Victoria's new working from home legislation takes effect in September 2026. Employees will have a statutory right to request flexible work, and employers will need documented, legitimate business reasons to refuse. Not vibes. Not "we like the energy in the office." Documented reasons.

If you're an employer reading this and thinking "we already offer hybrid," keep reading. Because most hybrid policies we see are still built on ambiguity, and ambiguity is about to become a liability.

The policy gap nobody talks about

"Manager discretion" is not a policy. It's the absence of one.

We talk to candidates every day who describe the same experience. The job ad said hybrid. The offer letter said hybrid. Then they started and found out that their specific manager wants everyone in four days a week. Or that hybrid means "you can leave at 4pm on Fridays." Or that the rules change depending on which floor you sit on.

This inconsistency is one of the top reasons people leave within the first twelve months. Not salary. Not the work. The gap between what was promised and what was delivered on flexibility.

Victoria's legislation is going to force employers to put it in writing. But if you wait until September, you've already lost the people who were on the fence.

The Fair Work Commission is watching too

It's not just Victoria. The Fair Work Commission is currently hearing arguments about modernising the Clerks Award to include explicit provisions around remote and hybrid work. If that goes through, it sets a precedent that flows into dozens of other modern awards.

The direction of travel is clear. Flexibility is moving from "nice to have perk" to "regulated entitlement." Employers who built their return-to-office mandates on the assumption that they could just require five days are going to find the legal ground shifting under them.

The best candidates already treat flexibility as non-negotiable. Legislation is just catching up to what the talent market decided two years ago.

Remote roles skew to higher earners, and that's a problem

Here's something that doesn't get discussed enough. Remote and hybrid roles in Australia skew heavily towards higher earners. If you're offering $180k plus for a senior product manager, you can probably attract strong candidates with a three-day-in-office policy. They have leverage, options, and the financial buffer to be selective.

But if you're hiring at $90k to $120k for mid-level marketing, operations, or account management roles, your flexibility policy matters even more. These candidates have fewer options and are more sensitive to commute costs, childcare logistics, and the daily reality of getting into the CBD five days a week.

The irony is that many employers offer the most flexibility to senior people who could probably handle being in the office, and the least flexibility to the mid-level staff who need it most. If your hybrid policy is tiered by seniority, expect your mid-level retention to suffer.

What good looks like

The employers winning on this aren't doing anything radical. They're just being specific. Here's what we see from the companies that are landing top candidates right now:

This isn't going away

Every six months someone publishes a think piece about how remote work was a pandemic blip and everyone's coming back to the office. And every six months the data says otherwise.

The Victorian legislation is a signal. Other states will follow. The Fair Work Commission rulings will tighten things further. If your 2026 people strategy is built on the hope that flexibility will stop mattering, you're building on sand.

Sort your policy out now. Write it down. Make it specific. Make it consistent. And if you genuinely need people in the office full time, say that upfront so you stop wasting everyone's time, including your own.

The candidates have already decided what they want. Victoria just put it in law.