Civil service 60% mandate

[meagert]

What have your managers said to you? Do you think your department/SCS/line manager will be strict on this? Or do you think it'll be like the last time they tried a departmental push where it was a bit ad hoc?!

Possibly too soon to tell, our SCS haven't said very much yet and will "be in touch soon".

I think they will enforce it, until we run out of space in the building and they have to ease off a bit.
And I just don't want to do it - don't want to sort the childcare and waste all that time on the commute, I think this might be the push I need to look for something else more local.

I think of all the things the CS needs to focus on at the moment this is not the priority! I wish they’d realise you cant turn the clock back and WFH is here to stay. However, they’d have more success if they had better quality of buildings, more desks etc.

I'm massively kicking myself for not going for a civil service role that was 20 miles away last month, I started the application spurred on by the rumours but manager tried to reassure me we would figure something out. I didn't apply, mandate has come in, and now I'm thinking shit why didn't I apply 😩😩😩😩 (not that I necessarily would have got it of course but I'll never know now).

Our managers have had a meeting today at SCS1 level, they’re saying continue with 1 day a week til Christmas but enforce it strictly, then 2 days a week after Christmas.

Same 'update in due course'.

My team are spread across the UK so it makes FA difference whether I'm in the office or home.

At least my base is the HO of my service so it feels kind of relevant to be there. Others are in random tiny offices all over the place.

That said there are only 350 desk spaces in HO so someone's going to have to sort out a timetable to make sure everyone can achieve the 60%

Meh.

@Changeforachange not sure if it was our department or part of the wider message but we had some FAQs that sought to answer "why" and how it was still beneficial if your team is dispersed...you can still "share ideas" apparently...yeah...not very convincing put it that way!

I take it this is UK Government departments you are referring to? I work for a devolved administration and this is definitely not applicable where I work.

The email came during an all staff call and the managers seemed as unhappy as the rest of us. We don't have enough desks for the current 40% but most people try and come in, and we borrow desks from various other teams. If those teams have to come in now there's no chance we could reliably have desks 60% of the week.

I'm trying to keep thinking this way because I'm disabled and the thought of 60% in the office is quite worrying. I also genuinely can't imagine my current manager will understand that based on previous conversations we've had about how difficult I find coming in the office.

We started on 3 days in the office, then reduced to 2 days as the team grew...and the team is still growing so I dont see how we have the space for everyone to go back to 3 days!. I read a report that said it will be department dependent as alot of depts have reduce their office space.

Not a chance, ours has massively decreased the desk availability, going so far as leasing space to other depts.
Result, there's physically not enough desks for half the organisation.

I did laugh hard when I read the email.

Not enough space for everyone; even worse zero meeting rooms or breakout space so hybrid is already a nightmare. If people have a full day of teams (and we work across a lot of geography so it's inevitable) they usually work at home.

Director doesn't want to monitor it either so I suspect the actual implementation will be ... patchy. Everyone in our unit is in enough, director is happy with productivity. If you're really worried you could do a flexible working application though to get current pattern pinned down.

We have been told that it is under discussion but our team have had to submit hybrid working returns for a while and so many people aren't making their 40%.
My team are really unhappy about it. I manage 5 people and we are all in different offices. We don't benefit at all from being in the office other than it being a change in scenery.
I think they will really struggle to get compliance.

whole building desk space 1000, number of staff 2200. Our dept has 150 staff and 35 desks. That’s not mentioning our parking issue 😂

We've been told it's happening in Spring 2024. I have no idea how it's going to work as we have 21 desks for 72 staff, and struggle with desk space even doing our current 40%. I'm fucking raging about it. I go into the office and spend of my time on bloody Teams calls!
This is all to pander to the right wing Tory gutter press, yes (Daily Fail and The Telegraph I'm talking to you) who do nothing but publish utter shite about how lazy and entitled civil servants are. Sick of being made a scapegoat for the failings of this utterly useless and fucking clueless government.
Most of us burst our arses every day for the people of this country, for barely more than minimum wage. A bit of flexibility on where we work was the only fucking perk that made it halfway worthwhile. So now they've taken that away, I will now be looking for another job and I'm sure I won't be the only one.
So fuck the Tories and all their supporters and their fucking trash rags 🖕

Hopefully by the time we get to any sort of enforcement we'll be close to general election 🤣

We don't have enough desks either!

I hope they use it to get the people who haven't been seen for months in & leave those of us in 2 days per week & when we need to be in alone!

As someone said earlier you can't turn the clock back!

Yep our dept are serious about it startng in the new year, all staff briefing issued today. It'll work for colleagues in Westminster and other central offices but utterly pointless for many of us in small offices around the country. There is not 1 person in my office that has anything to do with my work, I like seeing them, catching up etc but there is zero business benefit and a 40 min commute.

Not civil service here but another government funded octopus, and I could weep at how much progress was made for those of us with chronic health conditions in respect to remote working in the last couple of years and now these stupid presenteeism nonsensical (mostly male) twats come along and say everyone has to be back on site a certain percentage of the time. I loathe being on site and can get three times the amount of work done in a day at home compared to being on site.

Doc has had me measuring my blood pressure for a week following one of those health Mots we dinosaurs get after a certain age and the days I'm on site it has been noticeably higher. I'd been considering applying for civil service jobs but if the mandate is coming in there's no point wasting my energy.

(Though to be fair I've not managed to even get to interview stage the last couple despite the jobs being pretty much exactly what I did 20 years ago. I now have 20 years more experience and even used the Star technique but evidently Reed (the ones handling the recruitment for this particular dept) don't think I'm interviewable.... it's almost as if the civil service doesn't want to recruit/retain good staff any more, or am I missing something?)

I could weep at how much progress was made for those of us with chronic health conditions in respect to remote working in the last couple of years

Me too. I'm going to have to try and get some reasonable adjustments in place on a team where the managers hate adjustments.

Mandate what sorry?

Does this include local authorities?

@stillholly local authorities aren't civil service.

Yes, I am SG and we've specifically been told that this doesn't apply to us.

I was thinking of applying for a CS job but glad I didn't bother now as I wouldn't have accepted it. I do 1 day a week in the office and sometimes 2 and that's as much as i ever want to do.

I’m thinking I will either drop my hours in order to leave in time for after school pickup or add an extra day of wrap
-around but still leave at normal time and spend the hours I could be with my kids on a train for no purpose. Either way my costs go up and my wages go down for no benefit to my employer.

I’m an accountant who deals with HMRC. They are frustratingly inefficient ….but it has naff all to do with staff working from home and everything to do with inadequate funding and poor quality IT. I’m not sure what problem this directive is supposed to solve tbh.

What it will do is create a cottage industry within HMRC of excel spreadsheet creators and reviewers. These people would be more useful dealing with taxpayers’ refunds, some of which have been held up for months.

I'm going to take the Jack and Rose Titanic approach, run around the ship until the very last rail falls in, in the hope something will happen to stop it sinking...but also keep an eye on other jobs. Between having a very strong case for flexible working, and the potential to explore 'implied terms' I'm trying not to panic yet.