Civil Service - Post Lockdown - Blended Working?

You can do all these things remotely.

These same people did nothing all day in the office as well. It's nothing about being in the office. You just park them on some meaningless thankless task that has no deadlines but no advancement possibilities.

If you want them in the office fine. Who cares. But punishing everyone for a few bad eggs is archaic. It's inventing a reason for them to be in the office. But also for the manager to be in the office. Which is probably the intent all along.

The right to request remote work legislation was mentioned on the 9 o'clock news last night. Labour Party not happy with what is being proposed.

Apparently, employees will have the right to request and if it is refused will have the right to appeal but ultimately the contract of employment trumps all. Given that every contract I've ever seen had a location clause, that would make the legislation virtually useless and leave granting remote working at the discretion of the employer. As it is at the moment.

As for the civil and public service, if there is a policy on remote working its guaranteed that power will be given to managers to refuse remote working. Something like "remote work of up to 2 days per week may be granted if approved by an employee's line manager". In that case, if your manager is one of the many dinosaurs in the PS, you'll be in 5 days per week.

They'd need to be able to stand over that using objective grounds, and surely that'll be set out in the eventual policy when it emerges.

At the moment a manager can refuse shorter working year requests, and in theory it's supposed to be considered objectively each year, but we all know people who by default take extended leave every summer.

The tone will initially be set by a small number of SGs, but in the medium to long term I think it'll be impacted by the prevailing mood of the workforce. Solid, experienced staff are worth their weight in gold at the moment and you'll try your very best to avoid messing them about.

I agree about wanting to retain top performers - but realistically how many would leave the CS if they only got 2 days per week remote? There is a queue of hungry new entrants at the door, even if 3-4 days on-site was required I would imagine. And, management may even take the view that more on-site working may push weaker performers or "difficult" types to leave and find a fully remote gig elsewhere which could benefit the CS

Got an email today saying no immediate plans to return to the office while they finalise hybrid working. It will be the only thing that will keep people in the dept. The amount who want to leave is "everybody" 😁

I moved to a dept in Dublin and sold my house the same day with a plan on moving west.

I asked about remote working and was told no. I've spoken to several new starts in the last few years from that dept and they've never been in the office

I saw a location move in an old dept which precipitated everyone with 40 plus years under statutory retirement age to retire early. Added to that mobility moves by the bus load

Leo Varadkar has mentioned choice. You'd hope that if someone wants 3 or 4 days at home, then the legislation is framed in such a way that the wrc support the employees choice. But yeah, I can see it panning out as a compromise situation

There is a huge possibility that another Covid variant will hit us next autumn - resulting in further lockdowns. Managers in the CS should be aware that pettiness & petulance now could well come back to bite them on the arse if this happens. The vast majority of civil servants stepped up to the plate & worked effectively and efficiently from home. They should be given the right to continue to do so, albeit for two or three days a week.

They will probably be unable to veto it for unproductive workers as the unions will want everyone to be treated the same. So its probably easier to get everyone back into the office.

Well that didn't seem like a sensible move tbh. It was always likely there would be at least a partial return to the office.

Location move is totally different.

It'll become interesting when Departments want to access specialist skills and hire someone who doesn't live near the workplace and wants fully (or mostly) remote working.

They'll either have to start giving more than remote access than originally desired and the precedent is made, or they'll perhaps cut off their nose to spite their face and say no to hold the line.

I would say the main issue with ICT type staff is that the CS/PS insists on bringing them in at some grade like EO/AO, then moving along with increments. It wouldn't be attractive to most tech people to be perfectly honest. I have always negotiated a salary and yearly increase. I don't think it is necessarily due to full time remote working availability, most tech companies won't have that either. The types of things that the CS can offer, like job security just aren't the things that tech people are looking for. That's before you even get into the culture and the type of work. The OPW paid some staff double expenses because they still use a paper based system rather than a phone app as everyone else has been using for the last decade!