The generation most keen on a return to the office – and why it may not be full time

“Social media has a role to play and the internet is all beaut … but for mentally healthy people it will not take the place of face-to-face social interaction.”

For all age groups, but especially Generation Z, the workplace was cited as a place for social connection more often than the household, local neighbourhood, sporting activities, religious community, hobby clubs and volunteering.

The research found attitudes have shifted since the start of the pandemic, when nine out of 10 Australians were happy about the shift to remote work and 78 per cent believed it would be the new normal. Working from home became a reality for more than a quarter of employed Australians.

Earlier this month Prime Minister Scott Morrison said it was “time to get back to the office” and called on employers to facilitate this, especially multinational companies using rules based on the COVID-19 situation overseas.

“We have been encouraging them to standardise the working arrangements to be consistent to what is happening here in Australia and not overseas,” Mr Morrison said. “That will be good for jobs and good for the beating heart of our cities.”

But social researcher Mark McCrindle, in a point echoed by Mr Brecht, warned there was little appetite to return to the workplace full-time. The survey found 15 per cent of working Australians would prefer to have everyone working remotely all the time and 26 per cent would prefer to have everyone in the workplace all the time, but most people would prefer a mix of both.

“Australians are very much into the flexibility of being able to work from home, it’s just that they don’t want it as the total solution because they value the collegiality, the social interaction, the connection that comes from the workplace,” Mr McCrindle said.

Anna Buber-Farovich, chief people officer at buy-now-pay-later company Zip, said she had definitely observed a generational divide for her 700 employees.

“Our younger population have a preference of being at the office, they’re enjoying their peer groups, enjoying food, drinks, the pool table that we have here as well,” she said. “They’re often living in share houses or with their parents so actually love to get out of the house and be at the office.”

By contrast, many of the parents in the Zip workforce had chosen to work from home several days a week in order to do the 3pm school pick-up.

Many large technology companies – such as Facebook and Atlassian – have shifted to allow people to work remotely by default.

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Dom Price, workplace futurist at Atlassian, said giving people flexibility on where and when they work let employees fit work around their life circumstances and delivered a loyal and engaged workforce.

“Having had a taste of this flexibility through the ‘forced experiment’ of last year, leaders should be wary of potentially taking away flexibility which is known and somewhat now expected by their teams,” Mr Price said.

Kate Lynch, 51 and from Pymble, holds senior positions in the pharmaceutical industry and has worked from home for many years while raising her four children with the support of a nanny.

“When I had young children, in the primary school age, working from home was very convenient, because I could be around if I was needed and juggle work and parenting,” Ms Lynch said. “The lack of commuting time was a big benefit.”

Ms Lynch said she had rich friendships in the workplace before having children but this social connection was replaced by interactions in the local community through her children’s schools and sporting clubs. Now they are grown up, she is looking forward to returning to the office after the pandemic.

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