the toilet for his IBS issues.
The FWC noted that Mr Gregory “gave the impression that he did not want to use the office toilet — this was somewhat perplexing given his preparedness to use service station toilets if needed while driving around Adelaide”.
Ultimately the FWC said it was “desirable” for him to be in the office to “allow for observation, interaction and (if necessary) coaching to improve Mr Gregory’s productivity” and additionally so his knowledge “could be more easily accessed by less experienced team members on a face-to-face basis”.
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Maxxia did not respond to a request for comment.
— with Benedict Brook
