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Coles

4.2
  • > 100,000 employees

How Coles champions remote WFH and flexible work

Coles

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Justin [00:00:01] So do you use any type of like work from home or a remote type model? You know, a lot of companies are adopting now or is it kind of everyone in the office five days a week? 

Rem [00:00:08] So flexibility is a really big part of working at Coles. This is very much the case for our store support center graduate program, in particular our operations grade program, because it's based in our sites and stores around the country and their front-line operational positions, there's less flexibility, I guess, in terms of how you perform those roles. You really need to be on site. However, for our store support center grads, we have adopted a very flexible working policy, I guess, across the whole company, and it's really work based on what you need to accomplish. Yes. So sometimes there's reason for being in the office and doing face to face meetings because that's just more effective for delivering the outcome that you need to deliver the rest of the time. It's perfectly acceptable to be working remotely. I'll give you an example of my team. My team and I will be going to the office on a Tuesday every week. That's our one day in the office, the rest of the time we work remotely and Coles really leaned into the whole flexible working pace during the pandemic. And, and now I'm really pleased to say we have all the technology available to us that enables us to work remotely, effectively. 

Justin [00:01:24] Okay. So if somebody you're in the office one day a week, but if somebody did want to go to another part of the country and live there, I assume you can't be out of the country. But, you know, if they did want to be full-time remote, are there opportunities like that, say, hey, you know, I'm moving to you know, I think you said you're in Sydney. No, you're in Melbourne, you know, moving to another city and wanting to work sort of, you know, fully online. Is there sort of an opportunity to to do that? 

Rem [00:01:48] In certain parts of our business, there's definitely the opportunity to do that. So we do have other kind of store support centers in other major cities around Australia. And so it does enable a level of remote working for some roles in some parts of our business. Most of our store support center roles are based in Melbourne and there is still a requirement to attend the store support center from time to time. Like for example, we've got a strategy showcase this week. We've got to go into the store support center right. And so it kind of depends on the role and the part of the business. But, you know, the good news is, is that flexibility is here to stay. So even if it's not working from, for example, remote parts of Australia, people can still kind of base their work day on what they need to accomplish.