Civil servants told to spend more time in the office - Irish Times - Mod warning #526

That's exactly what this dispute is about. It's not a matter of how many days people work from home, it's that the Civil Service signed up to an agreement with the unions on Blended Working which requires consultation in the event of a review or change of approach. DSP decided to ignore that requirement and unilaterally change the arrangements. What choice did Forsa have been to go to war?

In the civil service and most private sector jobs you were ever really a number anyway. The only bugbear I have about working in the office is the amount of shite talk that colleagues have at your desk. There are a lot of distractions you wouldn't get working remotely.

They admitted they didn't look at any analytics around it, which seems a bit stupid....

Depending on role (and performance) I don't see any issues with working from home 4 days a week tbh, 1 day in can be useful. But I know myself the 1 day in is by far the least productive...I spend a chunk of it on calls with people sitting right beside me....lol

The article mentioned POs and above in the office 3 days a week at least, I will believe it when I see it.

Including the weekly or fortnightly pay package, presumably!

I will say they need a CS wide policy otherwise people will clearly move towards certain departments with WFH that suits them (e.g. I think for many in revenue it is 1 day in the office per week).

We are in an era of full employment… silly to try and enforce these rules because I for one would not take a job that doesn't offer at least 3 wfh days. Value my time too much.

Anyone know why DSP is taking the lead with this? Do they have a Sec Gen looking to make a name for themselves to get a promotion to a sexier department?

Edit: I see DOF are doing it too

We are in a small public sector department with 2 days a week wfh and we were told late last year that from February we cannot work Flexi and must work core hours when WFH.

They have now temporarily put this on hold after we got the union involved and they have submitted a case to the WRC.

You obviously don't know what's involved with the work we do if you think that.

Accumulated the FTHs and took 5 weeks FTHs leave, at start of summer.

If you don't know what you're talking about, could you do us all a favour, and just not post?

You can't accumulate 5 weeks' flexi time and take it together. You've never been able to, anywhere, in the public service. You can accumulate 1.5 days per 4-week flexi period, and you must take it before the end of the next 4-week period. That's it. So the most you could take together would be from a Thursday afternoon to the next Tuesday morning, 3 days, crossing over 2 flexi periods.

It's possible your acquaintance did something like take the shorter working year, which is unpaid leave. But it's not flexi.

At present and speaking from experience of my own office it is extremely hard to

(a) Get staff

(b) retain them

The renumeration package for new joins isn't attractive and most who join will cite family friendy work policies, wfh and security as reasons to join.

Diminishing wfh will just make it less attractive

In saying that 2 days isnt a ridiculous request. The lack of consultation and any indepth analysis of if it would be beneficial is ridiculous and doesnt surprise me.

Currently do 2 days a week in office which is more than adequate and sometimes pointless especially in summer months with alot on shorter working year

I work from home 3 days a week. Those days, I can roll out of bed and be at my desk, fed, coffee in hand, ready to work from 9.

On my office days, when I rely on public transport, there can be a variance of up to an hour on when I make it in, depending on traffic.

I have zero problem working late when WFH, precisely because I have a zero commute. I can even stick something on the slow cooker at lunchtime and have the family's dinner ready for whenever they want it in the evening. As opposed to "Oh, something urgent came up? Too bad, it's 5:45, I've a bus to catch." It also means most WFH days, I can get out for some exercise after work and still be back home before I would have been, had I been commuting from the city centre.

Today, I'm in the office. I spent the morning on Teams calls. I could have done that from home, but I'm a team lead, so I'm not going to only work in the office one day when my team has to work two. 🙄

I had a cold last week, and could work from home perfectly well (because why would I come in to the office when I'm infectious?!) - but if WFH was removed, I would have taken sick leave and not worked at all.

Same with the Storm Éowyn the week before. Red weather warning - don't come in to the office. Work from home instead.

But if people think we're going to be forced back to the office, until there's another red warning or another pandemic - whether it's "just" influenza or something more serious - and we'll all be "Yes, sir, no problem!" when we're all told "Ah, no, it's grand, sure work from home until it passes!" - well, you've another thing coming.

Compromise reached, no change for now until they sit down and talk and move to min 2 days in office anyway. I'm not a fan of blanket policies like this, if there are specific issues they should be addressed locally.

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2025/0131/1494002-civil-servants-told-to-resist-efforts-to-cut-remote-days/