Public service employment has grown by 31 per cent

[daftandbarmy]

Hopefully, this will kick in elsewhere in the country too...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-public-service-work-from-office-mandate-remote-1.7608742

 

[Good2Golf]

Don't worry buddy, if COVID and WFH hasn't already killed your town...

Mayor spoke to prime minister in hopes public service cuts won't be 'devastating' for Ottawa​

Mark Sutcliffe says he is very worried about the prospect of job cuts to the federal public service.

Mayor Mark Sutcliffe says he has spoken with Prime Minister Mark Carney to try to blunt the impact of potential federal public service cuts could have on Ottawa.

Sutcliffe told the Ottawa Citizen that he’s very worried about the prospect of job cuts within the public service, and that he’s had discussions with Carney and other federal officials to try to ensure they won’t be “devastating” on the local economy.

“The federal government is our largest employer in our city and it’s the largest landowner in our city,” he said. “We need to work closely together on a plan to support the local economy, support any workers who lose their jobs and help them transition to other employment.”

In early July, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne sent letters to cabinet ministers asking them to find 15 per cent in savings over three years. Cabinet ministers have until the end of the summer to propose savings in their departments.

Some government organizations, such as the Department of National Defence, the RCMP and Canada Border Services Agency, have a lower target of two per cent over three years. And other organizations, such as the office of the auditor general and the Supreme Court of Canada, won’t be impacted by the spending review.

In his election platform, Carney pledged to “cap, but not cut” the size of the public service, but some public sector unions have accused the prime minister of breaking that promise.

Mayor spoke to prime minister in hopes public service cuts won't be 'devastating' for Ottawa

Mark Sutcliffe says he is very worried about the prospect of job cuts to the federal public service.

ottawacitizen.com

I’d be willing to wager that many of all the recent new hires were WFH, especially the CRA types….who still can’t find $15B of CERB overpayments…because they were typed on stone typewriters and delivered to recipients by pterodactyl…

 

[Remius]

Ontario is recalling all workers to the office 5 days a week.

Pretty sure the fed gvt will follow soon.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Ontario is recalling all workers to the office 5 days a week.

Pretty sure the fed gvt will follow soon.

This should help open up some jobs, as they will now have to give up the second one...

 

[daftandbarmy]

This should help open up some jobs, as they will now have to give up the second one...

 

[Furniture]

Ontario is recalling all workers to the office 5 days a week.

Pretty sure the fed gvt will follow soon.

I'm sure "hoteling", and a lack of desk space will make that a 100% effective solution...

I'm not opposed to 100% "in-office" time, but I also think it is inefficient for many jobs. In my last two jobs, I was more effective working from home than in the office, because my work was not collaborative. Time in the office resulted in wasted hours of chatting, meetings, and other "office" crap that wasn't a thing when working in my basement office at home.

 

[childs56]

I'm sure "hoteling", and a lack of desk space will make that a 100% effective solution...

I'm not opposed to 100% "in-office" time, but I also think it is inefficient for many jobs. In my last two jobs, I was more effective working from home than in the office, because my work was not collaborative. Time in the office resulted in wasted hours of chatting, meetings, and other "office" crap that wasn't a thing when working in my basement office at home.

If asked could you provide the stats to support your position?
I have a few friends who they and their co-workers were asked for their WFH and In office stats. It was an interesting discussion overall about the top performers and everyone else. Their employers compared their employee data with the data base. It proved interesting actually shocked a few people.
The change of work production was not linear, nor predictable for most who WFH. The companies/ organizations wished they had monitored pre covid performance more closely. The stats they had were overall office performance and not individual.
The result was they found WFH overall production went down but quality/ accuracy went up. If that makes any sense. They found their workers were more detailed and focused when documenting files, but were more distracted by home life overall, meaning they would focus on a file. Get it processed and then oh social media post better check they out. Because they did not have the restrictions/ monitors at home as they did at work it was easier to get distracted for longer.

I thought it was funny. I have phoned various agencies who have WFH over the past few year and my dealings often have a person answering their phone at the dinner table, or hear a baby crying in the back ground. I cant imagine the focus is 100% on the job for the majority.

 

[daftandbarmy]

If asked could you provide the stats to support your position?
I have a few friends who they and their co-workers were asked for their WFH and In office stats. It was an interesting discussion overall about the top performers and everyone else. Their employers compared their employee data with the data base. It proved interesting actually shocked a few people.
The change of work production was not linear, nor predictable for most who WFH. The companies/ organizations wished they had monitored pre covid performance more closely. The stats they had were overall office performance and not individual.
The result was they found WFH overall production went down but quality/ accuracy went up. If that makes any sense. They found their workers were more detailed and focused when documenting files, but were more distracted by home life overall, meaning they would focus on a file. Get it processed and then oh social media post better check they out. Because they did not have the restrictions/ monitors at home as they did at work it was easier to get distracted for longer.

I thought it was funny. I have phoned various agencies who have WFH over the past few year and my dealings often have a person answering their phone at the dinner table, or hear a baby crying in the back ground. I cant imagine the focus is 100% on the job for the majority.

WFH has been a disaster for business productivity... public sector tends to get away with it because of fuzzier accountabilities...

Hybrid Still Isn’t Working​

Evidence suggests that it’s hurting collaboration, exacerbating social isolation, and weakening culture. Here’s how to fix it. by Peter Cappelli and Ranya Nehmeh

A growing body of evidence shows that hybrid or remote work arrangements lead to lower overall performance. Many firms, however, don’t have the option to bring employees back on-site, for a variety of reasons: They no longer have sufficient office space to house everyone, their employees are now dispersed geographically, or they fear a rebellion by hard-to-replace talent. But few leaders in those situations have faced this reality: You can’t effectively manage remote and hybrid workers using the same methods you did when employees were still all together in the office. Re-creating the cooperation and collaboration that happens in the office in a virtual context requires new rules and procedures for how people are managed day-to-day—as well as mandates that reel in some current practices.

Hybrid Still Isn’t Working

A growing body of evidence shows that hybrid or remote work arrangements lead to lower overall performance. Many firms, however, don’t have the option to bring employees back on-site, for a variety of reasons: They no longer have sufficient office space to house everyone, their employees are now...

hbr.org

 

[Colin Parkinson]

The big benefit here in Vancouver is a lot of people avoid the 1.5hr commute both ways to work, which is a major factor in them wanting to hang onto WFH.

 

[Furniture]

If asked could you provide the stats to support your position?
I have a few friends who they and their co-workers were asked for their WFH and In office stats. It was an interesting discussion overall about the top performers and everyone else. Their employers compared their employee data with the data base. It proved interesting actually shocked a few people.
The change of work production was not linear, nor predictable for most who WFH. The companies/ organizations wished they had monitored pre covid performance more closely. The stats they had were overall office performance and not individual.
The result was they found WFH overall production went down but quality/ accuracy went up. If that makes any sense. They found their workers were more detailed and focused when documenting files, but were more distracted by home life overall, meaning they would focus on a file. Get it processed and then oh social media post better check they out. Because they did not have the restrictions/ monitors at home as they did at work it was easier to get distracted for longer.

I thought it was funny. I have phoned various agencies who have WFH over the past few year and my dealings often have a person answering their phone at the dinner table, or hear a baby crying in the back ground. I cant imagine the focus is 100% on the job for the majority.

We didn't track stats at the office, but writing reports and planning travel is far easier without random people stopping by to ask dumb questions.

My concern is more with the lack of physical work space available, as many governments let go of spaces because of the hybrid work model. Have 100% of th3bstaff in the office isn't efficient if only 80% have a space to work.

 

[Eaglelord17]

We didn't track stats at the office, but writing reports and planning travel is far easier without random people stopping by to ask dumb questions.

My concern is more with the lack of physical work space available, as many governments let go of spaces because of the hybrid work model. Have 100% of th3bstaff in the office isn't efficient if only 80% have a space to work.

Those random people stopping by to ask dumb questions might reduce your productivity however it likely increases their productivity.

Where I work I usually get asked for help at least once a shift if not more. I could easily just tell them to figure it out and work on my own work (many in the shop do). That being said I would rather help people succeed and ultimately make things better overall as that 5-10 minutes I spend helping them often can result in hours of time saved on jobs whereas that 5-10 min on my job wouldn’t make much of a difference in the amount of work done. Plus if I need assistance at some point in the future people are much more likely to provide it as well.

I suspect WFH is great for the top performers but causes the 85% below to fall off. Between difficulty getting assistance, people who actively don’t care about working in the first place, etc. plus if they are a new hire it is very different than if someone was trained already then switched. Harder to learn when your teachers aren’t actively there.

 

[RangerRay]

Return to office won’t work well if there is not enough or inappropriate work space to return to.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Return to office won’t work well if there is not enough or inappropriate work space to return to.

I've been impressed at some of the modern work share space developed by the BC Government over the past few years. Super flexible. Alot of other organizations are doing the same.

But if you insist on a 'permanent until you retire' window office, with space to keep your potted plants and 20 x family photos, you might be disappointed

Capital Park Share Space

Environmental Graphics

www.cygnus.group