Why the WFH trend could be over for millions of Aussies - so what are your rights if your boss asks you back to the office?

Bosses are urging staff back to their office desksBonuses and promotions at risk for those who refuseLawyers warn many staff will not be able to challenge READ MORE:  Shocking rejection text woman jobseeker was sent 

The tide may have turned for employees wanting to carry on working from home – and the law is on the side of company bosses, legal experts have warned.

The changing jobs market means staff are no longer in a position of strength four years after the Covid pandemic sparked the couch-based work-life revolution.

Rising unemployment and fewer job ads mean the balance of power is shifting back into the hands of employers – and most of them want to see staff return to the office.

Now legal experts have warned most workers will be powerless to refuse if their boss lays down the law.

There are only a handful of limited legal reasons staff can give to stop being forced back into the office and mount a challenge with the Fair Work Commission.

‘Not everyone can make such a request,’ employment law specialist Giri Sivaraman, of Maurice Blackburn Lawyers, told Daily Mail Australia.

The tide may have turned for employees wanting to carry on working from home – and the law is on the side of company bosses, legal experts have warned.

Rising unemployment and fewer job ads mean the balance of power is shifting back into the hands of employers – and most of them want to see staff return to the office

‘If employers push workers to come into the workplace, employees still have the right to make a flexible work request to work from home.

‘[But] you need to fall into one of the categories of parents and carers, older workers, pregnancy, disability or experiencing family and domestic violence.

‘The employer can refuse the request on reasonable business grounds.’

Under a change in the law last June, workers can now launch an appeal with the Fair Work Commission against a refusal, but must still be in one of the eligible groups.

The warning comes after job ads offering permanent or hybrid work from home conditions fell from a high of 11 per cent in April 2023 to 9.4 per cent in December.

That is still a huge rise from the pre-pandemic figure of just 1.4 per cent in February 2020, but the drop is significant and indicates a trend against working from home.

Big finance corporates like Suncorp and ANZ are using annual bonuses as a lure to get staff back to their desks or face missing out on the cash boosts.

The warning comes after job ads offering permanent or hybrid work from home conditions fell from a high of 11 per cent in April 2023 to 9.4 per cent in December

Big finance corporates like Suncorp and ANZ are using annual bonuses as a lure to get staff back to their desks or face missing out on the cash boosts (stock image)

Multinational corporates like Google and Meta have also warned staff they need to back in the office at least three days a week or face performance review consequences which could impact their promotion prospects.

Matt Cowgill, senior economist on jobs website Seek, has warned of a major ‘shake-up coming in the market’ in the wake of the turning tide.

‘The cooling labour market likely does mean that employers have a bit more ability to try and bring people back to the office where they can,’ Mr Cowgill told the ABC.

‘Now that unemployment has started to rise, we have seen some job losses in December. And at Seek we’ve seen the number of job ads on offer fall as well.

‘So that does tilt the balance a little bit back towards employers in that work-from-home equation.’

Surveys of company bosses have revealed the move to reverse the WFH trend by encouraging staff to come back to the office even just one more day a week, he said.

But he said their own research has shown the ability to work from home was still a high priority for many jobseekers.

‘It continues to be something that dominates the search trends on Seek — people are out there looking for remote or hybrid jobs,’ he added.

Some tech companies have seen the benefit of allowing their staff to carry on working from home, with Australian-founded giant Atlassian keen to see it continue.

Atlassian co-founder and Co-CEO Scott Farquhar (pictured with partner Kim Jackson) says the focus is too often on ‘where work happens, and not enough in how it happens’

Its Team Anywhere WFH policy has allowed around 40 per cent of its staff to work remotely at least two hours or more travelling time away from Atlassian offices.

The company says the initiative has doubled the number of candidates applying for jobs with the software firm, and has come at no cost to productivity.

Atlassian co-founder and co-CEO Scott Farquhar says the focus is too often on ‘where work happens, and not enough in how it happens’.

‘The reality is, most businesses already work in some form of a distributed way — whether that’s customers and clients in different offices, or colleagues across time zones.

‘In today’s global world, in-office mandates don’t bring entire teams together or solve challenges rooted in archaic ways of working.

‘Work is a vocation, not a location, and it’s about time we recognise that. This resistance to change is based on fear, not fact.’