Can employees really work from home if they want to? In a recent Fair Work case an employee won the right to work from home, but it turns out it’s not that simple. It can only be requested under certain conditions and each case depends on the situation of the employee and the employer’s reasons.
The recent Fair Work Commission (FWC) decision of Deputy President Roberts in Karlene Chandler v Westpac Banking Corporation [2025] FWC 3115 (Chandler) has garnered significant media coverage and some criticism from commentators as unreasonably prioritising the interests of employees over employers in relation to the contentious issue of working from home (WFH).
With respect, some of the commentary on Chandler has overstated the significance of the decision. While it is an interesting and noteworthy case, for employees and employers alike, it needs to be kept in perspective. In that regard, here are some observations for consideration.
This was a Flexible Working Arrangement Request
This decision was not a WFH case per se. Rather, it was an application to deal with a dispute about a request for flexible working arrangements pursuant to section 65 of the Fair Work Act (FWA). WFH is one of a range of flexibility measures that can be sought by an employee in such a request. Only certain categories of employees can make such requests under the FWA, specifically employees who are pregnant, are a parent or have care of a school age child, have a disability, are 55 or over, are experiencing domestic or family violence or are caring for someone in their family or household who is.
There is no universal or inherent right to request WFH
Given the qualifying categories, not every employee is going to be able to use the mechanism used by the employee in Chandler to make a request to WFH. Many employees will not be able to use the FWA to even make a request for WFH, let alone then assert WFH as a matter of right.
It is important there be a link between the request for flexibility and the relevant employee category.
The request for WFH in Chandler was made in this context to provide flexibility so the employee could attend to school pick-up and drop-offs for her two six-year-old children. This request was made in the employee’s capacity as a parent. There was a strong link between the flexibility sought by the employee and the need she had to pick up her children from school which arose as a parent. This link is critical in establishing the need for a flexible working arrangement. An example of this is in the FWC decision of Paul Collins v Intersystems [2025] FWC 1976 (Collins), in which it was held by Deputy President Dean that the applicant in that case had not established the requisite nexus between his stated circumstance namely, his responsibilities as a parent of school-aged children, and the change in working arrangements he sought.
Flexible Working Arrangement Applications turn on the circumstances of the case.
Yes, it is a trite proposition, but the outcome of applications to deal with disputes about flexible working arrangements before the FWC very much turn on the circumstances of the case. While a decision such as Chandler offers guidance as to the analysis the FWC will adopt in dealing with such disputes, it is fraught to rely upon it as a guide to the outcome of other cases, as there will be a different factual scenario under consideration (as illustrated by the contrasting results in Chandler and Collins).
The factual case in favour of the employee was very strong.
In Chandler the facts were firmly on the side of the employee. Significantly, she had been working remotely since 2017 (that is, even before the COVID-19 pandemic when WFH, by necessity, became common practice). Her role (being in the Mortgage Operations Team) was suited to remote work. It was not in dispute that she was a good performer while working remotely, and part of a team that performed well working remotely. The request to WFH was initially approved (albeit on an interim, transitional basis) only for that decision to be reversed with no clear rationale for that reversal. There would be a substantial disadvantage to the employee if she was required to attend the Westpac corporate office in either Kogarah or Parramatta two days per week, as it would prevent her from picking her young children up from school which was located approximately two hours away from either of those offices. This would place her in an extremely difficult position, particularly given evidence was accepted her partner was similarly not able to attend to this need due to the nature of his work.
One interesting aspect of the case that has attracted attention (and seems to have been the lightning rod for some of the criticism of the decision) is that the employee moved to Wilton (south of Sydney, further away from Westpac’s corporate offices) in 2021 and made the choice to send her children to a private school that was 25 to 30 minutes from that home, in the opposite direction to the Westpac offices. The FWC noted that the circumstances leading to the application were partly of the employee’s own making and that while Westpac had not given any assurances it would accommodate this choice of residence indefinitely through remote working arrangements, it had, however, permitted such arrangements for the employee over an extended period.
As such, while this was a chink in the employee’s factual armour, it was not fatal to her application. Again, it would be wrong to conclude, however, that an employee’s personal preferences or convenience will always be accommodated. The stereotypical employee who movies hours away to a coastal location as part of a ‘sea change’ and then demanding to WFH may well find themselves very disappointed if they rely upon Chandler to support such a demand.
The factual position of the employer was relatively weak
The ‘reasonable business grounds’ presented by Westpac as to why the request to WFH should be declined primarily relied upon generalised statements about the importance of collaboration, engagement with stakeholders and physical presence assisting centralised operational processes. When the specifics of the working experiences of the employee were examined, these assertions were readily countered. For instance, the team ‘huddles’ Westpac wanted the employee to attend can, and were, conducted by Microsoft Teams (that is, online). The team of which the employee was a part were located in different states. Training sessions were available online. The reduction in capacity to mentor staff was countered by the fact there were no new employees to mentor and the employee had not mentored anyone since 2022. She had also successfully trained and mentored staff remotely in the past.
Conclusion
This case does not establish a general ‘right’ for employees to WFH. It does emphasise, however, that general employer policies on WFH, and the processes applying and implementing such policies, need to be flexible enough to take account of individual employee circumstances, especially when those employees fall into one of the categories giving rise to a right to make a request for a flexible working arrangement under the FWA. Employers need to be wary of a dogmatic, ‘one size fits all’ approach to WFH. Similarly, employees need to be aware that the FWC is not going to rubber stamp applications involving WFH to merely facilitate desired lifestyle changes.
