Do Elon Musk’s straws in the wind about less working from home contain some workplace design messages we should understand?

After all, many experts believe a hybrid work model, incorporating both office and remote work, is well entrenched and likely to become the future norm for many jobs, as it offers flexibility and benefits for both employees and employers.

This is clearly evident in Australasia, where both men and women in Australasia have embraced work from home: 37% of Australians work from home regularly, which is slightly lower than the 40% who worked from home in 2021 but still 5% higher than before the pandemic. There are many influences at play here, including the need to advance women and men in the workplace without impacting their ability to be good parents too.

But designers, property owners, and managers are obliged to listen closely to the pronouncements of Elon Musk, the man tasked by incoming President Donald Trump with heading the new Department of Government Efficiency (Doge).

Because in 2024, the United States had the largest economy in the world, with a gross domestic product of just under 29 trillion U.S. dollars, or 25 per cent of world GDP. (China had the second largest economy, at around 18.5 trillion U.S. dollars, while Australia and NZ combined just exceeded $US2 billion).

So what happens in the US trendsetter economy can spread throughout the world. Such an eventuality is highly relevant to Australia and New Zealand, because already we are seeking the beginnings of a pushback here against blanket working from home arrangements.

The public service union in Australia’s biggest State, NSW, is challenging the Premier's decree that public sector workers no longer work from home. The new edict means all work is expected to be done in the office and that public servants will need formal approval prior to working from home. NSW has the largest economy of any state in Australia, valued at $A660.6 billion in 2021-22 or approximately 30.6% of Australia's GDP. This compares with NZ’s approximately $A395 billion ($NZ429 billion).

And on top of the pushback, we are seeing the rise of AI technologies that may in future measure the output of people working at home, to ensure everyone involved is getting a fair deal. This AI is now so advanced that not only can it measure the keystrokes of remote workers, but also it can discern keystroke patterns to determine who is making the input.

Now, to me, this is slightly scary stuff, a bit too controlling for my liking. After all, everyone in an enterprise is part of a team, everyone with agreed roles, one dependent on the other. And an essential ingredient of teamwork is trust. Without that, we don’t have a business.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line is that working from home is exercising the minds of government and business leaders in many countries, including Australia and New Zealand.

Just recently NSW Premier Chris Minns issued the C2024-03 NSW Government Sector workplace presence ruling, stating that government sector employees should work principally in an approved office, workplace or related work site, with mandatory compliance by executive agencies. He stirred up controversy and pushback when sent out a memo ordering public service workers to work out of an office for at least three days a week.

So working from home is definitely a Government issue, as it is in the private sector, according to the global JLL commercial real estate group’s Future of Work Survey 2024.

Despite tight labour markets, and the global rise of AI and automation, this report says most respondents, 64 per cent, expect their headcount to increase by 2030.

While approaches to office attendance very widely, decision-makers involved in this global guideline appear ready to invest in Commercial Real Estate, with 65 per cent expecting their overall CRE budget to increase between now and 2030.

Two of the most cited corporate goals in this survey include attracting and retaining talent and achieving organisational efficiency, leaving organisations with a delicate balancing act: What’s the best way to secure organisation efficiency and attract the right talent? Should employees work together in the office, taking advantage of face-to-face interactions, or should they be offered maximum flexibility to allow them to decide where and when they can perform at their best. And what type of workplaces should commercial real estate teams offer?

So this is a very live debate that behoves all designers, builders, property managers and business owners to think about the trends that may be arising in future workplaces and to reflect upon our Duty of Care in providing for:

• More people returning to the workplace. Given natural growth, even the reduced numbers working at least some of the time in the office is destined to grow.
• More people sharing spaces in the workplace, as more people adopt a workstyle that involves some time in the office and some time at home – with health implications.
• A more fluid workplace style, with more shared office facilities, recreational facilities and health and wellbeing facilities involving a greater flow of people to and from buildings and within them.

These developments have both occupational health, safety, and security implications for planners, designers, builders, construction suppliers, facility managers, and employers. All are no doubt sharply aware of their Duty of Care legal obligation to take reasonable care to avoid causing harm to others or their property. It's the first step in a negligence claim. Duty of care means employers are responsible for the health and safety of their employees and visitors.

We come across such issues daily in my particular area of work, heading the Australian operation of one of the world’s leading revolving door and security entrance organisations operating in 27 countries, Royal Boon Edam.

The big ones I deal with day-to-day are:

1. The inter-related energy-savings and OH&S benefits of properly sealed large buildings in built-up areas, including naturally sealed always open, always-shut revolving doors at entrances and lobbies, where are where huge amounts of energy leak from many of Australia’s million-plus commercial buildings.

No-one can deny the benefits of fresh air of buildings located in areas where the air really is fresh. But this is typically not the case in urban centres, where employees need to be safeguarded against the rising incidence of pollution created around people returning to work, including airborne noxious fumes, traffic pollution, airborne virus’ and natural hazards such as choking wind-borne natural allergens (one in five people have allergic conditions, in our congested cities); industrial pollution, noise pollution, and bushfire smoke, which can travel not only nationally, but internationally.

Of particular concern is that many parts of Australia have rising buildups of fuel such as dried grass, leaves, twigs and dead branches that contribute to risks lightning-strike and other causes of outbreaks that can be hard to control once they take hold and send clouds of smokes containing toxic particulates into the growing urban centres of the most fire-prone country on Earth, where we already have 45,000-60,000 bushfire and grassfires in a “normal” year. This adds to the load on the lungs of returning workers – and our Duty of Care to safeguard against this and other pollutants and viruses, so as to keep our workplaces safe as more people return to them and as we have to cater to an increasing mobile and health-conscious workforce. (Read more about airborne particulates in the built environment.)

2. And security is a big issue that has stepped out of the shadows into the public domain in recent years. This is an increasingly large and increasing issue that can only get larger with more people retuning to workplaces, more visitors coming to see them, and more fluid workplaces where the element of personal knowledge of the next person on the neighbour “hot desk” is lost.

Consider this: 37 per cent of Australians work from home regularly, according to the ABS. While this was down from around 40 per cent during Covid, it is still a huge pool of people who will be returning to work out of a total workforce of about 14.5 million. Even a shift of 5 percentage points would mean another 725,000 in the workplaces of our urban centres.

The figures from NZ are also illuminating. Nearly 20 percent of employed adults in New Zealand work mostly from home, according to the latest (2023) Kiwi census – up nearly 60 percent on results from 2018. Wellington and Auckland had the biggest increase in remote workers, both regions more than doubling. The data was made public by Statistics New Zealand this year, just a week after Public Service Minister Nicola Willis directed ministry bosses to tighten up on working from home.

More workers in buildings, more visitors to buildings, more people who are strangers to each other – this is an atmosphere in which security is increasingly challenged, including particularly issue related to data centres, financial hubs, trade centres, health and welfare facilities, hospitality venues and public service facilities dealing with sensitive public data and large numbers of visitors. Key issues to consider with greater volumes of people returning to work, greater numbers of strangers interacting with each other, include:

1. Unauthorised access and tailgating

By far one of the most prevalent and persistent threats that businesses face comes in the form of unauthorised access.

Unauthorised individuals gaining entry to secure areas can not only compromise the safety of employees and visitors, but also of sensitive information and valuable assets. A common method used by intruders to gain access is tailgating – following closely behind an authorised person to gain access to a restricted area.

2. Theft of documents, data, and property

Most businesses handle sensitive documents and intellectual property that, if in the wrong hands, could have serious consequences. Be it client information, employee data, or business insights, lots of forms of data can be used against you.

3. Unaccounted visitors & intruders

At any given time, it’s essential to know who is present in the workplace – not only for physical security, but also in case of a fire or incident. Unaccounted visitors or intruders pose a real security risk as their presence can go unnoticed, which can, in turn, make it challenging to identify and resolve breaches.

4. Stolen identification and access control breaches

However great they are, access control systems are only effective if individuals use their own identification credentials. Lost or stolen identification cards can undermine the security measures in place.

5. Social engineering attacks

Many businesses are aware of the extreme measures criminals may resort to in order to gain access to their buildings. Social engineering is by far one of the most insidious, particularly given the shift towards more shared working spaces. In the last few years, social engineering incidents have been rising in frequency and severity, with the average organisation facing over 700 attacks per year.

Social engineering involves the manipulation of individuals with access by exploiting human empathy, information, and trust. Criminals may, for example, pose as interviewees, electricians, and stakeholders to get let in – and they’ll put the pressure on to do so.

6. Terrorist activities

We all used to think these would never happen down in our happily isolated Antipodean centres. But we are now getting a chilling reality check, including when we open our latest building insurance premiums to find there is a terrorism levy included.

What is even more disconcerting is that the Australian National Security organisation, a Federal agency, says Australia’s general terrorism threat level is PROBABLE – there is a greater than 50 per cent chance of an onshore attack or attack planning in the next 12 months.

The national terrorism threat level is a warning tool to provide government and the public an indication of what ASIO is seeing and anticipates in the near future. NZ doesn’t need to be remind about terrorism threats of their doorstep – they have already experienced the worst kind of terrorist killings.

Any if there was even a scintilla of doubt about the lengths to which disgruntled people will go to satisfy their horrible agenda, we just need to look at the healthcare CEO killing in the US that has occupied and preoccupied news outlets recently.

Conclusion: Duty of Care is real – and it is far reaching

We the business community – and particularly the part occupied with commercial and public buildings – are not helpless in the face of such threats.

Companies such as the global organisation of which I am part have spent the last decade or more building up a bank of knowledge and technology to provide layered security to anticipate and respond to threats.

This has been applied effectively and cost-efficiently to urban developments ranging from the humble startup, to the very biggest and established Fortune 500 companies in the world, who depend on our range of technologies under the one roof. So do embassies and legislatures.

But the essential first step is to recognise is that there is a problem – and that Duty of Care can extend to risks that may not be present right now, but could reasonably be expected in the light of developing trends, such as those we have examined.

It means we (“a person”) are legally obligated to take precautions against a potential harm if a reasonable person would foresee that their actions could likely result in injury or damage to another person in similar circumstances.

Essentially, if a risk is foreseeable, a duty of care exists to take steps to prevent it.

So this isn’t pie-in-the-sky. This is a real issue. And we ignore it at our peril as workplaces change, evolve and become more exposed to threats than ever before.

Michael Fisher is Managing Director of Boon Edam Australia, which is part of the privately owned international Royal Boon Edam group, which provides architectural revolving door and layered security solutions to some of the world’s largest companies, Fortune 500 companies, and companies in Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea including financial, data and telecommunications, Federal and State Government, hospitality, health and age care, logistics, retail, and distribution facilities.