Bunking with a colleague

Good morning AusCorp. Plenty of employers still expect you to share a hotel room with a colleague at work conferences, usually sold as bonding when it's really just the cheapest line in the travel budget to cut.

In this week's edition, we discuss what's really behind Australians clinging to their jobs harder than they have in years, the EY grad that has been charged over allegedly getting into the PM's banking details, and how most of the country's biggest insurers are now slugging you extra just for paying monthly.

THE BIG CONVERSATION

A shared room is not a saving.

Forcing colleagues to share a hotel room at a conference is far more common than most people realise. Banks, law firms, the big consulting shops, telcos and plenty of large companies do it, and a lot of them still do. The flights, the venue and the catering are more or less fixed, so the accommodation becomes the one number someone can halve by putting two adults in the one room. It’s highly unlikely you’re bunking together as a team bonding exercise.

A two-bedroom apartment with your own bathroom and a shared lounge is fine and same-gender pairing usually takes the edge off. Done the right way, people come home with a good story. A blanket "you're sharing" rule might be saving the business money but you’re likely going to end up with more trouble. Almost always, the partners, the people-leaders and the executives who signed off on the travel budget almost always keep their own room.

A work conference tends to end with everyone a few drinks deep, and a shared-room policy just puts two people who barely know each other in a room with two beds and one door. One workers' comp claim, one harassment complaint, one phone left recording on a shelf, and the few hundred dollars saved is gone many times over, along with a chunk of someone's year. A second hotel room is probably cheaper in those circumstances.

The good news is that "required to attend" and "required to share" are not the same thing. You can say yes to the conference and ask for a single room for personal reasons. You'll usually get it because the general assumption is that most people won't ask. And that only works if the rooms fill up without anyone complaining.

2026 AUSCORP SALARY SURVEY

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PICK & SCROLL BY THE AUSSIE CORPORATE | LAST WEEK’S TOP PICKS

• Two individuals, one being an Ernst & Young grad working on a Commonwealth Bank contract have been charged with privacy offences after allegedly accessing the Prime Minister's restricted banking information. LINK

• 12 of Australia's 20 largest insurers are adding a surcharge to monthly or quarterly insurance payments. The extra cost ranges from 7% to 11% on top of the base premium. LINK

• The ACCC has taken Amazon Australia and Amazon US to Federal Court for introducing ads to Prime Video in February 2024. LINK

• APRA has conducted its first joint stress test of Australia’s banks and super funds as an interconnected system, finding they barely withstand the worst liquidity shock in 50 years. LINK

• New menu items like the Zinger Banh Mi did the heavy lifting, and online orders now make up more than 40% of Australian sales. LINK

Flat White lands every week. The news doesn't. Every weekday morning at 8:00am, we send you everything that happened across Australian business and corporate news in a 2-minute read. Same team. Same voice. Just daily.

THE INSIDE TRACK

TOGETHER WITH SPACESHIP

Is your current super feeling a little chaotic? More than one account so you’re paying more than one set of fees? Keep reading. Spaceship Super was built for young Aussies first. It’s super transparent, so you know exactly what you’re invested in, how it’s doing, and what it costs.

Plus it helps you learn as you go, so you can keep building a super balance that grows with you, and it has exposure to tech, innovation, and structural economic shifts. Might be worth a look!

THREAD OF THE WEEK - r/AUSCORP

Heads up: Your confidential company information is visible on the train.

I'm a commuter in Sydney. In the past couple of months on the trains I've seen confidential documents from Deloitte and PWC being worked on by people beside me. I'm not trying to see this information, it's just in my line of sight.

But the winner has got to be the <redacted> intern this morning on the crowded Metro who had no elbow space to work at waist height, so was holding his laptop up high in full view of everyone, to work on his data spreadsheet for <redacted> and have Teams chats with <redacted>. Please don't do that.

Read the thread →

THE BRAINS TRUST

Staff turnover across the ASX100 fell to a 5-year low of 12.3% in FY25, down from 12.7%. There's less to leave for, so people leave less. Nothing surprising in that.

The labour figures line up also. Employment rose 40,000 in May, but the 3-month average has slowed to about 6,000. UBS expects unemployment to drift toward 4.9% over the coming year.

Pay hasn't followed the market downwards though. The Fair Work Commission lifted award wages 4.75% from 1 July, ahead of headline inflation at 4.2% and the 3.3% pace of overall wage growth, covering around 2.8 million workers. Private-sector wages are running at 5.5% year-on-year.

The pressure is showing up in household budgets rather than pay packets. Macquarie's consumer team has household income growing 2.3% this year but spending just 1.5%, well short of the 3.5% pre-Covid norm, once higher mortgage repayments and tax come out. Savings rates are climbing as households stay cautious.

For companies, the low churn in staff is becoming a tailwind. Macquarie estimates that holding onto staff is worth 4-7% of the wage bill in avoided hiring and retraining. That is also why the job market can look like it points both ways at once. Fewer people are being hired, which normally suggests a soft economy. But fewer are leaving, too, so employers don't have to lift pay to keep the staff they already have.

AUSCORP STRESS INDEX

The Pulse nudged up this week. Job postings expanded materially this week. At the same time, ASX volatility spiked hard, layoff coverage also picked up, driven partly by global tech cuts and partly by incoming redundancy law changes landing in mid-2026.

OFF THE CLOCK

EATING
The Pitt Street cafe that does a mean Vietnamese pho and an even better chicken schnitzel wrap

Getting authentic Vietnamese food in the CBD is hard to find, so wait til you try this family run business dressed like any other sandwich shop. LINK

WATCHING
The reality TV funding rort hiding in plain sight

Turns out those outback prospectors striking gold every episode aren't just lucky. They're scripted, government-funded and very much a business model. LINK

READING
What Indigenous inclusion actually requires from employers

Beyond the welcome to country at the all-hands, there's a more uncomfortable conversation most firms are still finding reasons to defer. LINK

GOING
Lorna Jane opens a retreat in Byron, naturally

A luxury wellness escape designed for women who've spent the week in back-to-back meetings and would like to process that in a bushland setting with a hormone health program. LINK

WEARING
Sunglasses trends for the chronically online

If your eyewear decisions are being outsourced to an algorithm, at least this piece will confirm what the algorithm already decided for you. LINK

AUSCORP EVENTS

JULY / AUGUST

• AusCorp Runs | 👀 Coming Soon

• AusCorp Pilates | 👀 Coming Soon

• AusCorp Singles Event | 👀 Coming Soon

ODD PICKS FROM LAST WEEK

• With temperatures topping 40°C and air conditioning only making the broader problem worse, wait until you hear about Australia’s dark roof problem. LINK

• 11 architecture projects set to shape the world in 2026. LINK

• As a record-breaking heatwave bakes France, shops are selling out of crushed chalk as people paint their windows with it to keep their homes cool. LINK

• The pros and cons of creatine. LINK

• Study challenges a common belief about vitamin D and sunlight. LINK

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