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When it comes to figuring out the way forward, we’re pretty much at showtime. In September, departments started mandating RTW options, “forcing” people into the office as it is pitched by employees and unions.

Some people want to argue whether the government as the employer has the right to make the decision unilaterally. Others want to argue that the employer has consulted with employees on the best way forward and many have said RTW is a good thing that offers benefits that WFH don’t. They did pilots, and the people have spoken! Others want to argue that it isn’t safe and there’s a giant occupational health and safety issue with people being back in offices together.

I don’t have much interest in any of those topics, to be honest. Primarily, I don’t care because there’s nothing really to “debate” in any of it.

Labour law is 100% on the side of government about who chooses whether a job is done at home, at work or in the office. There is virtually no case law, legislative framework, collective agreement support or anything else anywhere on the planet that says a employer has to make the decision with its workers or with unions.… Read the rest

When I started this series of posts two weeks ago, it was with the intent simply to share some views on what’s going on for preparations around Return to Work options in the federal government. I’d been seeing a bunch of stuff online where people were saying, “Hey management is a bunch of idiots, everything is working fine, blah blah blah”, and while that may be an employee/bottom-up view, it is NOT what management is seeing looking “down”.

While people in the past might have complained about stuff if they were actually AT work to colleagues, etc., the growth of Reddit fora and FaceBook groups, Twitter, and other social media for people working from home has sparked a surge in people expressing their views online about anything and everything. Some of that is good, and some of that just creates self-bias mini-groups where people hear the same thing coming back at them and assume that means it’s now a fact. And like the echo chambers that some of these groups become, people are frequently posting what they saw as fact (everything is working) yet is really more about their own desires (no need to go back to the office).

And so I started blogging, thinking maybe I’d do 2-3 posts, with a goal to let people know, “Actually, management isn’t all idiots, they’re seeing some real problems”.… Read the rest

So let’s recap my series so far and reorder the elements a bit. Hardly revolutionary, but decisions about RTW will be taken in a larger context:

• Pre-pandemic “norms” that assumed everyone was working “in the office” but that even face-to-face interactions were not enough, transactions and communications were not enough, you still needed intentional effort to make proper connections;
• Early pandemic transitioning to WFH and rolling out of all the cyber tools we take for granted now, while managers have been left to mostly “muddle through” too;
• Throughout the pandemic, public servants have been working with their paycheques intact, and relatively speaking, being spared much of the extreme personal economic, social and financial disruption that every other sector has experienced in the last 2+ years; and,
• Executives looking at the emerging-from-pandemic world and seeing not only that things are not all working perfectly, even if many employees don’t see the cracks, but also that there are huge risks looming on the horizon.

What are they hearing

Senior management is making decisions based on their own inclinations as experienced managers, as well as the input they get from three large sources. First, the Centre has gone out of its way not to be too prescriptive.… Read the rest