Flexible working set to be default arrangement in Australia

Flexible working will continue to be part of working arrangements in the future, said Australian Public Service commissioner Peter Woolcott.

“What was shown during COVID is that we were able to work flexibly and remotely at scale. Technology stood up, the system stood up and that was a huge tribute to the public service,” he said at the launch of a report on the state of the Australian Public Service, according to The Mandarin. 

He added that working from home would remain part of the way the public service will operate in the future, and that workforces are unlikely to go back to pre-pandemic ways of working. 

“So much has now happened in changing the culture and the way we think about work; particularly at the leadership level. I would be surprised if we slide back to old habits,” Woolcott said. 

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However, he noted that it was appropriate for individual agencies to be given autonomy to get the amount of flexibility in the workforces right. “We are such a disparate set of agencies that can’t set one rule that counts across all agencies.”