Al-anwar Newspaper English news in Australia
Telstra and Westpac have advised staff to work from home if they can following national health advice recommending that employers make changes to limit the spread of Covid during the winter wave of infections.
On Tuesday, the chief medical officer, Prof Paul Kelly, said the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee (AHPPC) – comprised of all state and territory chief health officers – had reiterated its advice which “called on employers to allow work from home if feasible”.
But after the advice from the commonwealth’s top medical adviser a number of government departments have not yet shifted their work settings, and the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, stopped short of asking bosses to let more staff work from home instead of the office.
Alex Badenoch, a Telstra group executive, said the company updated its guidance on Wednesday in response to Kelly’s advice.
“With the rise in Covid case numbers and changing health advice, we have updated our people on how they can stay Covid-safe,” she said. “We are strongly encouraging our people to work from home if they can, wear a mask when they can’t socially distance, and get their booster shot if they’re eligible.”
For the thousands of Telstra employees who couldn’t work from home, including retail members and field technicians, Badenoch said the company was supplying face masks and rapid tests.
Westpac said it updated its employee guidelines to allow greater access to work from home options earlier this week, before Kelly updated his advice. It has allowed employees to work from home if they wished, “with no requirement to be in the office,” under a hybrid workplace model introduced in the last year.
“For employees who are required to attend a workplace, such as our branches, we have a range of health and safety measures in place to keep our people safe,” a Westpac spokesperson said.
Albanese was asked about the AHPPC’s advice on Wednesday and did not explicitly back a return to working from home, saying: “I don’t think there’s a prescriptive position that can be put forward.”
“Businesses will continue to make those decisions,” he said. “They need to make them on the basis of safety, but also for some people we need to recognise that they can’t work from home. “It’s a matter of getting the balance right. I’m confident that with a bit of common sense applied we can do that.”
Albanese, who wore a face mask to his Melbourne press conference, called on colleagues to follow the health advice when federal parliament resumes next week.
“If you can’t socially distance, if you’re around the corridors of Parliament House, then you should follow the advice which is to wear a mask,” he said.
Guardian Australia asked the deartments of prime minister and cabinet, Treasury, defence, education, finance, foreign affairs and trade, health, home affairs, industry, infrastructure, social services and agriculture if any had updated their workplace settings or were expanding work from home capacity after the recommendation from the chief medical officer.
