PHOTOS: Microsoft Australia Asked Staff To Avoid The Office Today. Here's Where They Ended Up

Microsoft’s eerily empty headquarters in North Ryde. Credit: Microsoft

Microsoft Australia told staff to “avoid going into the office” today to promote flexible work practices in advance of National Teleworking Week next week.

It was a beautiful day for what the company called “Spring Day Out”, going by the photos that Microsoft staff sent Business Insider from their chosen workplaces of the day.

Here they are:

Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business team gathers for lunch in Bondi.

Marketing team members on Sydney's Cockatoo Island.

Working on a train using Queensland Rail's free wifi.

The view from partner consultancy Oakton's office in the Sydney CBD.

One staff member's view of Brisbane from the Mount Coot-tha lookout.

The Corporate Territory Managed team works on its sales forecasts in Manly.

Product marketing manager Priscilla del Castillo on a conference call with a view of Sydney's beautiful Circular Quay.

One staff member takes an 'e-mail break' at Sydney's St James train station.

The former Labor government heavily promoted teleworking as one of the key benefits of its National Broadband Network but Microsoft said today that most Australians felt that their organisations did not have the technology to support teleworking.

A Microsoft-commissioned survey, conducted last week, found that half of the people who have the option to work flexibly “felt pressured to go into the office anyway”.

Two in five of the 1,011 survey respondents said they worked in an environment where “only senior employees could work from home”.

Microsoft’s using the Twitter hashtag #getitdone to promote the day.

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