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Child Item

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.

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thomasdylan

Deebles McBeebles wrote: »

Who is "they"? All PS employees? You would surely have stats to back that up?

Sick leave in the PS is 9.2 days a year. The breakdown by department is published every year.

Highest sick leave is among prison officers (understandable) and DSP. Lowest sick leave is always doctor's and pharmacists.

9.2 days is a lot. At least it has improved since the Celtic Tiger when people took the piss.

Turtwig

thomasdylan wrote: »

Sick leave in the PS is 9.2 days a year. The breakdown by department is published every year.

Highest sick leave is among prison officers (understandable) and DSP. Lowest sick leave is always doctor's and pharmacists.

9.2 days is a lot. At least it has improved since the Celtic Tiger when people took the piss.

If I recall correctly during the period the employee is on sick leave non work days are counted as sick days.
So, 9 days at a maximum would be:
Employee get sick on Monday during work and is out of work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Monday, Tuesday and back to work Wednesday.
That Saturday and Sunday in between are counted as sick days. So too would the Monday if it were a public holiday.

ShatterAlan

storker wrote: »

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.

There is absolutely no reason why many jobs cannot be done from home. Basically anyone whose job involves using a computer or a phone or both can be done remotely.
I work in IT and nothing that I need to do cannot be done anywhere in the world. Yet in my company people get into a fcuking car, clog up the roads, park at the company, get a coffee and then lock themselves in a damn office for the next 8 hours when they could do the exact same effing sh1t from their garden shed.

If you can date people remotely (Tinder) and obviously meet up and fcuk each others brains out rather than going to a club or party then why can't you work remotely?

ShatterAlan

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.

Not correct.

Hubs are alternatives to working from home. It's a substitute, A lot of people who work from home go to a hub on maybe Tuesday and Wednesday just for a bit of variety, to get out of the house and walk or cycle there, have lunch, coffee, etc. with others.

Nice day? Go to the hub
Cold crappy day? Stay home.
Hot Indian nerdy girl at the hub? Got to the hub.
A bit hungover and went to bed late but can function? Lie in until 8:55am then get online and get busy at home. Go to hub in afternoon rather than getting up at 7:00 and driving to the poxy office.

ShatterAlan

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.

Everything out of your mouth is negative, do you know that? Everything.

When someone mentioned an app to book a taxi you probably said the same thing about taxi unions.

When someone mentioned ordering a book online or a piece of electronic equipment or a pair of fcuking trainers, you probably trotted out the same drivel.

When someone came up with the novel idea of booking a flight online or filing one's taxes you probably thought to yourself "Oh, the Civil Service will scupper this. The unions will be up in arms because Bridget down the Revenue will be made redundant."

Tork

The comment about the unions trying to stop people from working from home is utter horse crap too. I happen to know for a fact that it is the very opposite in some departments and organisations I know of. The reason it isn't happening isn't because of the union or the staff. It's management who want to see the people sitting at their desks, rather than at home or working remotely in a government office nearer to their home. But that doesn't suit Cartman's narrative, does it? Even when home working has been offered in the past, it has been on a trial basis. A trial which goes on for a long time but always has the threat of being called back into the office full-time hanging over the people who did manage to get out. This isn't confined to one organisation either.

ChikiChiki

We should lead the way and be a working from home country in general in sectors where we can.

From my experience, its been much more productive in our company.

It would certainly help the over reliance on Dublin aswell.

Conovski

I would welcome the 20% WFH, and more if it was on offer. I am enjoying it at the moment, am equally as productive (at least) due to not sharing an office, and have more energy and focus. The problem for me and I would imagine many in the civil and public service is that some HR departments are sticklers for presenteeism: you must be in the office to work, unless you are out at a meeting. Some of this is down to being able to walk around and 'observe' people, some of it is genuinely down to some grades not being able to work from home due to their tasks and role profiles, but some of it is I suspect just because 'it has always been this way'. Some PS organisations will embrace WFH; many I fear will not.

Wanderlust2021

Personally I don't enjoy working from home. My mental health is suffering as a result of it. I enjoy my work: a lot of it is outdoors with a bit of travel. I wouldn't mind working one day a week from home, with 2 days at a push.

storker

ShatterAlan wrote: »

I work in IT and nothing that I need to do cannot be done anywhere in the world. Yet in my company people get into a fcuking car, clog up the roads, park at the company, get a coffee and then lock themselves in a damn office for the next 8 hours when they could do the exact same effing sh1t from their garden shed.

I also work in IT, and you're right - the work I do from home is no different to at my desk, except...less distractions from noisy colleagues and people wandering in for various reasons. I'm much more productive at home. And I arrive at work fresh and fed. As for the idea that everyone working remotely will just goof off all day, some will sure, but the...er...goofer-off-ers will do it at the office too - that's what presenteeism means. Also, in my experience, people who don't trust people often take that attitude because they themselves are not trustworthy.

Conovski

storker wrote: »

....Also, in my experience, people who don't trust people often take that attitude because they themselves are not trustworthy.

Bang on

KaneToad

Calhoun wrote: »

Give it a year or two and see what its like then, its a whole new area of study in human resources. As it brings its own challenges.

As long as you set a strict routine and get out and about your ok. The big risk is over working outside of business hours. We have seen allot of emails going out at all hours.

There would be no danger of me working out of hours. I work hard but only for the hours I'm obliged to do. I've no interest in working overtime for more money. Some people love their job and make it a central focus of their life. Good luck to them. I'm not one of those.

CrabRevolution

MegamanBoo wrote: »

I live in a fairly small parish not far outside Cork. When I was growing up in the 80's we had 3 shops, 2 pubs and a post office. Now we have nothing.

I'd estimate 3-400 people commute from my parish every day to work, most of which could be done from home. If this work was regularly from home, ideally with an option of using one or two of the abandoned buildings in the village as work hub it would allow for a shop and maybe a post office to open in the area.

That would be a huge change and would also allow people to once again get to know neighbours.

I've made plenty of friends in workplaces over the years but a job for life is generally gone, so you loose touch with people when they or you move on to another company. I'd love if there was a local hub to work from and get to build some longer term friendships.

I can see for some mid-size towns it mightn't make much of a difference, other than the positive environmental impact.

I've nothing against WFH or hubs or whatever, my point was that it's based on the assumption that everyone in Ireland works in Dublin or Cork and we need to remove the need to work in the cities so that everyone can work locally. Nothing wrong with that idea in itself.

But there's many small to large towns around Ireland that have people commuting from surrounding areas, and these towns would suffer economically from having their commuter population decanted to surrounding villages for work. It's all well and good saying Dublin or Cork can tolerate fewer commuters, but there's numerous towns around the country where there'd be businesses closing due to a reduction in customers.

Mrs OBumble

Who pays for the hubs?

And if a job can be done fully remotely, there's a lad in Poland / Romania/ India etc who will do it for a fraction of your salary. Be careful what you wish for.

Padre_Pio

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Who pays for the hubs?

And if a job can be done fully remotely, there's a lad in Poland / Romania/ India etc who will do it for a fraction of your salary. Be careful what you wish for.

If your job could have been outsources it would have already been done.

If you have to come into work one day a week, good luck to the lad in Mumbai getting to Dublin or wherever.

Hotblack Desiato

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

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

No, one desk, closer to their home. On the rare occasions they'd need to visit HQ they hot desk, or more likely just bring their laptop into the meeting room. In the hub (or at home) they use the same laptop with a docking station. I have one plugged into my work laptop right now, it's about half the size of a small tin of beans.

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

You can't hire or not hire people on the basis of where they live, or stop them moving after you hire them. Extra hardware - docking station is €30 iirc. Flexibility of being able to bring your "desktop PC" to meetings etc. is worth that, even if based fulltime in the office. Security risk is a red herring already addressed on this thread. Most desktop PCs sitting in offices are not encrypted and not physically secured, easily stolen and sold on and who knows what is on the hard disk.

Fred Cryton wrote: »

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

If it's done right, you're VPNing back into the office and going out through the corporate gateway, so all filtering, logging etc. that applies in the office still applies out of it.

addaword wrote: »

And has that ever happened in the public service? I am thinking of some schools who have not communicated with any of their pupils in 6 weeks? Are we going to see entire schools including headmasters being fired?

Teachers are paid by the state but they are not employed by the state.

They are hired and fired by an individual school's board of management, so you need to take this up with the BOM in your little anecdote. Parish priest is usually the guy in charge. You'll usually find him in a nice detached house beside the church. Let us know how you get on.

Hotblack Desiato

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Who pays for the hubs?

Who pays for the Dublin 2 office space that isn't really all needed?

ShatterAlan

storker wrote: »

I also work in IT, and you're right - the work I do from home is no different to at my desk, except...less distractions from noisy colleagues and people wandering in for various reasons. I'm much more productive at home. And I arrive at work fresh and fed. As for the idea that everyone working remotely will just goof off all day, some will sure, but the...er...goofer-off-ers will do it at the office too - that's what presenteeism means. Also, in my experience, people who don't trust people often take that attitude because they themselves are not trustworthy.

So true. I had a manager who flatly refused to let anyone work from home. He worked from home himself and was a wanker. The reason he didn't allow it was fairly obvious.....he himself bonked off every afternoon for 2+ hours to pick up the kids and go dossing.

[Deleted User]

Pkiernan wrote: »

Will working from home eat in to the 40 sick days year that they always seem to use up?

how many times would you need to be corrected on this simple nonsense in a private sector job before youd be sacked, i wonder

hetuzozaho

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Who pays for the hubs?

And if a job can be done fully remotely, there's a lad in Poland / Romania/ India etc who will do it for a fraction of your salary. Be careful what you wish for.

Depends on the work obviously, but we tired the fraction of your salary stuff in our place. It did not go well

ec18

one day a week working from home is hardly great is it?

ShatterAlan

CrabRevolution wrote: »

I've nothing against WFH or hubs or whatever, my point was that it's based on the assumption that everyone in Ireland works in Dublin or Cork and we need to remove the need to work in the cities so that everyone can work locally. Nothing wrong with that idea in itself.

But there's many small to large towns around Ireland that have people commuting from surrounding areas, and these towns would suffer economically from having their commuter population decanted to surrounding villages for work. It's all well and good saying Dublin or Cork can tolerate fewer commuters, but there's numerous towns around the country where there'd be businesses closing due to a reduction in customers.

I find this a bit confusing. If you live in Mullingar and work in Dublin, how is you working from home in Mullingar going to affect Mullingar? Or Dublin for that matter? You don't go shopping in Dublin Monday to Friday when you are commuting there. You drive to the office and do your work. A lot of people don't even go out to buy lunch but rather bring their own box of sandwiches or tub of pasta and nuke it in the microwave. They then drive home to Mullingar in the evening.

They still go shopping in Mullingar or out for dinner/pints at the weekend.

Deebles McBeebles

ec18 wrote: »

one day a week working from home is hardly great is it?

Its not. It will be more in suitable offices I would imagine.

Quin_Dub

ShatterAlan wrote: »

I find this a bit confusing. If you live in Mullingar and work in Dublin, how is you working from home in Mullingar going to affect Mullingar? Or Dublin for that matter? You don't go shopping in Dublin Monday to Friday when you are commuting there. You drive to the office and do your work. A lot of people don't even go out to buy lunch but rather bring their own box of sandwiches or tub of pasta and nuke it in the microwave. They then drive home to Mullingar in the evening.

They still go shopping in Mullingar or out for dinner/pints at the weekend.

It's more that people living in Dublin might now move to Mullingar as as if they don't need to go to the office everyday the commute becomes less of an issue.

As I posted previously , it's a potential longer term impact and shift away from the consolidation of jobs and residence around the Greater Dublin area.

addaword

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Teachers are paid by the state but they are not employed by the state.

They are hired and fired by an individual school's board of management, so you need to take this up with the BOM in your little anecdote. Parish priest is usually the guy in charge. You'll usually find him in a nice detached house beside the church. Let us know how you get on.

So you are blaming the parish priests around the country for schools and teachers failing to communicate with the pupils during 6 weeks of lockdown? Do you think it is up to the parish priest, himself possibly cocooning , to micro manage the headmaster and teachers?

You are scraping the barrel to excuse those public sector teachers who performed lazily during lockdown. It remind me of the poster who excused a school for not communicating with their pupils or teaching them by whinging the teachers had no laptop or tablet.

Padre_Pio

addaword wrote: »

So you are blaming the parish priests around the country for schools and teachers failing to communicate with the pupils during 6 weeks of lockdown? Do you think it is up to the parish priest, himself possibly cocooning , to micro manage the headmaster and teachers?

You are scraping the barrel to excuse those public sector teachers who performed lazily during lockdown. It remind me of the poster who excused a school for not communicating with their pupils or teaching them by whinging the teachers had no laptop or tablet.

Wow, chip on your shoulder.

That advice is the right advice. If you have a problem with a teacher, speak to the principal.

If you have a problem with the principal, speak to the BOM.

Complaining on the internet isn't getting anyone anywhere.

addaword

Padre_Pio wrote: »

Wow, chip on your shoulder.

That advice is the right advice. If you have a problem with a teacher, speak to the principal.

If you have a problem with the principal, speak to the BOM.

.

The teachers, principals and BOM blame other people. The teachets use the excuse they do not have a laptop or tablet, the poor creatures. The principals use excuses like "ah sur that teacher is retiring next year anyway". Some teachers blame poor internet or use the excuse some of their pupils have poor internet. Others think one email from a teacher to pupils every Monday morning, with work for the week, is enough contact for the school to gave. The board of management cannot sack a lazy or alcoholic teacher who does as little as possible.

One thing for sure though, from talking to parents around the country, is is clear there are some good teachers but there are many who leave a lot to be desired. Some done nothing.

Hotblack Desiato

Precisely how many parents around the country have you spoken to?

The BOM can't blame anyone else. They are the ones who hire and the ones who fire. As was already pointed out to you, but it's just one of the many awkward facts you like to ignore.

[Deleted User]

I read the thread title and skipped to the 10th page, I'm not sure what's up now. Are teachers bad again? Quite a jump from the original thrust of the post. Good old boards.

Pkiernan

[Deleted User] wrote: »

how many times would you need to be corrected on this simple nonsense in a private sector job before youd be sacked, i wonder

As I mentioned I grossly underestimated the amount of sick days public workers get.

Care to explain why public workers take on average twice as many sick days as private sector workers?

Public Service Sick Leave 2018

The Public Service Sick Leave Statistics for 2018 show the rate of sick leave is 4.2% and on average 9.2 working days were taken per Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) in the Public Service. The overall cost of sick leave in the Public Service is estimated at €381.5million