Civil Service - Post Lockdown - Blended Working?

Also, the line manager or A/Sec would designate the days of course. For example Wednesdays are busy for sectional meetings in my field so obvs that day in office.

Im not proposing total anarchy xD

but currently they say go in any day - I went in and met no one. Waste of time. Should do anchor days. A sheep dog would be better at organising this!

That's very interesting, thanks for the replies on the contracts.

This certainly differs from my perspective where I don't have a place of work in my contract only a general headquarters with no term stating that the headquarters is my place of work.

Perhaps an oversight. Very interesting indeed.

DPER would just say no

They were right to make the decision themselves. Why should they wait to move and ask their employer if it is okay?

Many of my friends have also done this. Especially those who were paying massive rents and could see what type of house the could buy compared to a box terrace in Dublin. Two years is a long time and none of us can say for certain that covid is over, especially come winters.

They will try all they can to get near full wfh or one day a week in Dublin. If they don't they will move on. One has already moved on. They left on good terms as both couldn't offer what was needed.

It is an employee's market.

Had my first day back in the office for a couple of months this week, and I think my team will be joining me next week. Some thoughts and reflections:

• No effort has been made to reconfigure the office layout in any way, and no plans are in place to do so. That's a shame as we were packed in like sardines before, the place badly needed a spruce up, and we've missed an opportunity to rejig it. We got some hand sanitiser and wipes to protect us though!
• I know my productivity dipped in the office and I had to get a shove on when I got home to get a few jobs out the door. Some of it was people popping their head in the door for a chat, and some of that will calm down in a while, but straight away I can see that we (my team) will need to give some thought to how we use our time both in the office and at home strategically. Some jobs are done much better at home, others can be done better in the office.
• Was on an Inter-Departmental call involving senior staff in about 4-5 organisations, it struck me that all of the staff from my Department were the only ones in the office. Funnily enough I actually lost functionality by going into the office as I couldn't use my video.
• We'll have to figure out how to support participation in video meetings in an open plan office setting. It's difficult to concentrate and contribute when you have a lot of people milling about around you. We have a huge shortage of meeting rooms and breakout space and that's a new way of working that the organisation will need to have a think about.
• A lot of late work and communication at all hours of the night crept in during work from home, some of which was helpful and kept things moving and some of which wasn't (e.g. emails in the early hours of the morning). I think it's going to be a culture shock for some people when work actually finishes at a certain time in the evening when you leave the office and go home.

Video calls are absolutely fantastic for us because we end up on a lot of inter-Departmental groups. Internally we also have staff dotted around different buildings too. Meetings run so much more efficiently online, they're easier for people to attend and it saves and awful lot of shuffling around between different buildings around town. So even when we're back in the office more frequently we'll still be doing them.

I know. My back is gone. Been working on a low desk for two years now. I should have bought a standing desk if I knew it would be so long. Knowing my luck I ll buy it now and be told to go into the office 5 days. xD

They haven’t given one thought about all this. Valid issues.

some departments will be WFH throughout March while we have been told to go in. Open office space will impact meeting quality and quality of the work of colleagues within earshot.

To the person who was complaining about the waiting times while on call with the public service above.

the Central Bank has released a report today outlining “excessive” waiting times of 2 hours or more and a high abandonment rate of calls across all of the five main retail banks in Ireland.

on their salary and expenses best get a job there. Nobody complains about banks eventhough they need our money!

Yeah I'd definitely be an advocate for that, can go for a walks at lunchtime if you want! Glad to be getting the most out of my time and getting through more work.

I've also seen certain regional based teams coming up regularly for maybe one meeting and then going home again on the train when they could have easily been dialling in, or scheduling more into their day when they were up in HQ. You'd have to wonder about the motivations there.

Just a thought. If the CS went fully remote, what would happen if there was a strike? A strike works because there is a picket line that workers wouldn't cross or don't want to be seen crossing by other colleagues. If people are working from home, they could say they were on strike and just work away.