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There is no need for the Clerks Award to contain a specific term compelling employers to allow employees to work from home, but it should contain a 'right to request' term, the Fair Work Commission has found, in its much-anticipated decision on the matter.

In its decision handed down today, the full bench – President Justice Adam Hatcher, Deputy President Bernadette O'Neill and Commissioner Sarah McKinnon – noted that WFH arrangements are now considered an "entrenched feature of employment in the clerical and administrative sector", and that most employee requests for a working from home arrangement are approved in whole or part.

Referring to research commissioned for the review (reported here), the bench stated: "The evidence does not support the proposition that employers are, to any significant degree, refusing requests for working from home arrangements on arbitrary, capricious or discriminatory grounds.

"In the small proportion of cases where requests are refused, the grounds given for this are, at least ostensibly, reasonably related to the legitimate business interests of the employer..."