Civil Service - Post Lockdown - Blended Working?

We have a housing crisis and failing environmental targets especially with regard to transport.

And we are slowly returning to the office.

I'm not sure logic comes into it.

We have a few staff members who routinely connect from UK IP addresses, whether that means they're NI border commuters it's not possible for me to tell (and none of my bloody business anyway). As long as I'm satisfied it's actual employees connecting from a device approved by us I couldn't give a fiddler's where they are, but I'm not HR.

Oh, I always wondered where my salary came from. Thanks!

No idea why you are bringing grade level into it. Letting rip at colleagues and then giving his manager a earful the next time he can "corner" is far beyond voicing an opinion. Its worrying that you even need that explained.

Welcome to the world of work, where staff very rarely get to make organisational decisions into things that effects them. And there's also nothing the Union can do about it either.

The reality is that it is up to the maamagement board in the each Department to make the decision on what the blended working policy will be.

It could well be the case that the performance of the unit, and the staff in the unit, had drastically dropped when wfh and they simply can't be trusted to do a good enough job unless supervised in person.

Probably just a keyboard warrior, and in reality he just sat there as meek as a lamb 🤣

I know the blended working policy in my last place wasn't popular (and I didn't like it either, but it's came from A. Sec. level) and I've overheard rants from staff about it, but when given the opportunity nobody "let rip" at either myself or my APs.....quite the opposite in fact, most said they'll just have to get on with it, it's better than fulltime in the office!

(And I've just transferred departments where there's nothing official in place, and no sign of a policy any time soon, but the work is done well with everybody pretty happy as they have a choice of anywhere between 1 to 5 days in the office!)

Your places sound very submissive and meek. People in our place are not so shy about disputes and letting people know they won't be walked over.

They tried to get rid of loads of things in our place and eventually had to back down. Though a combination of staff pressure and union involvement.

Coming from the private sector its interesting to watch the bureaucracy and politics at work.

I'm not sure you understand the point of metrics and stats. Or bias in this situation.

But let's go with your idea (much more scientific) and assume his unit is the dirty dozen of the CS.

Lol

I said metrics in general. Not metrics on civic service. Metrics on productivity are not popular in CS or PS.

We've actually had IT projects killed or hobbled when it was realized they were capturing analytics on such things. Either by union or management.

Exactly. Metrics on productivity are not popular in the CS - this speaks volumes. If people want to work remotely they need to embrace transparent, fair metrics on productivity. You can't have one without the other. If remote working allows the introduction of productivity metrics I would be all for it and it would be a fantastic development. As long as Civil Servants continue to refuse to discuss or measure their output in any way, it leaves lots of opportunity for taking advantage or "ducking and diving" as another poster admitted to.

Our KPIs are usually very vague and as you say administrative. Because they are often tick box exercises in reality.

If you are working with Contractors or vendors where everything is cost driven the difference is stark.

We do generate lots of stats for data analytics. But they tend to be outward facing. Not internal.

I've a lad going home for 6 weeks, two weeks of that working. Great lad and trust him.

Home is a few thousand miles away.

Hr policy allows this and I imagine its are cool (good lads but sometimes say "computer says no").

I couldn't care about flexi time. Cool boss of mine, so our thoughts are what goes around comes around. If you need to feck off at 15:00 for something, grand. Don't be telling me you'll start early or have a short lunch. You worked until 19:00 last Thursday!

This type of strict stuff is counter productive. Just be like the fonz!

I said I'm not in the CS not that I don't work in or with the CS (and PS). I work with both a lot for years. Well used to the mindset and work practices.