Remote working public servants not entitled to take flexi time.

MrMusician18

Flexi is not meant to be a reward. You get flexi hours when you have to stay late to do work that cannot be put off. I don't believe is officially permitted to stay late to build hours, but I could stand corrected on that.

In theory you should be able to justify having flexi available with WfH as you could put in long hours at home. In practice, it would be open for abuse.

horsebox7

FourFourFM wrote: »

Unfair that you’re posting on Boards on taxpayers time.

Its 9pm

horsebox7

Strawberry Milkshake wrote: »

You’re taking the piss, right?

Rude

horsebox7

siblers wrote: »

What about if you need time off for school collections or drop offs? Have a medical appointment? Or if you have no one to mind your child etc for part of the day. Just because you work from home doesn't mean you have no excuse not to be at work

Valid point

horsebox7

phildub wrote: »

What about equality for people who want to be safe in their homes but have to risk their health to go to the office, is your heart bleeding for them as much as is it for yourself. There are no winners in this situation we are fighting a virus that has taken over the word, you say we are all in this together but that is not true and if it was you would stop your childish whining about being penalized and comments being unfair and work being unfair and the world being unfair. Do your part now and do it with some God dam dignity man!

Invalid point

lawred2

horsebox7 wrote: »

Due to unprecedented cv19 arrangements public servants including those working in the local authority sector are not entitled to take flexi leave while those who are office based are entitled to take flexi leave which is unfair.

What's flexi leave exactly?

StevenToast

OP....you had us going there for a while...i even took the bait!!!!

Well played sir....

You can close the thread now mods...

horsebox7

relax carry on wrote: »

Again, what part of the DPER guidelines do you believe is punishing you? Remote workers have more flexibility than those few who are onsite due to business needs or equipment issues. The flexibility of the remote worker is balanced by allowing those who are back on site and working per the DPER guidelines access to Flexi.

Remote and office staff should work under same conditions l believe.

FourFourRED

horsebox7 wrote: »

Its 9pm

I mean in general. Most of you lot in the public service offices didn’t do a tap of work when you were in the office anyway, can only imagine the amount of laziness now that you’re WFH - and looking for Flexi-Time on top of it. Hilarious.

horsebox7

FourFourFM wrote: »

I mean in general. Most of you lot in the public service offices didn’t do a tap of work when you were in the office anyway, can only imagine the amount of laziness now that you’re WFH - and looking for Flexi-Time on top of it. Hilarious.

Rubbish

horsebox7

phildub wrote: »

Its not invalid, it's just not what you want to hear, there's a difference

No its invalid

horsebox7

StevenToast wrote: »

OP....you had us going there for a while...i even took the bait!!!!

Well played sir....

You can close the thread now mods...

No

horsebox7

phildub wrote: »

How can they possibly work under the same conditions when you are not expected to travel for work, like honestly if I didn't see your history of whiney threads I would Definitely think you are a troll. If you want flexi time go work in the office or else just stopping whining

Rather angry comment.

horsebox7

phildub wrote: »

I dont think so

It is

phildub

horsebox7 wrote: »

It is

I wrote it, its not angry you have misinterpreted my tone.

I'm not.sure why you started this thread if your not prepared to listen to people who don't agree with you. You could have had this conversation to yourself on your couch

hamburgham

horsebox7 wrote: »

Rubbish.

Thousands of non office based PS staff who due to the nature of their work, cannot perform their jobs at home. Still on full pay. What else are they doing other than sitting back with their feet up?

Divisadero

FourFourFM wrote: »

I mean in general. Most of you lot in the public service offices didn’t do a tap of work when you were in the office anyway, can only imagine the amount of laziness now that you’re WFH - and looking for Flexi-Time on top of it. Hilarious.

True it's much easier to avoid work at home. It was difficult (though not impossible) to get away with smoking a joint whilst soaking my feet in a foot spa in the office. It's far more relaxing from home. Plus I can burn incense sticks and candles without the fire warden getting on my case. Though it still sucks when I doze off and wake up to my feet soaking in cold water.

In fact I might start a thread complaining about my awful employment conditions when the OP is finished whining on this one. Thanks for the idea and support. "We're all in this together".

hamburgham

Drifter50 wrote: »

But we`re not are we ?
You sit there with salary, pension and conditions intact and up to 1 million people will be unemployed tonight.

Hardly a level playing pitch and while it may not be your fault the government is pitching private sector versus public sector now

How the F do they think we are going to survive on €350 .

No mention of payment breaks yet, all we hear is contact your bank directly. I did that yesterday and they told me they have no guidelines yet

And a 2% pay increase this month, totally swept under the carpet by the media.

pew

hamburgham wrote: »

And a 2% pay increase this month, totally swept under the carpet by the media.

Pay restoration not a pay rise.

An Ri rua

hamburgham wrote: »

And a 2% pay increase this month, totally swept under the carpet by the media.

You're new to this obviously. Full of vim and vigour but no substance to your BS. A quick scan of Google would show that you are misleading even yourself.

Do you think non payment of pay restoration under the Public Service Stability Agreement would have gone down well with nurses, Gardaí, Defence Forces, teachers and yes even humble civil servants who, surprisingly work away in the background ensuring all of the others listed can perform their duties?

Do you think, alternatively, that they should have cherry picked only frontline workers and be damned with collective pay agreements?

Alternatively, do you think at all??

Posh Dave

An Ri rua wrote: »

You're new to this obviously. Full of vim and vigour but no substance to your BS. A quick scan of Google would show that you are misleading even yourself.

Do you think non payment of pay restoration under the Public Service Stability Agreement would have gone down well with nurses, Gardaí, Defence Forces, teachers and yes even humble civil servants who, surprisingly work away in the background ensuring all of the others listed can perform their duties?

Do you think, alternatively, that they should have cherry picked only frontline workers and be damned with collective pay agreements?

Alternatively, do you think at all??

Yes definitely

lawred2

Imagine griping about someone getting a measly 2% increase

gmisk

lawred2 wrote: »

What's flexi leave exactly?

You can build up time on your clock (needs to be full or halfday) and take an extra day/halfday of leave (one a month a long time ago I think it was 1.5 days max a month).
It is only available in certain organisations. It is also only available at certain grades (HEO and below I think?)
I am an AP for example so don't have the option.

Chaos Black

Whilst I would say the OP is on the wind up and don't condone it.

I would hesitantly add that as a CS in an area with increased workload due to COVID, I am under constant pressure and working more then ever. A lot of unpaid overtime, no flexitime and extra responsibility. I am most weeks working the equivalent of an extra day each week. I have done it up to now and continue to without complaint as I understand we are in an extreme event. However the mix of long hours, pressure and little annual leave is not sustainable forever either and requires additional resourcing or some other adjustment in my opinion if this is the same for 2021.

Not all Civil servants are in the same situation, it varies by department and individual sections so only speaking for myself here.

Sultan of Bling

hamburgham wrote:

And a 2% pay increase this month, totally swept under the carpet by the media.

How did you hear about it then?

marty whelan

Chaos Black wrote: »

Whilst I would say the OP is on the wind up and don't condone it.

I would hesitantly add that as a CS in an area with increased workload due to COVID, I am under constant pressure and working more then ever. A lot of unpaid overtime, no flexitime and extra responsibility. I am most weeks working the equivalent of an extra day each week. I have done it up to now and continue to without complaint as I understand we are in an extreme event. However the mix of long hours, pressure and little annual leave is not sustainable forever either and requires additional resourcing or some other adjustment in my opinion if this is the same for 2021.

Not all Civil servants are in the same situation, it varies by department and individual sections so only speaking for myself here.

I'm in the same boat as you regarding working a day a week extra, the thought of someone complaining about not getting flexitime while working from home has dumbfounded me. I'd love it. I wonder how many extra hours horsebox works a week

noodler

I agree this can be solved by line managers who can actually tell who had to do extra hours for a specific task.

However, the idea (and being extreme for effect here) that someone could clock in at 8 on their laptop and then click out at 7 and gain an automatic whole halfday out of it without any supervision is not reasonable.

There are alot of time benefits from WfH that outweigh the impact and, as stated, of you really have worked extra hours your Line Manager can sort you out locally.

angel eyes 2012

I would be interested to know which Department or Agency Horsebox works in, although every public body has at least one of the entitlement brigade, I've worked with a few and they can be absolutely draining.

Flexi is a privilege and not an entitlement. There have always been staff on core hours that weren't able to avail of flexi. Staff are not taking sick leave since March nor availing of much annual leave so they must be doing ok physically speaking.

My workload has doubled since March due to Covid, for example, I just finished work at 10.30pm this evening, started at 8.00am. To hear someone moaning about the absence of flexi is laughable and really mirrors the opposite of what public sector values represent , in particular, the value of integrity.

Show some resilience and be grateful for what you have, I just hope you don't work in my Department.

Chaos Black

I agree the across the board trust everyone to WFH on flexi would not work for practical reasons.

My own experience is that line management is aware of the necessary overtime, out of hours work and so on as they are doing the same, but no local arrangements in place. I understand in other places it is different. For clarity I work predominantly from home but have to attend the workplace as needs be from time to time, building no flexi whilst in the physical workplace but then never looked into it either.

Edit: To clarify, I don't have an issue with no flexitime. I would be more concerned that the combination of large amounts of overtime, out of hours work, little leave and increased pressures in some areas in the long term without the same support network of working on an office itself may tilt into an issue in some areas and is something Senior Management will have to stay aware of as we go into next year.

horsebox7

horsebox7 wrote: »

Due to unprecedented cv19 arrangements public servants including those working in the local authority sector are not entitled to take flexi leave while those who are office based are entitled to take flexi leave which is unfair.

OP - Are you being asked to work at set times every day (9:15 to 5:45 with 1hr 15 minute lunch) or have you retained the flexibility to decide what time you start at / finish at and have lunch, once you work up the required hours?

My department is still using the online flexi clock in/out system to record our working hours and core times are still mainly adhered to but outside of that, start / finish / lunch is probably more flexible then it has ever been before.

The only change really is the ability to accrue flexi leave, and to be honest, I'm fine with it. I have probably worked up a few days worth of extra hours over the last six months, but I'm not complaining about it when I no longer have to commute 3 hours a day. I haven't heard a single other complaint about it either.

To be honest, I think suspending it was the right decision, as otherwise its far to open to abuse and would just be something else for civil servants to be bashed about, if they hadn't suspended it.