Civil Service - Post Lockdown - Blended Working?

You mean the unions who were asleep at the wheel agreeing to a 1% a year pay deal? Don't hold your breath for Forsa to do anything useful. We're looking at what is in effect a 10% pay cut after inflation between 2021 and 2023.

Early days yet but It may be playing out as I feared. The more time passes from the lifting of restrictions, the higher the chance of token WFH being introduced to tick a box.

And the civil service is, in general, more forward thinking and organised than the rest of the public service.

I was just reading some stuff from a remote working advocate called Chris Herd. If he's even half right, private sector companies that refuse to embrace remote working (where possible and where their competitors have) will be in trouble, just like those who refused to embrace computers or ecommerce were.

Re: computers and the internet, I worked in the public service in the mid 00s and the refusal to utilise technology was absurd at the time and seems even more so looking back. Staff not allowed to use the internet as "they'll just doss". Printing and filing multiple copies of emails. Memos and copies of memos for the most mundane things. Requiring 4 copies of job application forms and refusing to accept applications by email (was still happening in Feb 2020) A mountain of paper generated and very difficult to find anything in it as time passes.

Officious nonsense which requires a certain official mindset which also requires....an office. An office full of filing cabinets with "typists" sitting at their desks i.e. a bureacratic dinosaur's wet dream.

Well, one factor is that the long term effects e.g. 10 years plus aren't really known yet - sort term, career development may not be affected, but long term, things like networking, skill development, informal learning, relationships etc. become a bigger factor

I honestly think all of those can be mitigated against.

Doing my job better from home for two years and I think a lot of my colleagues are the same tbh

My boss is actively pushing with management for us to stay at home

You can still request remote working. If they decide to grant it, it doesn’t have to be 100% WFH, granting one day from home could tick the box. If they can give some justification as to why a hybrid model is required I can’t see the WRC having an issue.

I'm in the Civil Service a few years now and am surprised by how toothless/useless Fórsa are in every aspect.

Given how important blended working/working from home is for the vast majority of their members they should be really pushing it as an option. But nobody expects anything of them. An absolute lame duck.

agree fully but is also a disincentive to go to promotion for a lot of people as the previous poster said. Promotion doesnt mean salary increase even for existing staff

I wonder if the CS will consider reworking their office layout now that they plan on integrating remote work with in-office.

For one thing, it would be useful to keep all units in the same room, and divisions close by one another.

It seems entirely pointless bringing teams in on the same day, only for everyone to be in different rooms and offices. It ends up with everyone communicating via email and instant messenger - exactly the same as at home!

I imagine hot-desking might rise in prominence too. It's not fantastic but I'd be happy to take it if I can stay home 3 or 4 days a week. Also, with more staff at home, it might be nice not to sit in an empty room when you are in!

Its called best person for the job and this is essentially protectionism by the civil service employees.