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

And is someone working from home who looks after someone else's kids as well as her own toddlers every working week really deserving to be paid fully for wfm?

None of that makes you lazy - it means there's no work to do. I only mentioned asking the boss for more work because you said you did so.

WTF is WFM when it's at home? Do you mean WFH? why should anyone take you seriously about laziness if you can't even get the three letter acronym correct? You are all over the place here, producing nothing but a load of waffle backed up by SFA. Maybe best to quit before you really embarrass yourself.

A couple of general points:

The Dept of Finance complaint is doomed to fail from the beginning. The email to staff from Forsa makes a couple of huge errors that impact the validity of the complaint.

In a recent email to staff in the *redacted* Division regarding blended working arrangements, staff there were directed to attend the office three days week from the beginning of February. This is a compulsory requirement to attend the office over the blended working arrangement that successfully operated previously. This change was introduced unilaterally without any prior consultation with the union.

The agreement with staff/unions was that staff would be offered a minimum of 2/3 days WFH per week. One unit has been told to come in 3 days per week. This is in accordance with the agreement, there is no change, therefore there is no breach and any industrial action as a result is unjustified. There was no need to consult the unions.

Returning to a 5-days-in-the-office model will absolutely cripple our infrastructure. Traffic would explode, buses and trains be even more rammed etc. I honestly don't think we have the infrastructure to cope with it.

Most offices are also physically unable to cope with a full RTO. Almost every single public sector body has increased in numbers since 2020, with little in the way of increased buildings. Very few have the space for all employees to be on-site every day. There are other added costs like heating, electricity, waste, paper usage, security etc. which will impact environmental targets and obligations.

So, it's in the government's interests to maintain the status quo for everybody's sake. We all know how adept they are at cutting their nose off though, so watch this space.

There's also an element of 'careful what you wish for' involved. If the unions kick up a stink over having to be in the office 3 days per week, there is a fear the Govt could just dissolve it and say, "okay, then, 5 days a week it is, and be done with this nonsense".

I really hope the WFH option won't be reduced drastically. I’ve applied for CO positions and will only accept the position if WFH is available. Another positive aspect of WFH apart from the obvious ones: employers can hire more people as they rotate in the office, since most of them can work from home. If they want everybody to be full-time in the office, then they'd need bigger offices, more parking spaces, etc.

Good points, well made, by the last three posters - the absolute proof that blended working isn't going away is the simple fact that in the vast majority of CS employments, there isn't enough space! I'm aware of several agencies who have already moved to or are soon moving to new accommodation where the number of staff > the number of desks, deliberately built in from the get-go. Hot-desking is the way of the future, in the majority of cases.

Hot desking and dettol disinfecting spray is the future.

How in gods name is that "macho"?

Because it's the kind of absolute bullshit that muppets like Elon Musk come out with? "Everyone must reply to this email by 5pm tomorrow saying they'll work harder, and from the office, or they're fired!", and then a few months later you end up with this: https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2024/0813/1464761-record-award-of-550k-to-former-twitter-senior-executive/

The expectation that workers should not be less productive than 95% of other staff is not macho or bullshit.

If it is a measurable metric and can be proven that almost all other staff are performing better, you are either not capable or don't put in the effort.

Oh ok, a circular argument. It's macho because it's macho.

So it is masculine in an overly assertive or aggressive way? Slightly sexist attitude to have.

It's the kind of macho nonsense that Jack Welch was coming out with thirty years ago. Most half sensible HR people realised it was nonsense about twenty years ago.

It would be illegal in Irish law to fire people for failing to reach a metric which is based on relativity to their peers rather than their actual performance.

Does any company actually do this?