Offshoring Jobs Proves the Point

Offshoring Jobs Proves the Point 

If the work can be sent offshore, the issue is not remote work. It is control, cost and leadership.

Threatening to offshore jobs because employees may have statutory rights to work two days a week from home does not prove remote work is the problem. It proves some employers are more comfortable managing contracts than people.

The issue being exposed is not remote work; it is ineffective leadership.

Employer response to proposed legislation

In my last newsletter, I challenged the proposed bill under which the Victorian Government here in Australia would legislate that eligible employers must allow their employees who can reasonably work from home to do so two days per week. It will become an employee’s statutory right. 

Premier Jacinta Allan has said, “There are plenty of bosses who will fight us on this – I’m absolutely sure of it. Bosses who cling to outdated ways of working because they don’t want to give up control, bosses who think being seen at a desk is more important than a parent getting home for dinner with their kids.”

I argued that the legislation touted as providing employees with flexibility is replacing one set of rigidity with another and obscuring the real issue: ineffective leadership.

A recent Australian news article from nine.com.au by Maddison Skipper, titled “Nearly half of Victorian businesses plan to take jobs offshore in response to WFH rules”, reinforced my concerns.

The article says, “Nearly half of Victorian employers plan to increase offshore hiring in response to the state government’s new work-from-home rules.”

New research shows that many businesses will go elsewhere to fill their roles.

Remote’s Navigating Workforce Transformation Report, as reported by Nine and Sky News, shows that 43 per cent of businesses will increase offshore hiring if the new policies are mandated as minimum requirements. 47 per cent said they will shift toward contractors rather than permanent staff to reduce regulatory complexity.

The remote contradiction

There is an obvious contradiction. This is businesses saying, “We cannot have employees working remotely from Victoria, so we will move work offshore where the people are… working remotely from us.”

If the work can be sent offshore, it can be done remotely.

A worker in another country is not sitting in a Melbourne office. They are not contributing to in-person culture. They are not being supervised by someone walking past their desk. They are not joining spontaneous conversations in the office kitchen. They are remote.

So, the issue is not whether the work can be done outside the office. The businesses considering offshoring have already answered that question.

The control issue

The article makes that clear. Employers are not only considering offshore hiring. Some are also considering a shift toward contractors rather than permanent employees to reduce regulatory complexity.

Under the proposed work-from-home law, employees gain a legal right, and employers have less unilateral control. That is a very different proposition from voluntarily allowing remote work by agreement.

They face written notices, formal responses, records, disputes, and possible escalation to bodies such as the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission (VEOHRC) and the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT).

When work is offshored or contracted out, employers may feel they have greater control. They can manage through contracts, deliverables, service levels, cost targets and disengagement clauses.

That may be easier for some organisations, but in my opinion,it is just a workaround for ineffective leadership.

The contradiction businesses need to explain

We cannot have both arguments.

“People need to be in the office for culture, collaboration and productivity”

and

“We may send the work offshore if employees gain the right to work from home.”

If a business can manage work across borders, time zones and outsourced arrangements, surely it can manage an employee working from home two days a week in Victoria.

Self-made problems

The proposed legislation has not been well-designed.

I have already argued that a fixed two-day entitlement risks becoming a ceiling, a roster and a compliance exercise.

Genuine flexibility is not about allocating prescribed days. It is about trust, outcomes, clear expectations, role requirements, business needs and real-life circumstances.

Threatening to offshore jobs and shift towards contractors does not prove remote work is the problem.

It proves that some organisations are more comfortable managing contracts than leading people.

It proves that the real objection may not be to remote work itself, but to employees having rights, process and negotiating power.

Rather than building organisations where work is judged by outcomes, many employers have tried to maintain control through office attendance.

If more organisations had already developed mature, trust-based flexible work practices, this proposed legislation may not have gained traction.

In that sense, some employers have made a rod for their own backs. Outdated practices and ineffective leadership created the conditions for government intervention.

This is a leadership issue

If leaders can define outcomes for offshore workers, they can define outcomes for local workers as well.

If they can manage service levels across borders, they can manage performance across suburbs.

If they can use digital tools to coordinate outsourced teams, they can use those same tools to lead hybrid teams.

The difference is the leadership gap.

Leaders are not prepared to unlearn and relearn how to lead in 2026. They are not prepared to learn how to lead when work is no longer defined by where you sit.

The gap is filled by leaders who equate presence with performance and measure hours rather than outcomes.

Business pressures are real

Of course, businesses are facing real pressures.

There are rising costs, increased compliance complexity, mounting workforce expectations and skills shortages—all of these matter.

There can be no serious discussion about flexible work without recognising those realities.

However, this should not divert us from being honest about what is being said.

“If your job can be done from home, it can be done from anywhere” is not just a warning to employees.

It is also the ultimate admission that work does not always require an employee to be in the office.

The right question

So, the question is not, “How do we stop people working from home?”

The right question is, “How do we design work well, lead people well, and make good decisions about when presence genuinely matters?”

Offshoring jobs in response to work-from-home rules would not be evidence that flexibility has failed. It would be evidence that some employers still prefer control over trust.

It is not working from home that is the problem. The problem is ineffective leadership.

If a role can be done from another country, it can probably be done from a home office in Victoria.

The question is not whether remote work works. The question is whether leaders are willing to lead it well.