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".

If you were hired "remotely".not sure what that means? Do you mean recruited on the basis of remote working, and if so then you should have a contract to state that?

The poster says she's been promoted twice since so could be her first job was contractually remote but subsequent roles potentially not with informal home working as has been the norm the last few years (we don't really have promotions in the CS, each role would generate a new contract).

The issue is this broad brush mandate, every role, team and person are different. Thankfully my 'chain of command' are being practical and it's looking like my flexible working case will be approved, but I will be much more open minded to wider opportunities next time I'm looking for a new role, whereas I couldn't imagine leaving the CS a few years ago.

I live a long way away from the office but they advertised the role as ‘anywhere in the uk’. Been employed for 4 years. Our contracts don’t stipulate home working as most of us who live far away were told it’s smarter working policy and discretion of your line manager so not to worry. Obviously they did this so they can catch us out at times like now.

Unfortunately even if you’re a high achiever with excellent employment reviews you don’t get special treatment. There’s a lot of us who were hired from across the U.K. who are being told at least once a week - no special treatment.

Either way I’ll be leaving as the job isn’t worth 6 hours a day commuting. It’s just a shame as it’s a decent role and I felt I was making a difference. But the pay isn’t enough for the travel costs and childcare costs.

I do think this affects women more than men because for all the equality stuff of “we’re the same”, we tend to take more responsibility/emotional burden of childcare. That’s just a fact whenever it’s looked into.

I’ve been promoted in the same role, so I’ve gone up in the grades if you will but haven’t moved discipline or dept.

I’ve been remote the entire time with probably a visit to office once a quarter for social reasons which I despise 2bh. My work doesn’t require the office as it’s mainly working with other people dotted across the U.K and not from my main office.

I’d get it if there was a purpose for me to be in but it’s purely presenteeism without exception. I’m glad you’re LM is being more pragmatic, our door passes are being scanned for attendance data. Nothing sinister about that of course!

@IdleAnimations I've had my base location moved to an office in my nearest city so it's 9.5 miles instead of 130 miles. I still go in about once a month at most and use a hot desking area in the basement. It's hideous, I work alone it's empty and dark, but needs must occasionally for a specific task I'm not permitted to do from home. This isn't even the building of an agency I work for, it's another agency within the same ministry, that's it. Maybe look to see if that's an option?

Thank you for the advice :) I’ve asked this already even though I’d be by myself same as you - but we shall have to see. At the min I’m being told my nearest location is also at capacity but I have my fingers crossed as I’d rather not leave.

You have to wonder if they’re doing this purely to force out some staff so they can say they reached the reduction of 66k civil servants. Seems very poorly planned and thought out considering the lack of space, recruitment and retention issues, pay etc. You’d also expect this would affect their diversity stats as presuming disabled, those from poorer areas who don’t live near regional offices, women with kids etc would most likely be the main departures. Could be wrong but that’s how I see it.

My thoughts are that this is partially about reducing headcount, partially about displaying power over civil servants to appease the daily mail readers in the run up to the election, partly about punishing civil servants who have given evidence/made the Government look stupid over partygate and the covid enquiry and partly because leaving a weakened, less talented civil service for a potential future labour government is the level of pettiness that is typical of the current administration. Hope some grown ups come along soon to take charge.

@SoddingWeddings

It may depend upon your department, but when the political announcement / leak of the 60% in office mandate was released the same content was / should have been accompanied by additional manager & employee guidance.

This ought to have detailed:
60% in office …..
face to face with colleagues ….
dependant on capacity …..

and allowed for specific circumstances, which include all departmental flexible working arrangements and home worker status

Government hubs are a measure introduced prior to COVID as part of a combination of disposing of government buildings (reducing capacity and encouraging hybrid working as government policy) and enabling flexibility of the workforce rather than regional dependency

Depending on the fine specifics of your recruitment contract terms when recruited under home working (such as how explicit it was as a term of recruitment vs the current situation and / or that line management were content at the time based on policies at the time). Changing role into other jobs could change the contract terms depending on how those were advertised
There can be a valid case for flexibility based on circumstances there

Use of a government hub does enable it to be more appropriate than excessive travel to your departments location, but unless you have colleagues there your presence in a different location that has capacity issues dos not meet “60% in office face to face with colleagues”

If there isn’t reasonable support for flexibility based on circumstances then there is scope for a formal grievance - and referring to the union is recommended

@tommika I work a cross region role and our team live from Cornwall to Wales, Birmingham to Reading. We meet up once a month. It's not a job you can do as a team and face to face is pointless when we all have headphones on. It was already a heavily WFH role pre-covid.

My nearest hub building is still several hours drive away and would still contain none of my colleagues. I could technically go and work from a prison, but the staff there could not be privy to my work so I would still have to have headphones and a closed door for all calls which defeats the object. Never mind the logistical PITA of applying for written permission to take in a laptop with a built in camera and a set of headphones every time, I couldn't take my work mobile phone in with me which is another complication.

@*IdleAnimations "I live a long way away from the office but they advertised the role as ‘anywhere in the uk’. Been employed for 4 years. Our contracts don’t stipulate home working as most of us who live far away were told it’s smarter working policy and discretion of your line manager so not to worry. Obviously they did this so they can catch us out at times like now.

Unfortunately even if you’re a high achiever with excellent employment reviews you don’t get special treatment. There’s a lot of us who were hired from across the U.K. who are being told at least once a week - no special treatment.

Either way I’ll be leaving as the job isn’t worth 6 hours a day commuting. It’s just a shame as it’s a decent role and I felt I was making a difference. But the pay isn’t enough for the travel costs and childcare costs.

I do think this affects women more than men because for all the equality stuff of “we’re the same”, we tend to take more responsibility/emotional burden of childcare. That’s just a fact whenever it’s looked into."*

I think frankly given how you were hired, ie advert and also the attendant circumstances I would be looking at submitting a grievance. The policy of working in the office with colleagues for some days I do support (although I'm not CS) but it is ridiculous if coming into an office for accommodation only purposes, sat alone and doing what you do at home. Any person hearing that grievance would see that is not achieving anything. It is very unfair to recruit people on a national basis and usually on a very "office/wfh basis - you chose" and then change the goalposts when it then means you will lose your livelihood

I’ve mistagged you, and it was really intended for @IdleAnimations and their circumstances
(Tagged you from your response to them instead of tagging them)

Your role shows a perfect example of applying the realities and practicalities of the situation and a department / line management that understands that !

Got it in a nutshell!

Nail on head @Decisionfatiguequeen

Lots of cheery talk about how great it will be, from senior managers; no detail yet on what if any flexibility will remain for disabled colleagues, carers, parents but plenty of referencing the need for "fairness" and "consistency", and the "challenges" and "difficult decisions" facing carers which we supposed to be grateful we're being given a few months to "work through" and "find solutions". So I'm not optimistic. I've worked mainly from home since before covid. I can't possibly do 60% in office on my current hours, manage my caring responsibilities, and not break myself and my family. So I will have to cut my hours (pay, pension and availability to internal clients) assuming I'm allowed to do that, or resign if I'm not. I am beyond enraged that I may have to leave a job that I rather enjoy and am apparently quite good at, or squeeze a reduced version of the job into fewer hours and doubtless more unpaid overtime, just to appease some culture warriors who want to rewind years of progress on flexible working.

I also feel quite sorry for our senior managers, who mostly don't believe there's any business need for 60% either, but are having to grit their teeth and roll out this shit anyway, knowing it will make recruitment and retention even harder and push morale lower. When they are being made to come in "more than 60%" themselves (which is really going to help diversity of applicants to the SCS for the future).

@EatenbytheYuleCat

When your current arrangement was agreed, was that part of a formal flexible working application? If so you won't be affected by this

Even if it wasn't, you can still put in a flexible working application and since you have been doing it for many years already, I would be quite surprised if it wasn't approved. In most departments it doesn't affect the stats if someone has an arrangement like that and few SCS are personally committed to this drive.

Having said that if caring responsibilities boils down to "don't want to use wraparound care" or "can't source wraparound care", I think that's less likely to be approved

Caring responsibilities shouldn't make any difference to a flexible working request (it could be because you want to spend more time with your allotment). They do to a carer's passport (but regular childcare doesn't 'count' here either, only disabled children).

I think @EatenbytheYuleCat would have good grounds under 'custom and practice' anyway. Might be an issue if you get London weighting though.

Thanks. I've got a disabled husband and an ND child. Though I am hating this toxic and divisive element of having to justify that your situation is worse than the next person's situation, to merit an exception being made. Also, when we are all being repeatedly told that it's only "fair and consistent" if everyone is in office at least 60% of the time, that puts people whose flexible working applications are granted in a really awkward position.

I have a formal flexible working arrangement from more than a decade ago but my WFH % has increased over the years by informal agreement. I stupidly went along with the department's preferred approach of keeping things informal unless changes affected salary or leave allowance. I will of course apply formally once our department's new guidance comes out but I'm concerned there will be a push to refuse anything that goes outside the 60% mandate. We'll see.

At the end of the day, the problem it's always possible to say that a carer just "doesn't want to" or "can't" source paid for wraparound care to outsource their responsibilities to so they can attend the office more. In reality, if we are doing the caring ourselves, it's because it's the best or sometimes only viable option for our family, but an employer can still characterise it as a choice, and say tough. Same as they're going to be telling parents who just have regular childcare issues (mothers, we know it's women it affects) it's a choice, and tough.

We are being told to "work towards 60% attendance by end of the Fin Yr" i.e. end Mar, which is presumably meant to give people time to reconfigure or make new arrangements for home circumstances. Our site can't cope with full capacity for the size of our workforce and the technology (network, WiFi etc) is poor at times, so the ability for everyone to be back onsite 3 days a week is vanishingly small (and they mentioned it needs to include popular wfh days Monday and Friday but surprise, surprise, no way of controlling or monitoring who does or doesn't come in those days. It's all quite vague.

Ive been privately logging all my onsite days each week, in case of query and just seeing how things pan out, it will affect those who moved away from the big city during or just after Covid because they were paying expensive city rents / mortgages when they could have been living / working remotely anywhere. Now this has hit, they have a dilemma as to what their next move will be. I'm fortunate to live close to site so can do 3 days a week. I've been doing 2 days a week on site even through COVID.

i don't have any intention of resigning. I'm surprised people are threatening to leave CS. They'll probably find just the same policy out in industry and they won't be nearly as nice about it as CS are being.

Id love to know of a single incident of someone in CS being sacked because they don't do 3 days a week. CS is the most accommodating employer in UK, most managers are very supportive, don't have the inclination to start tracking people on a spreadsheet, and they don't want to lose good staff. As long as people are showing willing they're pretty reasonable.

Yes, I've just had to get a carers passport approved for a ND child, but my directorate has had the most lovely chilled out flexible approach (because we're all adults!) and it's a shame I have to. The implications for people moving roles to a less sympathetic LM are going to be massive as well, and we know that will impact women's career progress more than it does men's.

We've been heamorrhaging staff to the private sector from my area even before this. Appreciate it might not be the same everywhere but for us, pay is and always has been very significantly higher in the private sector; the flexibility was the attraction and worth the significant pay cut to many people, but the private sector has become more flexible in recent years and the Civil Service 60% office attendance requirement will put it in line with or behind current private sector norms. So it's not surprising if more people leave.

Personally speaking, 60% of my current hours at my current workplace isn't possible for me. It tips life over the edge into unmanageable. I'm not "threatening" to resign, just stating the reality if this is enforced and there is no flexibility for circumstances. I won't be the only one in this situation. (Last time I moved house was 2008, if that's relevant.)

I left the civil service for the private sector and very nearly doubled my salary for less responsibility. The pension is worse, but the pay increase more than compensates for that. Tbh, the quarterly bonuses I get on top of my salary do double my civil service salary.

I work fully remotely and my employer is not going to force me into an office at any point. I can go to a local office if I feel like it. I never do.

There are some other benefits I hadn’t anticipated. Flexibility in my role. Far less weird passive aggressive politeness. Genuinely being recognised and rewarded for my work too.

There is less flexibility about working weeks. We can’t do compressed or annualised hours, but I could go PT. But, overall, it wasn’t the terrifying leap into the abyss that I think I’d thought the private sector would be.

Tbh, this 60% mandate may help my recruitment efforts, and as a by product, increase the work my team get providing augmented staff roles in to the public sector.

When I was a civil servant, my team were all based in other offices so everything was on teams anyway. I loathed being made to go in to the poorly equipped office to then spend my day in teams meeting with a headset in. I could stay at home with a proper set up, a decent chair, and get far more done.

They set up some fancy new area as the poster child for this hybrid future. It had these horrible booths you could go to do teams calls in. But they were not equipped with the right connections to use the laptop I’d been issued with. So it was just sitting in an unpleasant windowless phone box and working off my laptop. The group SLT tried to present this as if it were some amazing new world of cutting edge office design. It was the Poundland version of Google HQ designed by someone who’s only heard about what sort of office spaces that might involve.

I am wondering whether to take a look at the private sector, the salaries far outstrip what I earn now (although most roles I've seen have been hybrid, not all, but the ones with the highest salaries, but if I'm paid well for it I may be more willing!). It just feels quite daunting whilst I still have the school run, I think once that stage is over (not long for me now) I won't be quite so reliant on flexibility (plus our high school never has assemblies etc whilst my youngest seems to have an event every other week!) I just worry private sector will be a more cut throat environment and more of a service before self mentality, I enjoy my career but it's not my life and I feel the public sector has always enabled me (at least) to have a sensible and realistic approach to work whilst still progressing.

Sorry just read that back and lots of side conversations in brackets, shows my mental through process atm!

The private sector is obviously very diverse but I think even with the new 60% move, the civil service is still one of the most flexible employers around.

There will be movement in some of the more niche/specialist areas but I think most people will end up staying

This is where we are. DH is 20 + years in the CS. He firmly believes in what he does. He’s very good at it. His section were pushing for WFH BEFORE Covid. In for a reason (which he always does, often working holiday around it). He gets job offers for the private sector frequently. Fully remote. He doesn’t want fully remote. He wants to come in if there is a reason to, not to struggle to concentrate in a noisy, cold/hot uncomfortable office whilst talking on teams to his colleagues 150 miles away.

At the moment it’s down to line managers and all very vague. His has told him carry on as you are. If they mandate office time then he’ll be off and I fully support that. Their area has a retention and recruitment crisis which they are continually being pulled up over. Good luck.

They want to downsize the CS. This is one way to do it but not the right way.

And once retention and recruitment starts to be a problem, it snowballs because churn in a team beyond a certain level becomes a bit of a death spiral. First to go are the people who are tipped over the edge by the 60%. But following them are the overstretched people left behind in hollowed out teams covering the vacant posts while training the new joiners we've managed to recruit. The next step after that is lots of temps and external consultants to plug the gaps in capability.

Of course it will be a minority overall. But we'll lose talented and experienced people we can't afford to lose. And we'll lose carers, parents, disabled colleagues, who we shouldn't be driving out - and limit the careers of others who manage to hang in there by reducing hours and/or with supportive local management who make exceptions, but are afraid to move for development or promotion in case their working patterns are no longer supported ( as it used to be years ago).

Like you say, @Newpeep , not the right way to go about downsizing.

Can you tell me a bit more about this carers passport and what it could mean for working arrangements? I've recently accepted a job offer for the civil service, just going through pre employment checks, and I really do want to go there. But I have a child in receipt of disability payment and I need the flexibility to juggle childcare between myself and my husband. I'm more than happy to be in the office at some point every week, but 60% isn't possible at all.

I wish they could understand that having working arrangement flexibility is what keeps people IN work, whether it's parents, those with other caring responsibilities, health issues and/or disabilities. The civil service should be leading the way on this.

Also I'm just wondering how part time workers are finding this is being implemented? I'm going to be doing 4 days a week, so interested to hear how this has worked out for anyone else on the same pattern.

The carer's passport is between you and your line manager and it is for the pair of you to agree how it's implemented. I have a member of staff who had one as his mum was unwell. It was short-term and allowed him flexibility to wfh, short-term notice of annual leave etc. It in effect came to an end when his mum passed away.
They are supposed to be regularly reviewed and adapted as needed.
As for part-time it will be 60% of your days so works out 3 days one week, two the second. I am 4 days a week and my boss allows complete flexibility on how I achieve my current 40% but the 40% and now 60% is generally over a 4 week period so I have a full time colleague for example who does the first 8 days of the 4 week period in the office and then wfh for the rest.