Civil servants told to spend more time in the office - Irish Times - Mod warning #526

ledwithhedwith

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123126062#Comment_123126062

this is it at the end of the day, I’m a civil servant and I love wfh. But I signed up for 5 days in the office, even if I signed up while their was blended working it wouldn’t have been in my probationary contract. Workers have absolutely zero say in it unless they have wfh in their contract.

ledwithhedwith

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123128868#Comment_123128868

but surely the Unions have zero bargaining power? I wish they had some but wfh is in no way a right for us? Or am I missing something?

markodaly

WFH or no WFH, I think the PS and CS needs serious reform on how job performance is managed.

Its one of the reasons why it takes so long to do anything in this country.

TaurenDruid

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123130324#Comment_123130324

How long does it take to get a passport renewed? How long does it take to get a tax refund after submitting your Med1?

By contrast - how long does it take to get Eir to cancel a monthly bill after the account holder has emigrated - or died!? How long does it take and how many documents do you need to bring in to open a bank account with one of our native banks? How long does it take our combined native banks to develop an app allowing instant inter-bank cash transfers?

Large parts of the civil service are extremely efficient. Large parts of the private sector are completely inefficient. Whether they have WFH or not doesn't come into it.

I will absolutely concede the current performance management system is ****. Staff used to be able to agree their objectives for the year, but also list the constraints that would impact on targets (e.g. anything from "I need my **** computer replaced" to "This is dependent on not losing any more staff during the year.") and I used to be able to rate someone's performance from 1 to 5. Now there is no ability to indicate constraints, and people's performance can only be rated as "satisfactory" or "unsatisfactory", so people being people, nobody gets "unsatisfactory" unless they're going out of their way to be ****.

Again, that has nothing to do with WFH.

apkmbarry

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123120823#Comment_123120823

DSP are taking the "lead" with this as their changes were expected to come into effect this week, with two weeks notice.

Frost Spice

Much of the objections are just from people who can't work from home and resent it.

countyireland12345

According to Eilis O'Hanlon, Sunday Independent, all civil servants only work one day a week in the office!🤣

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123130858#Comment_123130858

Usual SIndo level of accuracy so

Padre_Pio

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123130853#Comment_123130853

Nah, just can't understand that people work in various roles, companies and industries, and that WFH isn't a one-size-fits-all policy.

itsacoolday

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123130853#Comment_123130853

No, most of the objections are from people who have relations or friends sitting at home getting paid to work while at the same time everyone knows a lot of them are looking after kids, on social media, watching tv, chatting to neighbours etc. And no government employee ever got fired for slacking….long before wfm for example there have even been cases of teachers who were alcoholics and taught nothing but still kept their jobs.

There are a lot of good employees but wfm is unfair as some do so little due to laziness, having to look after kids, addiction or gambling issues etc.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123131252#Comment_123131252

It'sACoolDay for wild, cliched generalisations based on historical tropes.

Flinty997

Yeah teachers WFH looking after classes of gambling and addicted kids. Probably sunbathing in the classroom as well.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123130295#Comment_123130295

Be interesting to see. They kinda rolled over on everything in recent years. If they do that this time, they will disappear.

littlefeet

My daughter in the private sector. The reason some of her team don't want to come in two days a week which is company policy.

ADD. IBS, post traumatic stress disorder.

One of the employees said there IBS isn't bad on Thursdays so they might be able to come in on Thursdays.

MakersMark

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123130853#Comment_123130853

Maybe, the people whose taxes pay the wages if Civil Servants want them to be in the office.

I know I do.

Lazy enough at work, I can only imagine the levels of idleness at home.

TTry calling the RTB and see how great the WFH service is.

You can hear the TV in in the background ffs

Frost Spice

You have to do your job, otherwise you will be reprimanded or unemployed. As long as the extra curricular stuff is done when there's nothing else to do at work, what's the issue? It might grate for those whose jobs can't be done at home, but when there's no need for them to go into the office, why not have WFH? It means people living in low employment areas can work remotely too.

All this talk of laziness, idleness... just reeks of jealousy. I'd bet not one person who works from home has an issue with it, nor would those who couldn't work from home but then got a job where they could.

itsacoolday

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123131643#Comment_123131643

A lady I know looks after another families kids as well as her own : at the same time as working from home. Not surprised she does not want to go back to the office.

Frost Spice: nobody ever became unemployed from the civil service.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123131629#Comment_123131629

..and?

Think it through, why would someone with such conditions struggle with Weds but less so Thurs.

Think it through if they are faking what difference does a different day make to someone faking.

Do they get their work done? Does this matter? Or is the day that is important?

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123131669#Comment_123131669

So she's holding down three jobs. Why don't you do the same if it's possible. Seems no lose strategy no?

itsacoolday

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123131683#Comment_123131683

Do you really see nothing wrong with someone looking after young kids at home at the same time as being paid to work from home?

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123131643#Comment_123131643

That's sounds like you got through to them.

Ask them for a copy of the call.

Ezeoul

There must be good wifi signals under bridges these days.

SodiumCooled

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123130295#Comment_123130295

All that’s needed is everyone to ignore it, the unions just tell their members to continue doing WFH and all stay united on it - if they do that there is nothing that can be realistically done. This is the type of thing that’s much harder to rally against in the private sector as there isn’t the same collective power or the far far higher bar for any level of disciplinary action.

More dinosaur stuff anyway attempting to drag people back to offices for no good reason.

deirdremf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123129653#Comment_123129653

As Elon Musk said, working from home is morally wrong

If you're looking to Elon Musk for morals, you may be beyond help.

ledwithhedwith

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123131808#Comment_123131808

I couldn’t see everyone ignoring it. Especially if it’s 1 day to 2 day. 2 seems pretty standard across the civil service.

KaneToad

It seems management side agreed to negotiate with union side with regards to changes in working remotely.

Then they unilaterally made changes without negotiation.

This is union business 101. Irrespective of what your thoughts on remote working are.

deirdremf

A writer called Alvin Toffler wrote a book years back, called Future Shock. It sold well with both the author and the book becoming famous as a result.

I recently came across another book of his in a second hand bookshop, published in 1980, on what he believed the future would look like. Called The Third Wave, I decided to buy it to see what someone back then thought the future would be like.

One chapter titled The electronic cottage deals with work from home. He quotes executives in a number of big US companies on the subject, and according to them at the time he wrote the book between 10% and 75% of jobs in those companies could have been done at home if their staff were provided with the equipment available at the time - and with improved communications technology, he reckoned that number would skyrocket. Remember that this was in 1980.

In other words, work from home has been possible for almost two generations in certain industries. All that is keeping the old model going is the management system, which is out-dated and to a large extent unnecessary - in much the same way that so much of the secretarial staff became unnecessary as soon as widespread computer literacy came about.

Unlike the old secretarial staff, which were the lowest rung in office culture and without much political clout, the middle management strata will fight tooth and nail to retain their positions of (relative) power and prestige, but in the long run they will either demonstrate their usefulness - or they'll go the same way as all the other dinosaurs.

Meeoow

I'm in the private sector, and we have the option to WFH if we need to. I don't take it, as I don't have a good setup, and I can't concentrate at home. Some of my colleagues WFH at the drop of a hat, if the schools are off. They are the laziest at work, so are even lazier at home. And the conscientious workers have to pick up their slack.

Frost Spice

A lot of the public sector services are outsourced. You can be sure there's no room for slacking off under those companies. WFH makes sense - reduces stupid traffic which stresses people out, gives people more of a work/life balance. Spending hours a week sitting in traffic - there's something wrong with that when you don't have to.

In my current job, using work time for leisure/chores isn't possible, as there is always something to do, but in my last job there was occasionally quiet time (balanced with it being utterly insanely busy other times) and I had literally nothing to do - therefore I watched TV, keeping a close eye on my work phone. Made up for the stress of the mad times. It would be the same in the office - you'd browse online, stick on headphones, go on Boards, message friends, go over and chat to colleagues who are similarly quiet.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123131869#Comment_123131869

I find the laziest are those who don't work 14 hour days and take the weekend off. Slackers. I haven't left my desk in three days.

skidmarkoner

So if schools are closed and they can't wfh what happens?

Red weather alert and they can't wfh what happens?

When they are sick do they take the day off or suffer on at home get the job done?

Blended working helps both sides of the fence get better output, it's not there fault it doesn't work for you.

itsacoolday

And is someone working from home who looks after someone else's kids as well as her own toddlers every working week really deserving to be paid fully for wfm?

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123132275#Comment_123132275

Do you think that anyone actually believes your stories?

Gumbo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123120071#Comment_123120071

WFH and there’s no clock in.
You apply for WFH hours that day and your given the code hours. No extras, no less. No way to “build up” hours at all.

Mrs OBumble

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123130354#Comment_123130354

I'd be pretty confident in saying that the majority of staff doing passport issuing work are not WFH. And are not allowed to discuss their workplace security provisions in public, either.

Med1 tax refunds are pretty much, if not totally automated.

Necro

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123130147#Comment_123130147

And you think that 'at the time' 6 weeks was sufficient for maternity leave? Because if you do then there is absolutely no point in having any discussion with you at all about WFH. You'd probably prefer we removed the age limit on employment too and sent kids back down the mines.

Necro

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123132275#Comment_123132275

So far you have been posting completely incorrect information at almost every step and you now suddenly expect others to believe your anecdotal evidence… that isn't how discussion works I'm afraid. If you want to have a reasoned discussion about WFH in the public sector perhaps lay off the generalisations?

I'm a civil servant who works from home 3 days a week. Like most Civil Servants I think. I'm also a manager, and I've been in a number of roles over more than a decade at this stage. I was in the private sector for about the same length of time beforehand.

And you know what? EVERY SINGLE POSTER on this thread is right about civil servants and work from home.

I also have personally given up hunting for work when I've done the tasks to hand. I used to pretty much beg my managers for something to do because I was bored out of my tree, and they consistently said they had nothing for me. Now I do the job, full stop, and I make no apologies for it. I've been the soldier who worked hard & took initiative etc etc and in over a decade I've seen absolutely zero impact from it. But I have seen pretty significant impacts from me simply doing my job properly & consistently.

Never underestimate or under-appreciate the value of simple competence in any role at any level. From the burger at McDonalds to the purchase of your new home, to the performance of your pension fund, issue of your passport, how long it takes to get a hospital appointment, how much that bike shed or children's hospital cost you— all of that is down primarily to people doing relatively straightforward tasks properly.

It's not the stars, the geniuses, the creatives, or the grafters that get things done efficiently. In my experience, the bike shed costs north of €300k because an amazing architect is working to produce the "perfect" bike shed. There's an entire team of amazing architects, engineers, etc have been building a "perfect" children's hospital for years.

Fcuk the the stars, the heroes, the grafters, and the perfectionists. The housing crisis still exists because of those people. The lazy civil servant (like me) will spend a billion euro on 50,000 welfare units and end the accommodation of homeless people and asylum seekers in hotels. They'll spend another billion to accommodate half the Ukrainian refugees. The hard working grafter will spend the same money on 500 glorified portacabins and claim that that is better…

There's plenty of people who take the p1ss working from home. Maybe more than do so in the office. There's also plenty of people who work harder and longer at home than do in the office. At the end of the day my observation of before & after covid is that it balances out.

For me personally, it's a blessing because without work from home both myself and my better half would have to reduce our working hours to be at home with our small person in the afternoon after school hours.

And that for me is the core point- if you increase work from office days, or require 100% in office, then right now you get less civil service not more. You get less public services. Slower delivery of services etc etc. We have full employment, filling public sector roles is hard enough as is.

Maybe that'll change. But right now that's how it is.

Frost Spice

If there's nothing to do, and you ask your manager for stuff to do, then you're not lazy.

Why is it my responsibility, or the responsibility of any employee, to hunt down work to do? Work flows downhill, and if it comes to me & my team it'll get done, and each of us will do our part.

But if work isn't coming down to me I'm not going to climb up to beg for something to do. Those days are well gone.

I think maybe the worst skill of most managers is delegation. Most of my managers have been run off their feet while I've been bored. I've been told by several managers that they were too busy to give me work….

Any manager can manage their staff equally as well remotely as they can in-person (assume the task isn't a physical one requiring eyes-on). The issue with many organisations (I've seen it often enough in the private sector often enough as well) is that too many managers couldn't manage their team out of a wet paper bag, and they don't magically become better (or worse) because their staff are sitting beside them rather than in another part of the country/count/continent.

Which is anyway irrelevant to my main point: take away work from home and delivery of public services will worsen substantially because so many people simple can't work full hours in office. If unemployment goes up and a new cohort of people become desperate (again) for a permanent job on any terms, that'll surely change— and requirement for 100% attendance may well be used as a tool to reduce headcount without firing people, as many organisations appear to be doing already.

But I wouldn't be wishing for high unemployment levels just to increase the leverage on getting civil servants back to the office full time.

ledwithhedwith

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123132919#Comment_123132919

ya sound completly unhinged

Frost Spice

None of that makes you lazy - it means there's no work to do. I only mentioned asking the boss for more work because you said you did so.

A personal insult is the best response you could come up with?

You Sound like a gobsh1te.

Yeah Right

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123132275#Comment_123132275

WTF is WFM when it's at home? Do you mean WFH? why should anyone take you seriously about laziness if you can't even get the three letter acronym correct? You are all over the place here, producing nothing but a load of waffle backed up by SFA. Maybe best to quit before you really embarrass yourself.

A couple of general points:

The Dept of Finance complaint is doomed to fail from the beginning. The email to staff from Forsa makes a couple of huge errors that impact the validity of the complaint.

In a recent email to staff in the *redacted* Division regarding blended working arrangements, staff there were directed to attend the office three days week from the beginning of February. This is a compulsory requirement to attend the office over the blended working arrangement that successfully operated previously. This change was introduced unilaterally without any prior consultation with the union.

The agreement with staff/unions was that staff would be offered a minimum of 2/3 days WFH per week. One unit has been told to come in 3 days per week. This is in accordance with the agreement, there is no change, therefore there is no breach and any industrial action as a result is unjustified. There was no need to consult the unions.

Returning to a 5-days-in-the-office model will absolutely cripple our infrastructure. Traffic would explode, buses and trains be even more rammed etc. I honestly don't think we have the infrastructure to cope with it.

Most offices are also physically unable to cope with a full RTO. Almost every single public sector body has increased in numbers since 2020, with little in the way of increased buildings. Very few have the space for all employees to be on-site every day. There are other added costs like heating, electricity, waste, paper usage, security etc. which will impact environmental targets and obligations.

So, it's in the government's interests to maintain the status quo for everybody's sake. We all know how adept they are at cutting their nose off though, so watch this space.

There's also an element of 'careful what you wish for' involved. If the unions kick up a stink over having to be in the office 3 days per week, there is a fear the Govt could just dissolve it and say, "okay, then, 5 days a week it is, and be done with this nonsense".

skidmarkoner

Easy solution how about instead of a strike the union decides for everybody to attend the office on the same day, do it for a week and watch as people try find desks and endnup working in Starbucks because my office doesn't have enough seats for us all and that is what will happen.

GreenTea777

I really hope the WFH option won't be reduced drastically. I’ve applied for CO positions and will only accept the position if WFH is available. Another positive aspect of WFH apart from the obvious ones: employers can hire more people as they rotate in the office, since most of them can work from home. If they want everybody to be full-time in the office, then they'd need bigger offices, more parking spaces, etc.

TaurenDruid

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123132432#Comment_123132432

What's your point? OP was slagging public service/civil service job performance. Read the post I was replying to:

WFH or no WFH, I think the PS and CS needs serious reform on how job performance is managed.

And I pointed out some areas (and there are many more I could have chosen!), WFH or no WFH, where job performance is excellent.

TaurenDruid

Good points, well made, by the last three posters - the absolute proof that blended working isn't going away is the simple fact that in the vast majority of CS employments, there isn't enough space! I'm aware of several agencies who have already moved to or are soon moving to new accommodation where the number of staff > the number of desks, deliberately built in from the get-go. Hot-desking is the way of the future, in the majority of cases.

cute geoge

Imo 2 days minimum in the office is surely not much to ask for.

When the gun will be put to the head ,I am sure there will be no action by Foras as this is a reasonable request !!

SuperBowserWorld

Hot desking and dettol disinfecting spray is the future.