CDS General Eyre announces retirement

[Colin Parkinson]

Don't worry, they are looking at forcing all military members back to the office 5 days a week, regardless of what your job is and how successful remote work is, so the next CDS can look forward to a lot of pissed off people that have arbitrarily lost a benefit because someone with a corner office wanted 'buzz'. Even when you are working somewhere that is a mil/civi mix, and the civis and contractors are all on some kind of hybrid remote work (or full remote).

So even if you are the only military person on the team, or there aren't enough desks now that GoC is downsizing the office footprint, that's apparently being seriously discussed. Nothing like a top down, arbitrary direction to people already at/near immediate annuity doing thankless work who are capable of managing their team's work arrangements to drive retention and workplace satisfaction.

Personally for some meetings I've been in on Teams being able to double face palm and swear to myself probably kept me from being charged. Not having an outlet in some of these particularly stupid meetings if I was in person (which can't do anyway because there is no travel budget) would be poor.

Nothing builds morale than dialing into Teams for a day sitting in an uncofortable cubicle with a 2 hour round trip at $1.75/liter plus parking.

You paying 1.75L, I wish, ours peaked recently at $2.10 and now at $2.01

 

[Navy_Pete]

Perhaps it's a personal bias on my part. As the support we get from Ottawa is spotty at best.

I get that, and have had the same from both the ship side and within Ottawa, but that's really nothing to do with the merits of hybrid work vice working in the office (and there are still plenty of people on the coasts doing hybrid work, which makes sense for the jobs). The same people that aren't answering emails now weren't doing it before, and "Ottawa" is spread out over probably hundreds of organizations spread out across the NCR (with detachments across the country).

I'm personnally way more productive WFH at some pretty significant aspects of my job that take up a lot of time, especially wearing 3 or 4 hats (down from I think 7 a few years ago). There is a huge amount of paperwork to churn through, so cranking on tunes and not getting interruptions lets me do that. When I go into work I can't do that, so that's when we do the whiteboarding/talking through issues etc, and it generally works out okay.

If they want to order us back in just because, that's fine, but I'm not putting in extra hours to cover off the chronically underfunded/overtasked stuff they want me to do, and will be putting in a normal 40 and calling it a day. If they can't trust me to manage my subordinates working arrangements within the DND hybrid guidelines, I guess I can't be that important anyway.

Sure, it's a benefit, and yeah, I get that folks on front line units won't have any sympathy, but frankly we have the infrastructure and processes in place to allow hybrid work, so the jobs that can adapt to it really should, and it's a free way to not hurt retention further. Especially when you stick people in a frustrating mess where there are dozens of approval gates to get the basics done, then you do stuff like turn off NICP taps so we can't buy parts.

Lots of folks have options to do something else for the same/more money etc, so someone more open to something like WFH is just another nice way to boost poaching from DND. Ironically pretty sure I could walk out and consult back for the next 10 years for a very major project RCN will be required by legislation to get done, which I'd be happy to do in uniform if they would just left me alone to do it.

 

[Halifax Tar]

I get that, and have had the same from both the ship side and within Ottawa, but that's really nothing to do with the merits of hybrid work vice working in the office (and there are still plenty of people on the coasts doing hybrid work, which makes sense for the jobs). The same people that aren't answering emails now weren't doing it before, and "Ottawa" is spread out over probably hundreds of organizations spread out across the NCR (with detachments across the country).

I'm personnally way more productive WFH at some pretty significant aspects of my job that take up a lot of time, especially wearing 3 or 4 hats (down from I think 7 a few years ago). There is a huge amount of paperwork to churn through, so cranking on tunes and not getting interruptions lets me do that. When I go into work I can't do that, so that's when we do the whiteboarding/talking through issues etc, and it generally works out okay.

If they want to order us back in just because, that's fine, but I'm not putting in extra hours to cover off the chronically underfunded/overtasked stuff they want me to do, and will be putting in a normal 40 and calling it a day. If they can't trust me to manage my subordinates working arrangements within the DND hybrid guidelines, I guess I can't be that important anyway.

Sure, it's a benefit, and yeah, I get that folks on front line units won't have any sympathy, but frankly we have the infrastructure and processes in place to allow hybrid work, so the jobs that can adapt to it really should, and it's a free way to not hurt retention further. Especially when you stick people in a frustrating mess where there are dozens of approval gates to get the basics done, then you do stuff like turn off NICP taps so we can't buy parts.

Lots of folks have options to do something else for the same/more money etc, so someone more open to something like WFH is just another nice way to boost poaching from DND. Ironically pretty sure I could walk out and consult back for the next 10 years for a very major project RCN will be required by legislation to get done, which I'd be happy to do in uniform if they would just left me alone to do it.

It just burns more now when I see those lil house icons on there signature block and then I envision them sitting on their decks, drinking beer and laughing while wiping their mouths with my HPRs, OPDEFs and Reqs.

It's not personal at you as I know you care deeply.

 

[Navy_Pete]

So productivity should improve then?

The Productivity Problem With Remote Work​

The debates about remote work, hybrid work and in-office work are (still) raging—and they mostly center around productivity, performance and employee motivation.

A quintessential new example of the discussion is the press generated when the CEO of Zoom ordered employees back to the office. What could be more telling than the leader of a company who was arguably one of the biggest benefactors of the remote work phenomenon wanting people back in the office?

There are certainly advantages to remote work and hybrid work as well—but a new study by Stanford University also points to problems. Namely that productivity drops with remote work. The data is compelling.

Perception is a problem, and the Stanford report found workers thought productivity was higher at home (about 7% higher) while managers thought it was lower (about 3.5% lower). And according to the Atlassian poll, 10% of people believe they will be viewed as less productive or lacking in commitment if they work from home.

The bottom line, regardless of perceptions: The Stanford analysis across multiple studies found a 10% to 20% reduction in productivity, depending on the nature of the research and its conditions.

The Productivity Problem With Remote Work

There are advantages to remote work and hybrid work as well—but a new study demonstrates remote work is associated with a 10%-20% reduction in productivity.

www.forbes.com

Interesting article, but it's always a challenge to measure employee productivity in knowledge based jobs (especially when you aren't making widgets).

I generally put in more hours WFH compared to WFO, and am able to adjust my schedule at short notice to support people in Halifax/Esquimalt easier, which is the bulk of my job.

At the same time, in the last 4 years the organization has added on multiple layers of process ontop of already bureaucratically labour intensive processes, so takes a lot more time to get the same actual task done because the LOE increases.

For instance, every project over $20M (lifetime costs included) now requires a Sustainment Business Case Analysis, which can add 2 years onto the options analysis of a project, and requires support from PSPC and ISED, as well as internal DND specialists. That's a really easy threshold to hit, and also applies to in service things for normal obsolescence changes.

Hard to be 'more productive' in an organization that breeds inefficiency, but if it was just in billable hours I definitely clocked in way more than 40 for an extended period WFH. YMMV obviously, but it's more the 'one size fits all' approach that doesn't make sense when we already work in teams spread across time zones and continents regularly.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Interesting article, but it's always a challenge to measure employee productivity in knowledge based jobs (especially when you aren't making widgets).

I generally put in more hours WFH compared to WFO, and am able to adjust my schedule at short notice to support people in Halifax/Esquimalt easier, which is the bulk of my job.

At the same time, in the last 4 years the organization has added on multiple layers of process ontop of already bureaucratically labour intensive processes, so takes a lot more time to get the same actual task done because the LOE increases.

For instance, every project over $20M (lifetime costs included) now requires a Sustainment Business Case Analysis, which can add 2 years onto the options analysis of a project, and requires support from PSPC and ISED, as well as internal DND specialists. That's a really easy threshold to hit, and also applies to in service things for normal obsolescence changes.

Hard to be 'more productive' in an organization that breeds inefficiency, but if it was just in billable hours I definitely clocked in way more than 40 for an extended period WFH. YMMV obviously, but it's more the 'one size fits all' approach that doesn't make sense when we already work in teams spread across time zones and continents regularly.

I know a guy in a big organization who reckons that about 50% of his staff, most of them WFH, have 'gone dark' as he calls it. They are beyond managing in an effective way to realize meaningful outputs.

And he can't fire them, or force them to return to the office, because of corporate policies that heavily favour the staff.

So about 50% of the staff, including those who seem to be WFH to good effect, are doing 110% of the work. He's leaning heavily on contractors too, which drives costs through the roof but gets the job done on time.

 

[Navy_Pete]

It just burns more now when I see those lil house icons on there signature block and then I envision them sitting on their decks, drinking beer and laughing while wiping their mouths with my HPRs, OPDEFs and Reqs.

It's not personal at you as I know you care deeply.

Yeah, I get it; I would hate that too, but I guess it would be a referred anger at the general state of things.

The flipside is when I get an HPR, chase down an OPDEF/PREQ and can't do anything about it, at least in WFH I can quietly hold my head in my hands for a bit before marshalling the team to try and figure something out (to paraphrase the movie, there is no crying in MEPM). Even HPRs are being screened now due to lack of cash, which is brutal, and a massive kick to morale.

I guess I mostly object to having to go back into work when they've kneecapped us from being able to do the jobs, so rolling into the office everyday is mostly a performative exercise to make some people feel like they are doing something (even if it's just myself and others polishing up our resumes). If it came with enough people to keep up with the work and money to do it with, I'd happily roll in every morning to the stupid, uncomfortable office and leave feeling like I got something done despite the system.

With the cuts that aren't cuts though, really terrible time to take a CDS job, on top of all the other retention and recruiting issues. The inservice side was already dire, and so far no sign of at least cutting off some gangrenous limbs to try and save the patient by rolling out some ships to support a smaller fleet properly.

 

[dapaterson]

I know a guy in a big organization who reckons that about 50% of his staff, most of them WFH, have 'gone dark' as he calls it. They are beyond managing in an effective way to realize meaningful outputs.

And he can't fire them, or force them to return to the office, because of corporate policies that heavily favour the staff.

So about 50% of the staff, including those who seem to be WFH to good effect, are doing 110% of the work. He's leaning heavily on contractors too, which drives costs through the roof but gets the job done on time.

But what was the pre WFH ratio? There's normally a cadre who keep the enterprise working, often in the seldom noticed or praised areas of the business, and another group that seek glory and attention and are net negative in getting anything done.

 

[OldSolduer]

But what was the pre WFH ratio? There's normally a cadre who keep the enterprise working, often in the seldom noticed or praised areas of the business, and another group that seek glory and attention and are net negative in getting anything done.

FWIW our premier here in the hinterlands of MB has put the word out that any provincial employee that worked downtown Winnipeg prior to the pandemic has to return to the office. Its not law that I know of but they do want to revitalize the downtown and the provincial Civil Service is part of that solution.

 

[Jarnhamar]

Oh man when I see those work form home houses in signatures I tack on an extra 3 weeks when I can expect a response by email.

 

[Navy_Pete]

I know a guy in a big organization who reckons that about 50% of his staff, most of them WFH, have 'gone dark' as he calls it. They are beyond managing in an effective way to realize meaningful outputs.

And he can't fire them, or force them to return to the office, because of corporate policies that heavily favour the staff.

So about 50% of the staff, including those who seem to be WFH to good effect, are doing 110% of the work. He's leaning heavily on contractors too, which drives costs through the roof but gets the job done on time.

Fair enough, but is that not more of an underlying corporate HR policy issue that was only really exposed by some people screwing the pooch?

It seems like WFH is having a really good benefit for at least half the staff, so a fairly reasonable example of where 'one size fits all' is really more of a group punishment.

In that scenario, making everyone go back isn't going to make the people that 'went dark' somehow be productive, and will likely make the other 50% start looking for new jobs elsewhere. When realistically they should probably be culling the 50% of unproductive people and giving the rest raises and otherwise doing stuff to keep them as top performers in their positions.

That's kind of how I think it will play out in the CAF folks in Ottawa; the dog shaggers will just go back to making themselves look busy in person, while the high producers will take a hard look at what they want to do next as they have options.

 

[quadrapiper]

FWIW our premier here in the hinterlands of MB has put the word out that any provincial employee that worked downtown Winnipeg prior to the pandemic has to return to the office. Its not law that I know of but they do want to revitalize the downtown and the provincial Civil Service is part of that solution.

That is probably the second-worst (first is management wanting the vibe of a full office) reason to opt for in-person. If you were pick a compelling reasons in favour of WFH, enormously reducing the entire commuting and workday infrastructure, public and private, is right up there.

 

[PPCLI Guy]

I think that you will find that some of the motivation for this is that troops in units do not have the option to work from home, so maybe staff and leaders in HQs should get up every day and go to work.

Shared hardship and all of that.

And as a preemptive statement - you may well have been in a unit before, and are now staff, and hate it. The staff job that you hate is the price you pay for the joy of having been in a unit.....

 

[Colin Parkinson]

FWIW our premier here in the hinterlands of MB has put the word out that any provincial employee that worked downtown Winnipeg prior to the pandemic has to return to the office. Its not law that I know of but they do want to revitalize the downtown and the provincial Civil Service is part of that solution.

Are they issuing free guns or bear spray, for the run from the carpark to the office door?

 

[dimsum]

Oh man when I see those work form home houses in signatures I tack on an extra 3 weeks when I can expect a response by email.

My experience is that the folks who take 3 weeks to respond will take that long regardless of where they are.

Those folks who can’t separate work life from home life answer emails at 2100 on a Friday because they’re WFH will burn themselves out. Personally, WFH was good but being in the office gave me a mental break between “work” and “not work”. When I left work, I didn’t continue answering emails.

 

[PuckChaser]

Like a non-binary gender fluid grey-ace who is half-Palestinian, half-Jewish, and grew up on a First Nation reserve.

Unstoppable amounts of inclusion.

Like a woke Megazord?

 

[Grimey]

Personally for some meetings I've been in on Teams being able to double face palm and swear to myself probably kept me from being charged.

Camera off function first I hope!

 

[dapaterson]

Camera off function first I hope!

Sharing screen, with pop up Teams messages from others saying WTF as a GOFO briefs are memorable, if not career enhancing.

 

[Booter]

To clarify, I am not agreeing with Mr. Smol.

I’m pretty sure that LGens Bourgon and Carignan have an inkling of the issues that they would have to deal with if either of them become CDS. That shouldn’t mean that they aren’t considered because they’re women.

I’m a cynic- so I don’t expect everyone to agree. But the problem is people and power not sex.

If they are high enough to be considered- they ve been high enough to have been part of the problem.

If CDS sucked so hard they wouldn’t crawl all over each other groping for one more promotion.

 

[Jarnhamar]

Like a woke Megazord?

Armed with positive space shields and equity cannons.


Kidding aside with the identity politics the government has been pushing for 8 years I wouldn't want that job either if I was a female GOFO. Many will question her credibility and whether she was picked because she's the best for the job or because 'it's time a woman was CDS'. Not that she would really care but it's still going to be obnoxious to deal with none the less.

It's bad enough the PMO promises to increase funding for the military then turns around and orders budget cuts; except they forbid the CDS from using the words budget cut. It's a shitty spot to have to sell what the LPC wants.

 

[daftandbarmy]

I think that you will find that some of the motivation for this is that troops in units do not have the option to work from home, so maybe staff and leaders in HQs should get up every day and go to work.

Shared hardship and all of that.

And as a preemptive statement - you may well have been in a unit before, and are now staff, and hate it. The staff job that you hate is the price you pay for the joy of having been in a unit.....