If you let your staff work from home, then this billionaire says you are
A billionaire highrise developer says companies that let their employees work from home are “parasites.”
Meriton founder Harry Triguboff, founder of Meriton and Australia’s richest highrise developer, told an Urban Taskforce business breakfast that employees who work from home are only “working half the time.”
Triguboff said that office assets would be wasted if banks and government agencies allow employees to work remotely, according to a report by The Daily Telegraph. He also worried that those organisations weren’t doing their part in Sydney’s economic recovery from COVID-19 – a recovery that could see deserted office towers converted to apartments.
“We have to stop this work from home,” Triguboff said. “You can have figures that they will work; I say they only work half the time.”
Triguboff – who is estimated to be worth more than $11 billion – also joked that you can’t get service from banks because “they don’t work.”
“The bosses of the banks cannot tell me anymore that they are very careful, that nobody gets sick,” he said. “Nobody’s sick and nobody got sick in their lousy banks, so forget about that. They should stop being parasites – they have to work.”
But David Borger, executive director of Business Western Sydney, told the Telegraph that workers weren’t in a hurry to head back to the office full-time.
“They want to do their jobs and get home to their families a little earlier,” he said.
And a Business Western Sydney/Astrolabe Group report found that Western Sydney’s metropolitan centres could see a $450 million annual spike in their local economies – and attract more jobs – if the hybrid work week became permanent.
“Western Sydney is home to some of the hardest-working people in the country,” Borger said. “…Who wouldn’t want to work closer to home if the option is available? If the pandemic has shown us anything, it is that we don’t have to be chained to a desk in a CBD office five days a week.”
Many outer Sydney councils have been lobbying for the hybrid work week to continue after seeing booms in their local economies, the Telegraph reported.
Liverpool Council in southwest Sydney is prepared to provide a co-working space of 20 desks immediately, with scope for more soon. This gives people the option to work in a quiet, professional space without a 90-minute commute, the Telegraph reported.
“We want to help locals work from Sydney’s third CBD in quality surroundings with decent Wi-Fi close to their homes,” Mayor Wendy Waller told the paper. “Workers will have greater life balance, and there is evidence their productivity will improve as well.”
