WA leads the way with a return to the office.

 

While COVID-19 infection rates continue to fall across the country, many Australians are still concerned about the latent threat of the coronavirus with just over half of workers indicating a reluctance to return to the office.

 

A new report from recruitment firm Hays called the fear of returning to the workplace a “new dilemma for employers”.

 

In an interview with the Australian Computer Society, Nick Deligiannis, managing director of Hays ANZ, said: “The potential for new waves of infections is certainly very real, therefore even employers who have started transitioning staff back to the workplace find that social distancing and therefore flexible working arrangements will likely need to remain in place until more is known about COVID-19.”

 

Western Australia leads the way with 73 per cent of respondents to Hays’ survey saying they had either already returned to the office or plan to return in the next three months.

 

The states with the longest, most consistent number of active COVID-19 cases – Victoria and New South Wales – unsurprisingly saw the lowest percentage of workers returning to the office: 32 and 41 per cent respectively.

 

Meantime, a study by Atlassian found that 85 per cent of workers felt their productivity increased while working from home.

 

PHOTO: International Standards Organisation