Employers in Australia are under increasing pressure to create better working conditions for their employees, according to a new analysis, with 57% of those polled stating that employee wellness would affect their workplace rules over the next three years, up from 33% in 2021.
According to the report, titled Future of Work – Balancing Acts by Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF), three-quarters of Australian respondents (75%) said that employees are demanding more support for their health and wellbeing, with 53% already incorporating wellbeing into job design and a further 39% planning to do so.
According to Shivchand Jhinku, an HSF Employment Partner, while legislation requiring employers to pay more attention to employee mental health may be forcing employers’ hands in some jurisdictions, leading organisations are doing much more than that because they see that wellbeing initiatives work in terms of retention and productivity.
According to the research, 61% of respondents want to provide employees the “right to switch off” business communications outside of working hours, which is significantly higher than the global average of 40%. “This will be an interesting area where employers will have to respond to forces pulling in different directions—mitigating employee burnout because they feel that they are ‘always on’, against people working flexible hours and perhaps in different locations and time zones,” he said.
The survey also highlighted differences in workplace expectations in Australia, where 83% of employers expect more in-person work in the next two years, while just 8% expect more hybrid arrangements, compared to global averages of 70% and 16%. Employers are also looking for methods to change work choices through incentives, with 38% expecting remote work to become a trust-based privilege and 37% planning to distinguish pay between office-based and remote employees in the next three to five years.
