Australian mining services company Mineral Resources founder Chris Ellison has been in the spotlight after he shared that he does not want staff to step out of the office for coffee and wants to hold them captive all day long. 

Earlier, Billionaire mining boss Ellison also banned work from home for his employees. 

The managing director of Mineral Resources said that the industry could not afford to continue down the path of flexible working and that his company was investing in amenities at the firm’s head office in Perth, Western Australia, to keep people from leaving. 

During a presentation on Thursday (Aug 29), Ellison said, “I want to hold them captive all day long”, adding, “I don’t want them leaving the building … I don’t want them walking down the road for a cup of coffee. We kind of figured out a few years ago how much that cost.”

He also slammed other businesses that permitted their staff to work from home. Ellison’s company, worth A$8 billion ($5.42 billion) and has a staff of about 5600 people, formally banned working from home last year, despite the Covid pandemic. 

“I have a no-work-from-home policy,” Ellison said. “I wish everyone else would get on board with that – the sooner the better. The industry can’t afford it.”

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Further, Ellison highlighted that they cannot have people working for three days and getting paid for four or five days. “We’ve now got the industry all heading out there going ‘why don’t we do a four-day week, we got used to it over Covid’,” Ellison said. “We can’t have people working three days, and picking up five days a week pay, or [even] four days.”

The managing director further said that they have got amenities in the office, to make people stay there. 

“Head office is a place that a lot of our people want to be, and they love working in there. We’ve got a restaurant in there, we’ve also got a gym, and we’ve got other facilities that keep them glued in there,” he added. 

(With inputs from agencies)