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

I think you are fooling yourself, some people too busy watching the neighborhood to have a job anywhere regardless of location. If their comments are genuine and to be taken at face value.

I've no doubt pressure will keep building on rto. Then they'll be wondering why they have retention and recruitment problems greater than they currently do. Why traffic is back as bad as ever. People will be complaining why public offices and services are so short staffed. Wishing they could do it online and but be forced to queue for hours in offices.

Ironically they'll be complaining about it online from home.

Be curious what the Union membership has declined to in 2024 in terms of % .

It tells you that most employers want some form of hybrid working. Is that a surprise to you?

Your query, I see a number of reasons.

1. People who already have remote jobs are happy so there's less churn on the roles,meaning less hiring.
2. A good number of jobs in general can be done from home (retail, manufacturing, etc)
3. A good number of people still "feel" that WFH is not real working, and think it's better to have everyone in the office.

As an aside, I work nearly fully from home. We're a software company. About a year ago we ran a week of in office workshops and targeted bug squashing. Most developers were in the office, but some couldn't get in for various reasons, so they joined all meetings remotely and worked from home.

There was a competition on various aspects such as most bugs fixed or best bug fix, stuff like that. All prizes were won be people who were working from home. Having the full team immediately available to you didn't help here.

How far can someone drag this thread off topic.

NCH has nothing to do with WFH. Everything go do with cowboy construction industry. Efficiency. We've had a housing crisis for over a quarter of century. Try get a price for building anything. Price will have doubled before you get off the phone.

I don't know. But my point is specially about wfh. You can't blanket say wfh is worse for the company/org. But managers, especially old fashioned managers, will say it's bad and demand back to office for no real reason, other than it's what they were used to.

My buddy works in a architectural firm. When covid hit they all worked from home. Worked great, they kept up with their projects and won awards and such. But the directors are old fashioned people, so rushed everyone back to office as quick as they could. My buddy now spends over an hour a day commuting to an office to work on the same machine he had been using at home, and spends most of his time either working on his own or collaborating online with people based elsewhere in Ireland. But the managers see people in the office, so that suits them.

Why be coy? You could actually give a straight answer as to what solutions you have.

A good manager should be able to figure out fairly quickly who works well from home and who doesn’t. I know two women in my department that were called back into the office as they weren’t working well at home. One was even seen out clothes shopping with her mother.

In our office there isn’t anyone working full time from home anymore, some do a day or 2 a week or month etc. It’s at the managers discretion and if they weren’t performing they wouldn’t be allowed to continue. When I do the odd day from home now I appreciate he option so don’t swing the lead and make sure I work well.

If people had the integrity/maturity to do a proper days work when working from home it would help convince businesses and managers that wfh is a viable working arrangement for both parties. Particularly a hybrid of wfh and attending the office. Employees need to understand they may be needed in the office at times too, or maybe all the time depending on the role.

If people had the integrity/maturity to do a proper days work when working from home it would help convince businesses and managers that wfh is a viable working arrangement for both parties. Particularly a hybrid of wfh and attending the office. Employees need to understand they may be needed in the office at times too, or maybe all the time depending on the role.

This is the crux of the matter, and nobody here (other than the blatantly obvious trolls) are debating this!

But this push to bring people who have proven that they work well (if not better) from home is for no good reason other than presenteeism.

Every civil service Department that I am aware of has a policy which offers the right to apply for hybrid working. Some have policies which allow more WFH days than others.. None that I am aware of offer full time / 5 day week WFH.

If there is a business need to amend the policy or increase the numbers of days worked, there is already a procedure in place to do this, within the framework.

This issue that started this whole debate was departments who attempted to bring in a policy change for their staff without following the correct procedures.

I don’t think you are adding anything to this discussion coolday, I could reply but I’d only be repeating what has already been said here numerous times. You are repeating the same points over and over. It’s getting tedious for everyone. It’s clear you have a chip on your shoulder about the Public Service for whatever reason. My guess is you’ve been rejected by them a few times.

Who said (apart from you) that people are taking long breaks?