Public Servants to work 20% from home

MegamanBoo

Going by this article https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/parties-agree-public-servants-could-work-from-home-one-day-a-week-1002573.html it would seem the government formation talks have agreed that all public servants should do 20% from home.

This is primarily to reduce c02 emissions and help rural Ireland where workers will be able to work from local innovation hubs.

Whatya all think?

Personally I think we should all be working from home, long term, where possible. It's such a criminal waste of c02. I think the idea of setting up rural hubs is brilliant and can't believe FG (weren't they a rural party?) went against it. In my experience if people want to be unproductive in the public service, or any large organisation, they'll get away with it one way or the other.

Dravokivich

Rural hubs, so decentralisation by another name?

Mick McGraw

I've been working from home for over 2 months and pretty much with the same level of efficiency as I did from the office.


Corona virus has proven that working form office 100% of the time is no longer necessary and employers should now be instructed that they should facilitate staff who wish to work from home more often.Obviously there will have to be some working from the office but anything that reduces the amount of commuting to work can only be good for the environment and peoples all round well being.


A huge amount of time has been added to my day since I've been forced to work from home it's going to be tough to readjust to working form the office 5 days per week.

punisher5112

Dravokivich wrote: »

Rural hubs, so decentralisation by another name?

Maybe so but the amount of wasted travel and hours lost is shocking to be honest.


This could be great for the environment and people's mental health and more time for hobbies and walks etc....

jay0109

Hubs could also be great for regenerating small towns and the areas around them

storker

I'm all for it. I figured aomething klike this might happen when I read that the Greens were looking for a commitment to reduction of emissions, which can only be helped by such a move. Other areas that will benefit would be the housing problem, quality of life impacted by long commute times, and traffic levels. Hopefully the private sector will follow suit.

Padre_Pio

Dravokivich wrote: »

Rural hubs, so decentralisation by another name?

No, decentralization was designed to move public services and workers away from Dublin, relocating thousands of workers to other counties and offices.

WFH is designed to reduce workers time in an office. Workers are not required to move anywhere, except to a home office space.
Workers may still be required to be in an office, but maybe only one or two days a week.


Personally WFH is a fantastic idea, especially for commuter towns which are essentially dead from Monday to Friday.

Eric Cartman

jay0109 wrote: »

Hubs could also be great for regenerating small towns and the areas around them

could be, would be, should be. The unions will find a way to make the cost increase of this unbearable and the project ultimately fail.

Dravokivich

Padre_Pio wrote: »

No, decentralization was designed to move public services and workers away from Dublin, relocating thousands of workers to other counties and offices.

WFH is designed to reduce workers time in an office. Workers are not required to move anywhere, except to a home office space.
Workers may still be required to be in an office, but maybe only one or two days a week.


Personally WFH is a fantastic idea, especially for commuter towns which are essentially dead from Monday to Friday.

The comments in the OP are not about working from home though. If we are going to create hubs, it's just moving the office from Dublin, to somewhere else but using a new catchphrase.

tastyt

Dravokivich wrote: »

The comments in the OP are not about working from home though. If we are going to create hubs, it's just moving the office from Dublin, to somewhere else but using a new catchphrase.

I’d say they will have to provide hubs that will probably be shared and optional. If someone doesn’t have good enough broadband then maybe a 15 minute drive to a hub in the closest town is better than a commute to Dublin

MegamanBoo

Dravokivich wrote: »

The comments in the OP are not about working from home though. If we are going to create hubs, it's just moving the office from Dublin, to somewhere else but using a new catchphrase.

As I read this people from different workplaces would work in one hub. Not a hub from dept of education, health and so on. So not related to decentralization.

MegamanBoo

tastyt wrote: »

A lot of private companies already taking steps to introduce this

A lot aren't though I think. I think it might need more of a push to get some critical momentum. That's why I'm so disappointed in Coveney's attitude above.

If this got going it could be a game changer for rural Ireland. Knowing and meeting people in the locality, wow. Having enough people around to support a shop would be huge where I live.

RobbieTheRobber

Eric Cartman wrote: »

could be, would be, should be. The unions will find a way to make the cost increase of this unbearable and the project ultimately fail.

Oh no the the trade unions, what a despicable bunch of people they are for representing their members views.
Wait whats that, the trade unions haven't said anything on this topic yet but your prescience knows that their only intention is to drive up the costs of this.

How might they drive up costs oh wise cartman?

norabattie

MegamanBoo wrote: »

Going by this article https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/parties-agree-public-servants-could-work-from-home-one-day-a-week-1002573.html it would seem the government formation talks have agreed that all public servants should do 20% from home.

This is primarily to reduce c02 emissions and help rural Ireland where workers will be able to work from local innovation hubs.

Whatya all think?

Personally I think we should all be working from home, long term, where possible. It's such a criminal waste of c02. I think the idea of setting up rural hubs is brilliant and can't believe FG (weren't they a rural party?) went against it. In my experience if people want to be unproductive in the public service, or any large organisation, they'll get away with it one way or the other.

I agree. As a public servant myself, it's been working really well so far. Bar the odd day going into the office, I don't see why we can't do more than 20%. I love going into work but if I could reduce it to a 3 day week then I wouldn't say no.

Quin_Dub

Dravokivich wrote: »

The comments in the OP are not about working from home though. If we are going to create hubs, it's just moving the office from Dublin, to somewhere else but using a new catchphrase.

The Innovation hubs already exist and more are planned as part of the National broadband plan.

No one is suggesting building facilities just for Public Servants - Any one can use them.

Allowing people to work from home more just makes sense.

If you don't want to or it's not personally practical , then fine but everyone having the flexibility to work from home a portion of the time just makes sense.

Longer terms it potentially helps with housing and cost of living - People won't move house right away , but if you are looking to move house and you don't have to be in the office every day then a longer commute is potentially manageable.

hmmm

Rural hubs would be a great idea, and forward-thinking, and a much better use of scare funds than building railyways for heavy industries which have no interest in moving to these areas.

An initial problem is that I don't think many organisations will move to 100% remote working (not immediately anyway). Most are talking about a few days each week in the office, which makes it a difficult commute if you want to live a long distance away.

We need some new thinking, the future being proposed looks a bit half-arsed.

storker

Eric Cartman wrote: »

could be, would be, should be. The unions will find a way to make the cost increase of this unbearable and the project ultimately fail.

That assumes they could get their members to vote against reduced commute times and improved quality of life.

VillageIdiot71

MegamanBoo wrote: »

If this got going it could be a game changer for rural Ireland.

I've no particular problem with the proposal, but the impact on rural Ireland could be hugely overstated. There's no shortage of public sector employment in the regions, and hasn't been for a very long time; if anything, many rural towns are over-dependent on public sector employment.

This analysis, from 2009, highlights that.

https://irelandafternama.wordpress.com/2009/12/09/public-sector-pay-cuts-the-hidden-geographies/

Castlebar, Portlaoise, Sligo, Mullingar, Kilkenny, Letterkenny. These six towns have most to fear from the public sector pay cuts just announced by Brian Lenihan. The reason? The proportion of workers employed in the public sector – around 40% in each of these towns, according to CSO data from the 2006 Census

thenightman

Not possible for majority of my office to work from home. Won't give access to sensitive systems outside the building in case a device its on is lost or stolen, and not allowed to take sensitive documents outside the building either. I'm sure quite a few departments in justice/AGS/Revenue/DSP would be similar.

Quin_Dub

thenightman wrote: »

Not possible for majority of my office to work from home. Won't give access to sensitive systems outside the building in case a device its on is lost or stolen, and not allowed to take sensitive documents outside the building either. I'm sure quite a few departments in justice/AGS/Revenue/DSP would be similar.

That's a fair point - it won't work for all people or all roles in an organisation.

But having the flexibility to do so where appropriate just makes sense.

Also - even in your own case , are there parts of your job that don't require access to the secure data so that you could arrange it so that you do those "non-sensitive" tasks on a WFH day for example.

It shouldn't be about mandatory changes , it's about flexibility.

marieholmfan

thenightman wrote: »

Not possible for majority of my office to work from home. Won't give access to sensitive systems outside the building in case a device its on is lost or stolen, and not allowed to take sensitive documents outside the building either. I'm sure quite a few departments in justice/AGS/Revenue/DSP would be similar.

Could be done over thin client and would drive paperless processes.

storker

thenightman wrote: »

Not possible for majority of my office to work from home. Won't give access

Encrypting devices takes care of that.

CrabRevolution

storker wrote: »

Encrypting devices takes care of that.

If it was that simple we'd never hear anything about data breaches or hacking.

RobbieTheRobber

Quin_Dub wrote: »

That's a fair point - it won't work for all people or all roles in an organisation.

But having the flexibility to do so where appropriate just makes sense.

Also - even in your own case , are there parts of your job that don't require access to the secure data so that you could arrange it so that you do those "non-sensitive" tasks on a WFH day for example.

It shouldn't be about mandatory changes , it's about flexibility.

It wont be mandatory for many reasons. The reason we are currently discussing it is because it is supposedly being considered as part of the program for government under discussion by three political parties.

After a government is formed and if this is a part of the program for government and if it is deemed politically advantageous by the chosen cabinet then and only then will it begin to take shape.

At that stage all the relevant stakeholders would presumably have a representative group involved in discussions about how this would take shape.

Obviously this has implications for data security as well as employment rights so these issues at a minimum would need to be considered. This isn't so far being driven by pressure from public/civil servants or their representative unions.

Edgware

MegamanBoo wrote: »

Going by this article https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/parties-agree-public-servants-could-work-from-home-one-day-a-week-1002573.html it would seem the government formation talks have agreed that all public servants should do 20% from home.

This is primarily to reduce c02 emissions and help rural Ireland where workers will be able to work from local innovation hubs.

Whatya all think?

Personally I think we should all be working from home, long term, where possible. It's such a criminal waste of c02. I think the idea of setting up rural hubs is brilliant and can't believe FG (weren't they a rural party?) went against it. In my experience if people want to be unproductive in the public service, or any large organisation, they'll get away with it one way or the other.

Probably reduce CO2 emissions but other emissions will rise

storker

CrabRevolution wrote: »

If it was that simple we'd never hear anything about data breaches or hacking.

Data breaches and hacking don't require, and in most cases don't involve, encrypted devices being stolen and decrypted. Major causes of data breaches such as hacking, phishing, weak passwords and malicious action by insiders can all happen in the office as well as out of it.

Eric Cartman

Eric Cartman wrote: »

could be, would be, should be. The unions will find a way to make the cost increase of this unbearable and the project ultimately fail.

Really the evil unions, same usual claptrap They have already been already working from home since March where possible and set to continue until December even before this was announced.

thenightman

thenightman wrote: »

Not possible for majority of my office to work from home. Won't give access to sensitive systems outside the building in case a device its on is lost or stolen, and not allowed to take sensitive documents outside the building either. I'm sure quite a few departments in justice/AGS/Revenue/DSP would be similar.

Mate works in revenue as a developer they have been working from home since March and are planning to do so until January at the moment. They use Citrix thin clients that are locked down and encrypted.

Padre_Pio

DubInMeath wrote: »

Mate works in revenue as a developer they have been working from home since March and are planning to do so until January at the moment. They use Citrix thin clients that are locked down and encrypted.

Same, plenty of friends work for banks, revenue, CAG and they're all working from home, over thin client or secure VPN like Pulse or Global Protect.

I don't think security is such a big issue. My only concern would be employees treating office equipment like home equipment, letting kids play with it etc.

Depending on your situation, a year or two commuting costs could easily cover a steeltech office in the garden.

CrabRevolution wrote: »

If it was that simple we'd never hear anything about data breaches or hacking.

Given that nearly every commercial and private entity has an online presence, data breaches and hacks are few and far between.

Tork

Eric Cartman wrote: »

could be, would be, should be. The unions will find a way to make the cost increase of this unbearable and the project ultimately fail.

I know for a fact that in some organisations, the unions have been trying to bring in remote working and more working from home. The resistance is from management.

Dyr

20% working from home and the other 80% sitting at home doing **** all as they're surplus to requirement

Kermit.de.frog

Working from home is probably not for everyone. Some might find it distracting and an unmotivational environment.

namloc1980

Dravokivich wrote: »

Rural hubs, so decentralisation by another name?

Not really. You could set up a hub in a rural town but the people working there could be from any department or government agency. You could have someone from the dept of agriculture processing admin tasks sitting next to someone from the revenue commissioners etc. Opens a whole new world of what it means to go to the office. With modern communications tech and collaboration processes there's really no need to have all your team sitting in one central building for many activities.

very disappointed in Coveney

unions in my place seem to be against this- it's a fairly conservative dept as a rule anyway, but the real blockers are the HR units across the entire service.

as a group they are morbidly frightened of change and the thought of anyone barking at them.

namloc1980

thenightman wrote: »

Not possible for majority of my office to work from home. Won't give access to sensitive systems outside the building in case a device its on is lost or stolen, and not allowed to take sensitive documents outside the building either. I'm sure quite a few departments in justice/AGS/Revenue/DSP would be similar.

Something like Citrix eliminates that issue largely. My Citrix access at home is more secure than when I access my PC at work. And I work in a data sensitive environment.

JohnnyFlash

I think the idea of hubs is a great one, and strikes a balance between the isolation of working from home on one hand, and having every government department and semi state HQ within a few blocks of each other in Dublin 2.

namloc1980

namloc1980 wrote: »

Something like Citrix eliminates that issue largely. My Citrix access at home is more secure than when I access my PC at work. And I work in a data sensitive environment.

citrix and 2FA almost entirely eliminate any such concerns tbh

thenightman

thenightman wrote: »

Not possible for majority of my office to work from home. Won't give access to sensitive systems outside the building in case a device its on is lost or stolen, and not allowed to take sensitive documents outside the building either. I'm sure quite a few departments in justice/AGS/Revenue/DSP would be similar.

I’m same boat,,,have files/documents but can’t leave office with these sensitive items , but whose going to pay postage (a part of job - sending correspondence out and They’re hardly going to give Franking machines to each of us) I’m hardly going to go in daily just to as Pick up new files/documents which are being sent to me daily , Internet bills (siblings are working from home and bills have shot up), perhaps some don’t have laptops (more of an older generation)

Mrs OBumble

namloc1980 wrote: »

Not really. You could set up a hub in a rural town but the people working there could be from any department or government agency. You could have someone from the dept of agriculture processing admin tasks sitting next to someone from the revenue commissioners etc. Opens a whole new world of what it means to go to the office. With modern communications tech and collaboration processes there's really no need to have all your team sitting in one central building for many activities.

If they're working from a hub, they're not working from home.

Do we really think that the government should supply workers with two desks?

Only hiiring people who live close to the work location would give the environmental benefits without the extra hardware and security risks.

major interest

MegamanBoo wrote: »

Going by this article https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/parties-agree-public-servants-could-work-from-home-one-day-a-week-1002573.html it would seem the government formation talks have agreed that all public servants should do 20% from home.

This is primarily to reduce c02 emissions and help rural Ireland where workers will be able to work from local innovation hubs.

Whatya all think?

Personally I think we should all be working from home, long term, where possible. It's such a criminal waste of c02. I think the idea of setting up rural hubs is brilliant and can't believe FG (weren't they a rural party?) went against it. In my experience if people want to be unproductive in the public service, or any large organisation, they'll get away with it one way or the other.

The general consensus in our place of work is that WFH has gone very smoothly. The end to end times for tasks haven’t been impacted and employee surveys would indicate that it suits a lot of people. I think flexible work arrangements will become the norm in many organisations so makes sense that it will also happen with public sector.

namloc1980

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

If they're working from a hub, they're not working from home.

Do we really think that the government should supply workers with two desks?

Only hiiring people who live close to the work location would give the environmental benefits without the extra hardware and security risks.

Why would they need 2 desks? You reduce expensive Dublin city centre office space in favour of much cheaper space closer to home for commuters. I thought that would've been obvious. And then for others they could just be at home most of the time as well, depending on the type of work.

MegamanBoo

RobbieTheRobber wrote: »

...

After a government is formed and if this is a part of the program for government and if it is deemed politically advantageous by the chosen cabinet then and only then will it begin to take shape.

At that stage all the relevant stakeholders would presumably have a representative group involved in discussions about how this would take shape.

.... This isn't so far being driven by pressure from public/civil servants or their representative unions.

I just don't think they're very clued in to how much political capital is at stake here. Introduce this fully across the public and private sectors you could reinvigorate rural Ireland and cut co2 by 10% (≈30% co2 comes from transport).

Personally I think we're looking at a few years with a lot of working from home anyway with Covid-19. So get the structures in place, do it right and make it a permanent change. It's the right thing to do and what the people want.

Jurgen Klopp

Whatever about working from home, don't be getting too exciting about using these "hubs" the council installed one in my small town same time eir was connecting up the last few houses outside it with fibre

The feckin hub that was "to help small businesses" and all that jazz wanted €50 a day from anyone using it absolute joke, it's sat empty for the 18 months it's been there and the ones invoked setting it up moaning to high heavens about why isn't it being used

Hopefully other ones are more value

namloc1980

namloc1980 wrote: »

Why would they need 2 desks? You reduce expensive Dublin city centre office space in favour of much cheaper space closer to home for commuters. I thought that would've been obvious. And then for others they could just be at home most of the time as well, depending on the type of work.

thirty years ago if youd said that every worker needed their own computer ppl wouldve looked at you like you were mad

thin clients, docking stations and laptops for all will all be standard infrastructure and equipment in ten years time

Calhoun

MegamanBoo wrote: »

Going by this article https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/parties-agree-public-servants-could-work-from-home-one-day-a-week-1002573.html it would seem the government formation talks have agreed that all public servants should do 20% from home.

This is primarily to reduce c02 emissions and help rural Ireland where workers will be able to work from local innovation hubs.

Whatya all think?

Personally I think we should all be working from home, long term, where possible. It's such a criminal waste of c02. I think the idea of setting up rural hubs is brilliant and can't believe FG (weren't they a rural party?) went against it. In my experience if people want to be unproductive in the public service, or any large organisation, they'll get away with it one way or the other.

I think its a great idea, but i have been working at home partially for a long time.

The lack of hour long commutes each way is great for you, however it would need to be offset with certain days in the office or a hub as you get cabin fever working from home all the time.

If covid has shown us anything it is that we are more than capable of doing more remote than ever before.

bloodless_coup

Working from home since march. The only one longing to be back in the office is the manager.

Fred Cryton

Mick McGraw wrote: »

I've been working from home for over 2 months and pretty much with the same level of efficiency as I did from the office.


Corona virus has proven that working form office 100% of the time is no longer necessary and employers should now be instructed that they should facilitate staff who wish to work from home more often.Obviously there will have to be some working from the office but anything that reduces the amount of commuting to work can only be good for the environment and peoples all round well being.


A huge amount of time has been added to my day since I've been forced to work from home it's going to be tough to readjust to working form the office 5 days per week.

BS. You might think that, but you're probably dossing watching youtube or Facebook or Twitter half the day. Employers are paying for your full attention, not half your attention.



There's a reason employers block these sites in the office.


In my experience there's a huge cohort of people if you give them an inch, they'll take a mile. I'm sure they're putting in the hours now because it's novel but if it's permanent then expect 4 hour lunch breaks to become a thing.

BrianD3

Sounds like a load of rubbish - those who can work from home should be encouraged to do so a lot more than 20% of the time.

If the proposal is for 20% WFH averaged across the public service (i.e. with some WFH 100% of the time while others do 20% and others 0% ) then that makes more sense.

The public service needs to set an example here and demonstrate that it isn't stuck in the 1970s but sadly there are plenty of outdated and neurotic views in the PS. Plenty of "managers" who are both spineless and suspicious while others are just gagging to get their staff back into the office so that they can go back to printing emails "for the file". There's also an element of justifying ones existence and feeling important "look how many staff I have in the office" etc.

Sultan of Bling

Fred Cryton wrote:

In my experience there's a huge cohort of people if you give them an inch, they'll take a mile. I'm sure they're putting in the hours now because it's novel but if it's permanent then expect 4 hour lunch breaks to become a thing.

Im working from home since March and loving it.

I'm lucky in the sense that i live a half an hour on foot from the office.

There would be many examples of the above in my place of work and i worry that they will f**k it up for everyone else.

It's so nice not having to listen to them moan and complain that they're so overworked while standing around the tea station for 45 mins.

Calhoun

BrianD3 wrote: »

Sounds like a load of rubbish - those who can work from home should be encouraged to do so a lot more than 20% of the time.

If the proposal is for 20% WFH averaged across the public service (i.e. with some WFH 100% of the time while others do 20% and others 0% ) then that makes more sense.

The public service needs to set an example here and demonstrate that it isn't stuck in the 1970s but sadly there are plenty of outdated and neurotic views in the PS. Plenty of "managers" who are both spineless and suspicious while others are just gagging to get their staff back into the office so that they can go back to printing emails "for the file". There's also an element of justifying ones existence and feeling important "look how many staff I have in the office" etc.

There are logistics to consider going 100% WFH which is why we could be seeing an eased in approach.

Employee subsidies, insurance, making sure the employee has the right kit to sit 8 hours a day at home. Allot of people in our company have been joining calls from kitchen tables or sitting on a chair with laptop on their laps.

There are also the HR factors to consider, motivation and mental health ect.

It definitely can be done but its easier said than done.

Fred Cryton

Fred Cryton wrote: »

BS. You might think that, but you're probably dossing watching youtube or Facebook or Twitter half the day. Employers are paying for your full attention, not half your attention.



There's a reason employers block these sites in the office.


In my experience there's a huge cohort of people if you give them an inch, they'll take a mile. I'm sure they're putting in the hours now because it's novel but if it's permanent thethen expect 4 hour lunch breaks to become a thing.

Treat your staff like **** and you get the bare minimum from them and fair play to them if they do so.

I have full admin rights to my work provided laptop. I've worked from home since 2017 in a.security role and work with global clients, while the machines that my friend in revenue works on has no access to any site other than their internal intranet.