The concept of working from home isn’t exactly new. Managers have been managing virtual and remote teams over multiple geographies for some time, particularly within agencies, consultancies, media companies, and IT/tech companies. However, it’s an evolving model — one that’s now starting to become business-as-usual for bigger corporate players.
In fact, companies like Stockland, Telstra, Rio Tinto, Westpac, Woolworths, and BHP Billiton have all recently been recognised by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WEGA) as organisations that are willing to go the extra mile to accommodate their employees. Stockland, for example, offers a number of employee-friendly policies and bene ts to their staff, including part-time and work from home arrangements, exible working hours, and use of an onsite childcare centre.
This trend is set to continue in Australia. Management is increasingly unable to actually be there to actively manage their team’s start and nish times and productivity levels, let alone answer any questions they might have in real time. As a result, the existing generation of leaders, who have been brought up to manage by observing and rating behaviours according to the organisation’s behavioural framework, are nding themselves at a bit of a loss.
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