Civil Service - Post Lockdown - Blended Working?

I would be surprised if many jobs, public or private, will be working 4 days from home. For those that do, it will be areas that have highly motivated staff who don't really need to be monitored. The PS isn't particularly well known for good managers or indeed easy to manage staff. This will probably affect the amount of WFH available, all having to pay for the sins of a few I suppose. But that is the system.

I must say I don't recognise the CS on this thread. My manager doesn't care when I'm in the office and leaves it up to me to gauge when I need to be in. I take the exact same view with the staff who report to me.

We're all adults.

This is why we pay our money to Forsa! But aside from that, the surveys show overwhelming support for WFH so who exactly are the ‘’them‘’ in this them and us argument?

who's going to pay for the hub/local department hot desk. If you aren't based in that department or under that department's line management, it's not going to happen. A Revenue office won't be welcoming DSP staff into it,nor will the DSP/Revenue local management be welcoming anyone bar their own local staff(under their management) into regional locations on a large scale

There are plenty of reasons parents childminding will have changed. One example would be older children let’s say aged 7 and up. May be in school from 9.20 to 3. A commute of an hour might necessitate them being minded from 7am to allow parent to arrive to work at 8am leave at 4pm and arrive to pick them up for 5pm. That’s 2 hours cost per morning, school drop and pick up and 1.5 hours (usually rounded to 2) after school. That parent could have all lunches and kids ready prior to 8 let kids sleep in until then, and have a nice relaxing morning (compared to the usual). Let’s say they clock in at 9.45 after dropping their kids to school. Work until 3.10 take lunch to do the school collection. They’ve had 5 hours 25 mins work without having had morning rush and stress. Kids come home and parent has two hours work to do. They haven’t taken any break in the morning as people would in the office preferring to work straight through. The kids have homework and snacks and playing round the house. The two untaken 15 min coffee breaks easily allow for interruptions during the two hours work left. Much easier day no stress, massive costs, happier work life balance, same amount of work done often more as they don’t arrive stressed and tired.

Compared to some who clock in at 8 then toilet make coffee, chat. Long coffee break mid morning, maybe vape/smoke breaks, lunch, evening coffee breaks, more vape/smoke breaks.

People who work hard do so regardless. People who don’t the same in or out of the office. Speaking with family who range from HEO to PO a big issue for those employees that do work hard seems to be the inability to switch off when at home. Checking emails or finishing cases at night when the kids are in bed on weekends or when on AL. Work that would usually be left until the next working day when they were in the office.

This was also my experience in the CS. I started with 2 others and the SO and HEO hovered over us worse than teachers in baby infants. We did have to ask permission for the 'big lunch', they would listen in on our phone calls and then whisper to each other about what we said rather than give constructive feedback and even though we had flexi-time if we came in before them in the morning they would get the hump as they didn't trust us even though I would get so much done without someone over the shoulder. It ended up being rather comical tbh, that was the only way to get through it. The SO was eating an apple once and when one of the girls picked up the phone she stopped chewing so she could hear every word! Another day she rolled her chair over beside me and put her face against mine to listen to my phone call. She had a red cheek from my beard when she wheeled off she came that close! I did eventually leave the CS but was transferred to another area of that department and the supervisors there were actually grand with lunch and arrival times but still very poor with offering feedback and communicating adult to adult - still a lot of whispering while looking in your direction rather than letting you know the issue. So, it's luck of the draw but those who don't trust workers and want that very student/child dynamic will hate the idea of work from home because it comes down to them thinking if they're not watching you'll go on the doss like a bold child.

I work in a fully remote position now and tbh it did take me ages to adjust to being fully trusted. I had also had my confidence knocked and when working remotely at the start I was always thinking every email alert was someone coming along to chastise me.

The horse has bolted on this. Remote has been proven over a year and a half now. We need it to continue for the housing market, work life balance and global warming. How can the government push their “making remote work” campaign, connected hubs and not lead the way with substantial reform themselves? You can use a laptop anywhere with good secure wifi. There is no need for long commutes anymore for those who can carry out their job wfh. The Civil service is the great defender of the work life balance and if they fall behind on this to the private sector they will find it hard to compete for staff.

Oh yes, Gulf Stream is collapsing let’s pull everyone back to the office to burn needless carbon. Fair play to them..