I run a successful company and this is my brutal response to anyone who asks to work-from-home
Adam Schwab, co-founder and chief executive of Luxury Escapes, expects his workers to be in the office five days a week.
While many companies around Australia are embracing flexible work conditions as a perk that improves employee retention, Mr Schwab believes working from home is 'the worst thing ever'.
'It's hard to progress your career if you can't learn from other people. If people can't see you,' he told the Herald Sun.
'Unfortunately, getting promoted is often based on just who's in your proximity.'
Luxury Escapes has offices in Sydney, Melbourne, London and Singapore and has rapidly grown its team in the last six years.
Mr Schwab started the company in 2013 alongside his best friend from school, Jeremy Same.
The pair had run an accommodation business before and knew they wanted to focus on travel despite knowing next to nothing about the sector.
While Luxury Escapes did take a hit during the Covid lockdowns, Mr Schwab now has a team three times its pre-pandemic size.
His tech team alone grew from 30 in 2019 to 130 in 2025, while his total team went from 200 workers to 600.
The CEO claims his employee retention rate is exceptionally high, with less than 10 per cent of workers leaving annually.
This is in spite of the company not offering flexible working conditions.
'We are massive believers in working collaboratively with other people,' Mr Schwab said.
'If you'd rather work from home, maybe just work somewhere that does that. We're not for you.'
Instead of the ability to work from home, Mr Schwab has focused on building other employee perks at Luxury Escapes.
Those include a free breakfast and lunch in the office every day, onsite table tennis, a 20 per cent company discount, and referral and baby bonuses.
Australian Bureau of Statistics data found 36 per cent of Australians usually worked from home in August 2024.
The main reasons for remote working were to work more flexibly, followed by having a home-based job and lastly, to catch up on work after hours.
However, Mr Schwab wants his company to retain the ethic of a start-up with workers collaborating in person.
So, despite the company being 12 years old, he prefers to act as though it's still on 'day one'.
'We want our team to be super entrepreneurial. We love when people try something and make a mistake and get it wrong, but then learn from it,' Mr Schwab said.
'You miss 100 per cent of the shots you don't take.'
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