Why the Fair Work Commission backed an employer’s two-day office requirement and what every employer should understand about flexible work requests.
One of the biggest workplace debates of the past few years has been the rise of work from home requests based on caring responsibilities.
Many employers assume that if an employee has a genuine caring responsibility, then a request to work from home must be approved.
A recent Fair Work Commission decision involving the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) is a timely reminder that this simply isn’t the case. The Commission upheld AFCA’s decision to refuse an employee’s request to work from home full-time, despite the employee having significant caring responsibilities for an immunocompromised spouse and a child experiencing ongoing health issues.
The Facts
The employee requested to work from home on a permanent full-time basis due to his caring responsibilities.
Importantly, AFCA had already implemented a hybrid working guideline that allowed employees to work from home for up to three days per week, with attendance in the office required for the remaining two days.
The employee argued that AFCA had failed to properly consider the impact its refusal would have on him and his family and that the employer did not have reasonable business grounds to reject the request.
The Fair Work Commission disagreed.
Deputy President Bell described AFCA’s hybrid working arrangement as “on one view generous” and found there was no “capriciousness or arbitrariness” in the policy. The Commission accepted that the employer had reasonable business grounds to refuse the request for full-time remote work.
Why Did AFCA Win?
The key point is that AFCA was not refusing flexibility altogether.
The employee was already permitted to work from home for the majority of the week. The dispute was about whether the employer had to remove all office attendance requirements.
The Commission accepted that it did not.
This distinction is important because the Fair Work Act gives eligible employees the right to request flexible working arrangements. It does not give employees an automatic right to their preferred arrangement. Employers can refuse a request if they have reasonable business grounds and comply with the legal process.
In this case, the Commission accepted that AFCA’s hybrid model was a legitimate workplace policy and that requiring attendance in the office for two days a week was a reasonable position for the employer to maintain.
Why Do Some Work From Home Cases Succeed?
This decision shouldn’t be interpreted as a green light for employers to reject flexible work requests.
Recent Fair Work Commission decisions have shown that employers who rely on vague statements about culture, collaboration or management preference can find themselves in trouble if they can’t demonstrate genuine business reasons for refusing a request.
What we continue to see is that employers are more likely to succeed when they can demonstrate:
✅ A clear and consistently applied policy
✅ Genuine operational reasons
✅ A thorough assessment of the employee’s circumstances
✅ Evidence that alternative options have been considered
✅ A well-documented decision-making process
The cases are highly fact-specific, but one principle remains consistent: employers must do more than simply say “because that’s our policy”.
The Bloom HR Take
This case got me thinking about a question that many employers quietly ask but rarely say out loud.
When did “caring responsibilities” become synonymous with “working from home”?
The Fair Work Act provides eligible employees with the right to request flexible work arrangements because of caring responsibilities. However, flexibility comes in many forms.
Sometimes flexibility might mean:
- Adjusted start and finish times
- Reduced hours
- Part-time work
- Job sharing
- Compressed work weeks
- Different rostering arrangements
- Temporary changes during periods of increased caring needs
- Accessing paid personal/carer’s leave when a dependant is unwell
- Occasional or partial work from home arrangements
Work from home is just one option.
What concerns me is that, in many workplaces, we’ve almost reached the point where caring responsibilities automatically become a work from home discussion.
I don’t think that is what the legislation intended, and I don’t think it’s always the most appropriate solution.
Let’s be honest.
If an employee genuinely needs to provide ongoing care and supervision throughout normal business hours, employers are entitled to ask a practical question:
How will the employee continue to perform the inherent requirements of a full-time role?
That isn’t a criticism of carers.
It’s a legitimate operational question.
If a spouse, child or family member genuinely requires significant care during the day, there may be other options available. Depending on the circumstances, this could include formal support services, family support arrangements, adjusted work schedules, reduced hours, or utilising available leave entitlements when active care is required.
I appreciate this is an uncomfortable conversation, but I think it is one employers need to be willing to have.
A full-time employee should be available to perform their role during work hours. If caring responsibilities are so extensive that somebody cannot attend the workplace at all, employers shouldn’t be afraid to explore whether there are alternative flexible work arrangements that better balance both needs.
The lesson from this case isn’t that caring responsibilities aren’t real.
The lesson is that caring responsibilities do not automatically equal work from home.
Nor do they automatically override an employer’s legitimate operational requirements.
As HR professionals and business owners, our role isn’t to judge whether an employee’s circumstances are genuine. Our role is to determine whether there is a practical and sustainable arrangement that enables the employee to balance their responsibilities while still performing the role they are employed to do.
This decision reminds us that flexibility is a broad concept.
And sometimes the most appropriate solution may not be working from home at all.