Change in office working pattern expected

As restrictions on movement ease in Australia’s two biggest cities, the shape of the post-pandemic working week is rapidly coming up for debate between employers and employees. But the question troubling some urban commentators is not just how many days will be spent working from home, but which ones.

The Committee for Sydney – an urban thinktank that represents organisations including universities, hospitality, construction and entertainment – recently surveyed leaders of 130 organisations that employ 640,000 workers across Australia about expected staff attitudes and planned requirements in a vaccinated, post-Covid future.

The survey found that 51% of bosses expect their workers will commute to the office for just three days a week, and 36% expect their staff will cluster their office days from Tuesday to Thursday.

That has led the committee to urgently repeat calls for changes to public transport pricing to counterbalance the emerging “new long weekend” and spread travel more evenly across the week.

Cluster commuting

The data, compiled by research firm Roy Morgan and based on the movement of mobile devices in Sydney’s CBD, found that in the week beginning 24 May, Monday movement was down 66% compared with pre-pandemic levels of January and February 2020, down 63% on Tuesday and Wednesday, and 62% on Thursday.

The reduction was also just 62% on Friday, but a spokesperson for Roy Morgan said the figures did not differentiate between people moving through the city for work and for recreation, including those travelling to entertainment venues, restaurants and bars in the evenings, noting that was traditionally more common on Fridays after work.

Weather also appeared to affect commuting behaviour. The same Roy Morgan data showed more overall movement in the Sydney CBD in late April, when the weather was sunnier and warmer than the sample period in May.

However the pattern of workers appearing to cluster commuting between Tuesdays and Thursdays remained, with a similar proportional decrease in movement observed on Mondays between April and May.

Ideal solutions

The chief executive of the Committee for Sydney, Gabriel Metcalf, believes the NSW state government must now consider an expected change in commuting behaviour as it plans for Sydney’s future.

Metcalf said “it won’t be ideal” if such a trend eventuates, because “CBD retailers and restaurants, as well as our public transport and road system, will see the peak of demand spread across only three days instead of five”.

The committee’s calls to tweak public transport pricing and promote wider footpaths and more parks feature in its list of 12 suggestions to update NSW’s 2056 Future Transport Strategy. It also includes calls to expand the city’s metro lines, improve bike lane infrastructure, and upgrade to fast rail between Sydney and Newcastle and Wollongong.

Metcalf supports the NSW government’s renewed push toward alfresco dining and incentives for businesses to use outdoor spaces this summer, and thinks investing in post-work street events and allowing cultural institutions to open later would also help bring people into the CBD and spread out peak commuting demand.