While accepting an employer was entitled to issue a return-to-office directive, the Fair Work Commission has nonetheless ordered it to grant an exemption to an employee who requested to keep working remotely.
Employees must establish a clear nexus between their obligations as parents of school-age children and their desired working arrangements, rather than simply rely on their parenting status, if they expect to win disputes over flexible work refusals, a new ruling shows.
Some employers are now realising they've "gone too far" in adding flexible work terms to their enterprise agreements, and rolling them back isn't going to be easy, a workplace relations specialist warns.
Employees' expectations around flexibility and hybrid working are creating "some interesting issues" in redundancy-related disputes, an employment lawyer says.
Too many employers are still trying to structure flexibility and remote work around their existing team organisation and leadership practices, when it should be the other way around, according to an advisor with 20 years' experience in the field.
HR managers should stop worrying about office space being empty some of the time and pay a lot more attention to a far more important metric: "the happiness and wellness" of their workforce, according to a leader at EY.
Some employers have successfully stepped up to the task of managing psychosocial safety, but in many other workplaces, initiatives are falling flat. Join us for an HR Daily webinar to understand what's holding back progress in this critical space and how to move forward.
