Victoria has recorded 5874 Covid cases and 15 deaths on Friday.There are 281 people with Covid in hospital, with 43 in intensive care and 5 on ventilators.The state has 40,968 active cases.A human resources expert has warned of higher staff turnover as people return to commuting on Monday.As the state government scraps its recommendation to work from home, Corporate Dojo founder Karen Gately expects showdowns between bosses and staff, with many reluctant to ditch the flexibility of the past two years.“Clearly we’ve got employers who will say ‘work wherever you want’ but I’d say the majority want staff back onsite, at least in some capacity,” Ms Gately said. “The employer that says work must be done fully onsite is really creating a hard position for themselves. “The demand for flexibility is huge. Progressive employers pre-Covid recognised that, but now people have had a taste of it and employers, in many ways, had been forced to go down that path, so the way they react post-Covid will be telling.” Ms Gately said employers should not be too quick to hurry staff back to their desks because it could ultimately drive them away. “It may be that people need time to transition, so bosses need to recognise that going from one reality to another might be really jarring to people’s lives,” she said. “Even if a business is aiming to get people onsite full time, they need to give their workers time to work out their needs.” She added that employers should move past the assumption that workers were less productive in non-office environments. “My prediction is that we will see a lot of turnover in staff,” Ms Gately said. “Given the unemployment rate, I don’t think it’s going to be too hard (for workers to leave). Smart employers will say ‘come in our direction because we are a flexible workplace’.” Steve Michelson, of strategic communications firm Michelson Alexander, said his company deemed Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays “all-in-work days” to boost morale. “Like most businesses, we have struggled balancing the Covid risk with our team’s eagerness to close the Zoom browser and get back to socialising and collaborating with our clients and colleagues in person,” he said. “To try and counter this, we have established all-in workdays where we have everyone working together in the office, two optional work-from-home days, additional social activities and the introduction of an office dog named Max.”
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