2
Victorian government faces backlash from small businesses over right to work-from-home laws
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2026
2 points (100.0% liked)
Australia
4880 readers
374 users here now
A place to discuss Australia and important Australian issues.
Before you post:
If you're posting anything related to:
- The Environment, post it to Aussie Environment
- Politics, post it to Australian Politics
- World News/Events, post it to World News
- A question to Australians (from outside) post it to Ask an Australian
If you're posting Australian News (not opinion or discussion pieces) post it to Australian News
Rules
This community is run under the rules of aussie.zone. In addition to those rules:
- When posting news articles use the source headline and place your commentary in a separate comment
Banner Photo
Congratulations to @Tau@aussie.zone who had the most upvoted submission to our banner photo competition
Recommended and Related Communities
Be sure to check out and subscribe to our related communities on aussie.zone:
- Australian News
- World News (from an Australian Perspective)
- Australian Politics
- Aussie Environment
- Ask an Australian
- AusFinance
- Pictures
- AusLegal
- Aussie Frugal Living
- Cars (Australia)
- Coffee
- Chat
- Aussie Zone Meta
- bapcsalesaustralia
- Food Australia
- Aussie Memes
Plus other communities for sport and major cities.
https://aussie.zone/communities
Moderation
Since Kbin doesn't show Lemmy Moderators, I'll list them here. Also note that Kbin does not distinguish moderator comments.
Additionally, we have our instance admins: @lodion@aussie.zone and @Nath@aussie.zone
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Yeah, this is what I surmised at the time - I cant ask about kids, only monitor performance.
The thing is, we're a very small team. We don't have any performance monitoring or improvement infrastructure. If youre making lots of mistakes, and others are helping you out a lot, then your performance needs to improve.
If other team members are picking up your dropped catches, and they thing you're at home with your kid, it becomes a real morale issue.
Other staff WFH and no one cares if they goof off a bit.
My point is, for a small business managing performance is much more challenging with WFH.
Is this not a type of performance monitoring? And to be fair, would performance not be monitored in the same way (assuming it's a desk job) not matter if they're working from home or not. I just am usually a bit sceptical that WFH is much of a burden.
This might be a little un-generous, but it seems that you believe the employee is making more mistakes at home, but it could also be your own bias that you know they have a child at home, and you think they're more distracted. I'd encourage you to just look at their work and decide from that if there's actually an issue here (there may well be, I obviously have no idea).
You'll save yourself headaches down the line if you end up putting them on a performance management plan (if it really is a serious issue and not overreacting, again I have no idea), if you base it entirely on performance, and that way there will be no accusations of bias.
If they're getting their work down, I'd encourage you to not worry about it and if they're not, the issue is with them not holding up their end of the bargain - not WFH.
Me personally, I like being in the office, because it's so much easier to bother each other for a quick chat about XYZ issue. When you're at home all you can do is message, since it's hard to tell how focused someone is. At the office you can base it on vibes. I am also single with no kids, so I am strongly in favour of WFH for everyone by default.
I obviously won't tell you how to run your own business, especially since I've never managed a team before, let alone a small business. But I'm still finding it hard to imagine why it's so much harder for a small business (if it's just a desk job).
Anyway, just my 2 cents to encourage you to catch yourself being biased because of children (if you are, you may be right on the money!)
Good to catch with ya :)
I got rid of this particular idiot months ago.
You seem to have missed my point.
Small businesses generally don't have the resources, experience, or skills to implement a PMP.
Okay, but how would WFH affect that.
Especially since you said others did WFH with no probs, I'm really struggling to find how WFH in particular is so unworkable for you or other small businesses.
Edit: in particular, how is WFH more of a burden for small business compared to larger ones.
It absolutely does need to be legislated, evidenced by the fact that you or others don't want to do it. The "free market" is not how workers achieved good conditions at work.
An employee with performance issues is not going to be improved by looking after their kid while they work.
This is problem with the employee, and not WFH.
And I'm glad as a state we're not throwing the baby out with the bath water on this one.
You'll figure it out how to manage 2 days WFH, I'm sure. It works absolutely fine for the vast majority of workers and employers.