SUSS academic says employers need to offer clarity on where "home" is in work from home
Victor Seah writes in a CNA commentary after a Sydney-based trader was dismissed for working from Singapore on a work-from-home day.
A Sydney-based currency trader who worked from Singapore on a work-from-home day has raised a question for employers: where exactly is "home" in work from home? According to Victor Seah from the Singapore University of Social Sciences, companies must spell out their rules plainly.
What happened to the trader
The company's IT team was told by his manager to apply its "FBI skills" in tracking down where he was. Singapore turned out to be where the trader's laptop was eventually located, and he lost his job.
Australia's Fair Work Commission ruled on Oct 7, and according to that decision, he had previously gone abroad to work without approval. Earlier, he had carried out his duties in Bali, telling his manager that he was staying home for a plumber's visit.
His employer had a valid reason for dismissal, the commission concluded, since the trader had deliberately hidden where he was. Still, the dismissal was procedurally unfair, since he had not been given a proper opportunity to respond. Compensation for him came to slightly over four weeks' pay.
Stretching the meaning of "home"
In a CNA commentary, Seah recounts an acquaintance who, without his employer's knowledge, regularly spends his work-from-home days working out of overseas hotels.
Many others, Seah says, also quietly push "home" toward the places near where they live, such as a cafe, a co-working space or the area where parents wait outside their child's enrichment class, so this person is no exception. In his words, working overseas simply sits at the extreme end of that same habit.
Online, the episode prompted debate, and some people asked at what point employees overstep the line when they stretch what "work from home" means.
