I see that Eamon Ryan was on RTE this morning stating that he expects work places to return in September and then the importance of returning to offices for mental health. Although he was painting a very different picture a few months ago that work from home was possibly here to stay and 0great for the environment etc.
It is going to be intriguing to see how much pressure is put on the departments from these politicians and how that will factor into how many days work from home once department's policies become available.
Seperately see that Google & Facebook are only letting employees into their campus if they have been vaccinated. It will be interesting to see
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Thanks for letting me know the CS is a big place. I hadn't realised that in my over 30 years of service across multiple departments and multiple offices.
If you read my posts properly, you will see I was not referring to organising cover for day to day functions.
Organising cover for core hours and services is not the same as having to ask permission or wait for permission to go on your lunch - which is something I have never had to do, and would never expect anyone else to have to do.
The civil service is a big place. Not all offices can allow staff to come and go as they please. There has to be some structure in every workplace IMO. Take call centers for eg.. not all staff can go on break at the same time or who would answer the phones?
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?
Nope, we were closed for lunch.
I'm not talking about coordinating cover, (that's normal) I'm talking about staff actually sitting at their desk and waiting for the nod that they could go for lunch or having to actually ask can they go now.
This is something my niece experienced a bit off too and was one of the reasons why she quit. She said she felt like she was back in school and being treated like a child.
But you coordinated with colleagues or manager to make sure the public desk was staffed over lunch, right?
I've worked in large operational departments and small ones, and in public offices on a public facing desk, and I've never, ever had to ask anyone's permission to take my lunch.
But this has always been managed between teams (at least where I have worked) in a way that it could continue with remote working. In the 'old' days, my team were frequently in and out of the office at meetings etc. It'd be rare that everyone was gone at the same time, so phones were monitored and messages were taken. Lunchtimes were staggerred but on an informal basis ("I fancy an early lunch, so I can cover 1.30 onwards, is anyone able to cover the first part"), during holiday period on the rare chance that the main floor was totally empty (e.g. those three days between Christmas and New year), the phone would be forwarded to my phone or one of the other offices - and we would have arranged for there to be cover for those days. And not just at CO/EO level. Depending on the department, work load etc, it was often the PO or APs who covered.
And we are doing the exact same thing with certain tweaks while working remotely - phones forwarded to mobiles, detailed out of office messages, aligning leave, my team letting me know if they are starting or finishing earlier or later than normal, or taking an unusual lunch time. We've managed some fairly significant policy work and operational programmes from our kitchen tables, sofas and bedrooms. And I can tell you, the Ministers office can ALWAYS get hold of someone when they need to...
If the Ministers Office calls and you're WFH you can still answer the phone?
Indeed. Even if your not totally public facing, it is still the public SERVICE you're in. Phone etc cover needs to be provided during agreed hours. The Minister's office aren't going to be amused if they call and no one is there. Etc.
There are a few obscure areas where teamwork isn't needed. But they are pretty far between.
Lots of departments got thru the last 15 months by vastly reducing service levels. That needs to be reversed.
Exactly, those who think they can come and go as they please obviously haven't worked in public offices or large operational departments.
In fairness, a lot depends on the nature of the work. If you're manning a public desk or a public phone line, then lunch scheduling is important. If you're doing back office policy work, then no-one cares about lunchtimes.
The differences between departments and even locations within departments can be vast.
My niece was an EO in another department and she resigned in under six months as she found the culture so bad.
I've had new transfers into my department from others ask what time they could take their lunch at, and were shocked when told there was no need to check, they could choose for themselves what time to have lunch!
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.
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I have to say my department (who I prefer not to name) has been way ahead of the curve in this even long before Covid happened, with WFH being actively encouraged across all grades. I myself had just agreed with my supervisor to increase to 2 days a week WFH (out of 4) before covid hit. I'm not particularly bothered to push for more, but we'll see how things develop. I think there may be a 50% limit.
Hopefully not all departments will be as bleak as you suggest, it will really be a lost opportunity which makes such a difference to people's lives.
(eta) they are definitely moving towards shared desks, we've already been notified of this.
Re: the first part of your post, this was covered in Question 5 (b) in the consultation document.
"Is it acceptable that an employer offers an alternative hybrid working pattern with a combination of remote work and onsite work, in response to any request for remote working?(For example, if an employee is requesting 50% remote working and an employer wishes to offer 20% or a lower percentage than the amount requested"
https://www.ictu.ie/download/pdf/ictu_submission_on_right_to_request_remote_work_may_2021.pdf
Obviously the legislation is not in place yet but offering 1 or a half day WFH per week (to someone who could clearly WFH more than that) will be very obvious for being a token, dismissive gesture and should be open to scrutiny. A token gesture in response to a request is certainly not fulfilling that request. It also would not comply with government policy to "make remote work" and to have 20% of public service work done from home (given that large numbers of public servants clearly can't WFH, those who clearly can should be allowed more than a token amount to reach this 20% target)
The right to request remote working could mean a day a week at home or at a hub too not full time at home, so if they give you a day they satisfied the request. But who's is going to pay for the use of hubs either.
With regards to not having your own desk I can't see that happening at a large scale.
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.
Something that I could see playing out in the PS/CS is an offer of token WFH, in effect throwing out a few sweeties to keep the children happy. E.g. you have someone who could objectively and based on their agreed duties, WFH 4 days a week. They request this and the PS employer grudgingly allows them half a day a week. This is no more acceptable than not allowing WFH at all, IIRC this was covered in the public consultation on the right to request remote work so I hope everyone got their submissions in.
WFH would make such a difference to many people's lives that the upside may well negate any feelings of intimidation, in the PS at least where dirty tactics like managing out and smearing a person's "reputation in the industry" for taking a case to the WRC don't work. Add to that the chronic understaffing and poor morale in many areas of the PS and I could see employees taking the view that they have nothing to lose and a lot to gain by being "awkward". The WRC could end up swamped, as far as I'm aware, like many public bodies it is already chronically understaffed.
The attitude to WFH and the ignoring of public health guidelines has shone a spotlight on poor management in parts of the PS - bizarre, childish, neurotic management practices with managers terrified of change and alternating between disengagement and micromanagement when it suits. It will have become clear in some cases that managers who were previously thought of as being mediocre are actually a lot worse than that.
(Sorry for quoting whole post, can't seem to find way to edit the clip...)
I know Forsa are looking for a "right to opt out" from WFH for the employee, though I don't know how this will work out in regards to office space / desk allocations in practice.
Disappointing to see no explicit right to NOT work for home for those who can't or won't WFH. The reference to making savings on office space in the future seems to suggest that the days of having a dedicated office or desk are gone, except at very senior level.
Any indication when Revenue offices be open?
Read the spiel today and it certainly has plenty of vagueness and buzzwords but basically when it comes down to it, it was exactly what I expected it would be all along. 😏
Remote working will end up being run very much along the same lines as flexible working hours. The employee will have the right to request remote working, but the employer will also have the right to refuse, based on business needs, yada, yada, yada. Each department will run their own version of the scheme.
But, what will be universal to all is that the right to request remote working will be statutory so if someone is refused they can take a case to the WRC, and then the employer will then need to give their reasons why it was refused, and show why the employee is requried to be office based. They won't be able to just dismiss an application to remote work out of hand. And given how many public and civil servants have successfully completed their roles from home the last 15/16 months, it could lead to some interesting challenges being brought to the WRC.
A lot of, shall we say, more easily intimidated staff might balk at the idea of taking the official route to the WRC if their requests to WFH are refused, and some micro-managing, clock watching, over the shoulder type middle managers will count on this (we all know the type).
But lets just say (hypothetically), if my employer did insist on a full time return to the office, entailing a return to a minimum of a 2 hour return commute daily (sometimes longer), well then - they would also have to expect that a return to pre-covid working conditions would also mean a return to pre-covid productivity levels. There are only so many hours in the day, and 10-15 hours a week commuting really takes it out of a person. 😉
If you're back in the office, your flexitime should have been restored. In fact, DPER restored it for all civil servants who returned to the office from 24th August 2020, so I think you need to get in touch with your manager and show them the following article, which also contains a link to the relevant guidelines from DPER.
Where do you get this from the doc?
Unless I'm misreading something, I'm not getting any indication that 'blended' working is anything except 1 day a week to work from home. Or work out of one of those office hubs that Heather Humphries launched a while back.
It also said that those who are allowed opt for blended working, will have to attend office at regular intervals. So it looks like full WFH is off the cards, with maybe defined days for attendance, which is a pity.
I'm Courts Service. Not a great area to be in. Seems to operate differently from large Departments.
We've only ever been allowed to take 2 weeks swy and not allowed to take any extended leave (more than 2 consecutive days) 6 weeks either side of it. They've been threatening to not grant any swy requests for years now and I think staffing issues due to pandemic will be the perfect excuse.
What Department?
They'll be war if people in the same department get it and others don't, like SWY refusals the unions will be busy
We're all back in the office. Looks to be the way for the foreseeable unfortunately. Its disappointing as I've a 2hour round trip and young children at home.
We've been told we can work from home here and there if we can prove the work we are doing at home can be done more efficiently at home than at the office. Obviously this is never the case (though it can be done just as efficiently). Find it annoying that other civil servants at the same level get perks that we don't just because of the department we're in (remote working, shorter working year etc).
Also our flexi time still hasn't been restored since before the pandemic. Is this the case everywhere?
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