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Federal Government & Union spar over returning to office

I’ve been lamenting that for some time. I had an HR Recruiting plan that included outside and remote talent that has been scuttled when we saw the way the winds were blowing…
In that brief period where we thought we had lattitude to hire some people to work remote we filled two long term empty positions in a few weeks (plus HR processing time). If those folks end up getting screwed we will be back to having some key LCMM positions for niche life safety equipment empty (but likely paying 2x SWE for each position to try and get a subcontractor to cover some of the job SME, working remotely).

I don't get it, it's stupid and self defeating. Especially given the huge shortage in people we already have, and the diminishing experience generally.

Coming into the office to sit on teams calls because you can't get money to travel to collaborate with the people you actually work with is soul crushing, and hugely inefficient a lot of times, especially if you are trying to figure out what is going on with infrastructure or something location specific.
 
Coming into the office to sit on teams calls
Yeah, this is one of the weirdest things I see people doing all the time. Everybody needs to be in the office with a terrible internet connection, so they can sit on Teams calls with people also sitting in an office with a terrible connection. Half of our meetings are people dropping and rejoining constantly.

The best part is, the people you're on a call with might just be down the road, but we cancelled the NCR shuttle so meeting in person isn't even an option anymore.

Rather than giving teams the freedom to choose what works best for them, the government did what governments do, and came up with a blanket solution so they can be seen to be doing something.
 
If the majority are using Teams to communicate and the boss wants them in the office, the internet sucks that it can not keep up. Go into work let it fail then say told you so and then people will get to work from home or they will fix the shuttle issue, internet issue.

Work it until it fails. If it is out of your hands then so be it.
I would be curious what the average amount of time a person actually spends working from home compared to working from the office. There is lots of evidence from both sides justifying their position. But how accurate is the data.
What I can say is the Federal Government has hired close to 80,000 more people since 2019 and I have seen a lower level of service from places like CRA, RCMP Admin.
It would also be interesting to see where the 80,000 workers were hired to along with how many contractors they have hired.
 
Government business is booming...

Federal government hired more than 10,000 new public servants last year to reach record high​

OTTAWA — The federal government added more than 10,000 employees to the federal public service last year, swelling Ottawa’s bureaucracy to record levels.

Numbers posted online by the Treasury Board of Canada puts the current population of the federal public service at 367,772 employees — a 10,525 increase from last year.

That’s down from the 21,290 new employees added to the public service ranks in fiscal year 2022-23, and 16,356 from the year previous.

The size of Canada’s public service has ballooned by 42 per cent since the 2015 election of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, while Canada’s population increased by around 14 per cent.

In a report from earlier this year on the federal government’s third supplementary estimates of the 2023-24 fiscal year, Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux pointed out that personnel spending within the federal government was steadily increasing, reaching a record high $67.4 billion in 2022-23.

Personnel spending rose steadily since the 2016-17 fiscal year, when payroll costs amounted to $40.2 billion.

That’s a 68 per cent increase in payroll spending since the Trudeau Liberals came to power in 2015.

Fuss also recommended the government examine compensation as well, pointing to institute reports highlighting the public/private sector wage gap.

Government workers typically earn 8.5 per cent more than their private-sector counterparts, retire 2.4 years earlier, experience five times less job loss, and are nearly nine times more likely to retire with a guaranteed pension, according to the report.

 
Government workers typically earn 8.5 per cent more than their private-sector counterparts, retire 2.4 years earlier, experience five times less job loss, and are nearly nine times more likely to retire with a guaranteed pension, according to the report.
Why is the assumption always that public servants are over compensated and not that private sector exploits its workers with below poverty wages, employment volatility, and anything else it can get away with not paying? It’s not impossible that it is a little from column A and a little from column B.

I would hope workers from one sector are not looking across at another and reflexively demanding reduction of the other groups benefits to achieve parity instead of exploring an amelioration of their own benefits… but that is human behaviour.

Put a bunch of kids in a room and give one of them a cookie. The other kids will also want a cookie when they see the first one handed out. Some of those kids might think to ask for their own cookie. But it is a sure thing there will be one loud and jealous individual who declares the situation unfair and instead of asking for a cookie (what they really want) they will present the argument that the first child should be stripped of their cookie.
 
Why is the assumption always that public servants are over compensated and not that private sector exploits its workers with below poverty wages, employment volatility, and anything else it can get away with not paying? It’s not impossible that it is a little from column A and a little from column B.

I would hope workers from one sector are not looking across at another and reflexively demanding reduction of the other groups benefits to achieve parity instead of exploring an amelioration of their own benefits… but that is human behaviour.

Put a bunch of kids in a room and give one of them a cookie. The other kids will also want a cookie when they see the first one handed out. Some of those kids might think to ask for their own cookie. But it is a sure thing there will be one loud and jealous individual who declares the situation unfair and instead of asking for a cookie (what they really want) they will present the argument that the first child should be stripped of their cookie.
Reminds me of an old Russian story ... almost every day Ivan Ivanovich went into his church, knelt and prayed briefly:

"Holy Father," he muttered, "how is it fair that I have only one skinny cow and my neighbour, Pyotr, has three healthy ones?​
Please kill two of his cows."​
 
Reminds me of an old Russian story ... almost every day Ivan Ivanovich went into his church, knelt and prayed briefly:

"Holy Father," he muttered, "how is it fair that I have only one skinny cow and my neighbour, Pyotr, has three healthy ones?​
Please kill two of his cows."​
LOl - that reminds me of the old Russian folkstory of a Russian Peasant who was out fishing one day and caught a huge pike. Just before the Peasant was going to club the pike, the pike called out to him in Russian - 'Don't kill me! I'm a magic Pike and I can grant you 1 wish!'. So the Peasant stops and says to the Pike, 'You'll grant me 1 wish and I can wish for whatever I want and you'll give it to me?' Yes, says the Pike, I'll give you whatever you ask for - but - whatever you ask for, I'll give your worst enemy DOUBLE whatever you wish for! So, the Peasant starts thinking and thinking and finally he says to the Pike, "Ok, I'm ready, I've decided on my 1 wish.' Perfect says the Pike, tell me what your 1 wish is and I'll grant it! The Peasant says, 'Poke out one of my eyes!'
 
Why is the assumption always that public servants are over compensated and not that private sector exploits its workers with below poverty wages, employment volatility, and anything else it can get away with not paying? It’s not impossible that it is a little from column A and a little from column B.

I would hope workers from one sector are not looking across at another and reflexively demanding reduction of the other groups benefits to achieve parity instead of exploring an amelioration of their own benefits… but that is human behaviour.

Put a bunch of kids in a room and give one of them a cookie. The other kids will also want a cookie when they see the first one handed out. Some of those kids might think to ask for their own cookie. But it is a sure thing there will be one loud and jealous individual who declares the situation unfair and instead of asking for a cookie (what they really want) they will present the argument that the first child should be stripped of their cookie.
Maybe because a private sector company can go out of business (and all the jobs it generates lost) if the company fails to earn a profit while the government can simply go deeper into debt to cover its employment expenses?
 
You're on mute.

Please turn off your camera if you're not speaking.

Try the mute button on your headset, not in Teams.

Someone has a hot mic, please mute yourself.
I did some remote work during the early days of COVID and very little since. I used a photo of my workplace/workspace as my Teams background. That really messes with people.
 
Just a few things I experienced at PHAC on Colonnade last year:

Office Space/Seating:

Loads (and I mean about 100) of empty cubicles but management crammed 3 – 4 sections/functional groups of people into a space that held about 30 cubicles. Too many people, not enough work stations in that small area. When we asked about using or reallocating the 100 or so empty cubicles, we were told that they belonged to another PHAC group. However, no one ever saw those groups, nor were those cubicles ever used during the year. In fact someone once told me that the majority of those empty cubicles belonged to a group that was stood up during covid to handle screening. Now, 2023, the contracts for those people had long expired and they no longer worked for PHAC. The workstations sat empty.

Individual cubicles were not to be assigned to any one person. You would need to pre-book a spot on a booking platform. The platform was often down so you couldn’t book.

Some people would book a cubicle out for 6 months or more but rarely ever show up to use the cubicle so it would sit empty but would register as booked online. You couldn't sit there as they "might" show up for work.

Blocks of cubicles were not assigned to a specific section but rather split among multiple sections. Example.. Mon and Thurs Sect A had the cubicle while Sect B had the same cubicle on Tues and Fri. Sect C had it Wednesday. You had to know the schedule of the different sections and where they would sit on any given day to avoid conflict.

Any conflict over a cubicle between two staff members had to be sorted out by those two staff members. Management refused to intervene.

Because different people used the workspace throughout the week, when you arrived in the morning you needed to change settings on chair posture, desk height, screen locations, etc every time you worked. Sometimes you would come in and find the chair was swapped out because someone in another cubicle liked your chair better, and the one left in its place was falling apart. But then it wasn’t really your chair so they felt they could get away with it, and you had no recourse. Or that the monitor was gone, the mouse missing, etc. These are petty issues, but when you are confronted with it regularly, it can be demoralizing, even triggering for some.

People started to have increased anxiety on the way to work, wondering if they would have a space to work, what the conditions would be, and if there would be a conflict. Ironic, given that the agency is all about health..

Sometimes, you would come in knowing you didn’t have a cubicle for the day because the booking platform was down, or all of your sections cubicles were booked. So you would then wander around trying to find an unused cubicle, find one, set yourself up, log on, sip your coffee, then someone would come along and tell you that the cubicle was used normally by so-and-so and you had to move. You move to avoid conflict and then observe the cubicle and so-and-so never shows up that day. Other times you wander looking for a cubicle, then just go home in frustration.

Every time we raised these and other workspace-related issues to the manager or director we would be told that they were working on it and it would be fixed next month. Next month never arrived over a 12 month period. I still don’t think they ever reallocated space.

Working Hours:

Told to come into the office twice a week but you could pick your two days. There were 8 people in the team, rarely were team members in on the same days. Some days you could be the only person from your team in the office. Mondays were always quiet.

One team member lived 3 provinces away so only ever attended meetings through Teams. If there were no meetings that day or week that included him, no one ever saw him or interacted with him. Not sure how he could ever feel included or part of the team.

Sometimes you would have a Teams meeting and some of the attendees are on the other side of the cubicle wall or in the same cubicle space as you (Cubes were set up for two people to work). So even if the majority of attendees were in the office, we never got together and used a conference room with video capability for the online personnel, we always used Teams from our workspaces. For fun I would stick my head up over the cubicle wall and appear in the background of my colleague who was also in the meeting. So, there was never any team cohesion or esprit de corps. Morale was meh.

When I worked from home, once I was chastised because sometimes my online presence was not indicated. I said that on occasion I print out and read material I am working on. I was told that I needed to find a way to indicate online I was working even if I was reading printed material. So essentially if you are working a 7.5 hr day at home you must show that you are online all the time, while if you are in the office you can leave your desk for any number of reasons and you don’t need to indicate that you are online or even at your desk.

We even had some staff that had sold their houses mid pandemic, moved away from Ottawa, bought a new house somewhere cheaper on a lake or some place nice, worked from home, and when told that we were returning to the office, then applied for an exemption to working in the office because it was too far to commute to work.

Anyways, just thought I would share.
 
Just a few things I experienced at PHAC on Colonnade last year:

Office Space/Seating:

Loads (and I mean about 100) of empty cubicles but management crammed 3 – 4 sections/functional groups of people into a space that held about 30 cubicles. Too many people, not enough work stations in that small area. When we asked about using or reallocating the 100 or so empty cubicles, we were told that they belonged to another PHAC group. However, no one ever saw those groups, nor were those cubicles ever used during the year. In fact someone once told me that the majority of those empty cubicles belonged to a group that was stood up during covid to handle screening. Now, 2023, the contracts for those people had long expired and they no longer worked for PHAC. The workstations sat empty.

Individual cubicles were not to be assigned to any one person. You would need to pre-book a spot on a booking platform. The platform was often down so you couldn’t book.

Some people would book a cubicle out for 6 months or more but rarely ever show up to use the cubicle so it would sit empty but would register as booked online. You couldn't sit there as they "might" show up for work.

Blocks of cubicles were not assigned to a specific section but rather split among multiple sections. Example.. Mon and Thurs Sect A had the cubicle while Sect B had the same cubicle on Tues and Fri. Sect C had it Wednesday. You had to know the schedule of the different sections and where they would sit on any given day to avoid conflict.

Any conflict over a cubicle between two staff members had to be sorted out by those two staff members. Management refused to intervene.

Because different people used the workspace throughout the week, when you arrived in the morning you needed to change settings on chair posture, desk height, screen locations, etc every time you worked. Sometimes you would come in and find the chair was swapped out because someone in another cubicle liked your chair better, and the one left in its place was falling apart. But then it wasn’t really your chair so they felt they could get away with it, and you had no recourse. Or that the monitor was gone, the mouse missing, etc. These are petty issues, but when you are confronted with it regularly, it can be demoralizing, even triggering for some.

People started to have increased anxiety on the way to work, wondering if they would have a space to work, what the conditions would be, and if there would be a conflict. Ironic, given that the agency is all about health..

Sometimes, you would come in knowing you didn’t have a cubicle for the day because the booking platform was down, or all of your sections cubicles were booked. So you would then wander around trying to find an unused cubicle, find one, set yourself up, log on, sip your coffee, then someone would come along and tell you that the cubicle was used normally by so-and-so and you had to move. You move to avoid conflict and then observe the cubicle and so-and-so never shows up that day. Other times you wander looking for a cubicle, then just go home in frustration.

Every time we raised these and other workspace-related issues to the manager or director we would be told that they were working on it and it would be fixed next month. Next month never arrived over a 12 month period. I still don’t think they ever reallocated space.

Working Hours:

Told to come into the office twice a week but you could pick your two days. There were 8 people in the team, rarely were team members in on the same days. Some days you could be the only person from your team in the office. Mondays were always quiet.

One team member lived 3 provinces away so only ever attended meetings through Teams. If there were no meetings that day or week that included him, no one ever saw him or interacted with him. Not sure how he could ever feel included or part of the team.

Sometimes you would have a Teams meeting and some of the attendees are on the other side of the cubicle wall or in the same cubicle space as you (Cubes were set up for two people to work). So even if the majority of attendees were in the office, we never got together and used a conference room with video capability for the online personnel, we always used Teams from our workspaces. For fun I would stick my head up over the cubicle wall and appear in the background of my colleague who was also in the meeting. So, there was never any team cohesion or esprit de corps. Morale was meh.

When I worked from home, once I was chastised because sometimes my online presence was not indicated. I said that on occasion I print out and read material I am working on. I was told that I needed to find a way to indicate online I was working even if I was reading printed material. So essentially if you are working a 7.5 hr day at home you must show that you are online all the time, while if you are in the office you can leave your desk for any number of reasons and you don’t need to indicate that you are online or even at your desk.

We even had some staff that had sold their houses mid pandemic, moved away from Ottawa, bought a new house somewhere cheaper on a lake or some place nice, worked from home, and when told that we were returning to the office, then applied for an exemption to working in the office because it was too far to commute to work.

Anyways, just thought I would share.
My wife left PHAC before the pandemic. It was a toxic workplace then and it seems to not have changed.
 
Meanwhile, CEO goes viral with the truth ....

View attachment 87884
There are two ways to interpret that sign given the lack of context.

1. I hired you to work, get to the office on time.

2. I don't care where you are right now, I trust you to get the work done.

Not really an argument for or against WFH/hybrid work.
 
My wife left PHAC before the pandemic. It was a toxic workplace then and it seems to not have changed.
Question did she find a better job, equal job, lesser job or unemployed?
If she found another job were the pay and benefits comparable?
 
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