With the word “crisis” now comes talk about working from home.
As oil prices rise and the cost of petrol surges towards $4 a litre, it’s been flagged as a potential voluntary measure in contingency plans.
There’s been no direct Government endorsement or mandate for working from home, but it’s been recognised as a possible fuel-saving step if the crisis worsens, alongside prioritising essential sectors.
University of Otago business school associate professor Paula O’Kane told The Front Page that the current situation has exposed how little the lessons from Covid were retained.
“When Covid happened, we saw it as this big social experiment. To see if people could work from home. And we proved people could work from home,” she said.
“But then over the years since then, organisations have retracted, the Government’s retracted.
“Now we’ve hit this other shock, and we’re asking people, potentially, or we might start to ask people to work from home again. So, I don’t think we thought that through very well, and we haven’t really embraced some of the learning from Covid in terms of what’s happening in our environment and how we’ve actually got to be prepared for that.
“There are definitely a lot of companies that have kept the work-from-home agenda that have supported their employees to work from home and have been quite positive about it.
“But there have also been a lot that have been quite negative about it. What I can see is a little bit about presenteeism. So, if you’re not in the office and you’re not being seen, it’s harder to know what you’re doing.
“How productive are people working from home, regardless of everything else. That’s what it comes down to. And we see an organisation say, we don’t have the innovation because people aren’t together and they aren’t making the social connections.
“Actually, there’s not a lot of evidence out there to support any of that, any of the evidence or the research that I’ve seen.
" There’s only one study that I have seen that has used objective measures of productivity, so actual outcome or output-based measures, and that one has seen an increase in productivity for the people who are working from home a number of days a week.“
O’Kane said the conversation should not just be about working from home, but about flexible work more generally.
“The traditional workplace came about in the sort of the turn of the 19th into the 20th century. Life has changed horrendously since then, particularly in the past 10 to 15 years.
" Even when we saw a lot more females entering the workplace, offices and work were designed around men. Imagine if they’re actually designed around families, it would be quite a different organisation of work, and I think that’s where we’re really lacking.
“We need to organise work differently,” she said.
The Front Page contacted 13 companies from the telecommunications, energy, and banking sectors.
All 13 responded, and most of them are continuing to “watch the situation closely”.
One NZ, Westpac, 2degrees, ANZ, IAG, Meridian Energy, Spark, Genesis, Mercury, Tower, Kiwibank, AA Insurance, and Contact Energy all cited their flexible work options - and a few already help employees with public transport costs.
ANZ NZ allows a majority of its employees the ability to work for up to 50% of their time remotely, whether that’s from home or elsewhere within a commutable distance from their designated ANZ workplace.
One NZ hasn’t gone as far as specific actions as a result of fuel concerns, but said it’s had flexible working policies in place for a long time.
Westpac NZ offers hybrid working and some remote work options that help its people manage commuting costs.
“We are monitoring the impacts of higher fuel prices closely, but don’t have any current plans to change our approach,” a spokesperson said.
IAG executive general manager people, communication, and sustainability, Louise Harvey-Wills, said the company is actively monitoring the situation.
“Our standard operating model includes hybrid working arrangements, allowing employees to work flexibly between home and our offices.
“If a mandate was to be put in place by the Government, we would of course follow all requirements,” she said.
Meridian Energy hasn’t made any changes and, depending on the role, offers flexible working arrangements.
Most of Spark’s office-based teams already adopt hybrid ways of working, which means four days in the office and one day where you can work from home.
“We also offer flexibility such as adjusting start and finish times, taking time out when life circumstances demand it, or working from different locations when required,” a spokesperson said.
2degrees is also “watching things” but already has a flexible workplace.
“People work from home a lot already, so we haven’t seen the need to make any changes yet,” a spokesperson said.
The company also pointed to its employees’ alternatives to driving through Workride and Extraordinary.
“Workride lets you buy a bike, e-bike or scooter with no upfront cost, then pay it off through pre-tax payroll deductions.
“Extraordinary lets you use pre-tax income to pay for your commute across NZ’s public transport networks,” they said.
Genesis subsidises public transport costs by 50% for employees in their Auckland and Hamilton offices, through Auckland Transport (HOP card) and Waikato Transport (Bee Card).
“We’re encouraging our people to take advantage of this,” a spokesperson said.
Mercury said it’s currently continuing to “encourage in-person connection and collaboration” but “recognise that remote working can help ease cost pressures for some employees”.
Acting people general manager Sarah Holt said people have been encouraged to have conversations with their leaders about temporary arrangements that work for them and their team.
Tower Insurance chief people officer Carly Orr said at this stage, they hadn’t seen an increase in employees working from home specifically due to fuel supply concerns.
“We are currently looking at options to support more of our people to use public transport, including platforms that allow employees to pay for public transport using pre-tax income, and expect to have a new employee benefit in this area within the coming month,” she said.
A recent survey of the company’s 950 employees showed that nearly half (49%) of their Auckland-based people use public transport, and a further 14% biked, walked, or scootered.
Contact Energy has a team of more than 1400 people across the country. It, too, has embedded flexible ways of working over the past five years.
Kiwibank said many of its teams work in a hybrid way, spending time both at home and in the office.
AA Insurance also has hybrid working policies across the business.
“To support commuting, we also offer initiatives such as half‑price public transport through our Fareshare and Bee Card programmes for travel to and from work for our Auckland and Hamilton office team members.
“We have aligned our response with the Government’s phased approach and will continue to monitor the situation, taking guidance from Government and relevant agencies,” chief people officer Paula Williams said.
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The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5pm. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.
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