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".

That was to Sundefraise

But how is it audited though?

Oh i do quite happily, my days in the office are great. Organise it between a few of us to go in on the same days.

I don't want loads of people back in as at the moment i get the desk i want and its a relaxed environment, i just think people are short sighted if they don't think it will start to have a negative impact of their performance appraisals.

And also, we're payed civil service salaries which aren't exactly the best, so when people say they are loads more productive at home...you're basically working extra for free. I'll stick with my office days, coffee breaks, chats at peoples desks etc 👍🏻

Thanks @Pastlast . My suggestion to DH is to lay low, and carry on as he is - to ask for forgiveness not permission if he gets questioned. His team are all over the country anyway, so as per pp, it won't make any difference to team effectiveness.

At least his department have online desk booking! What an arse to travel and then not get a desk!

I'm in the HO, I have a long commute so not happy with this as we're currently at 40%.
Also, I am just in a junior admin role, I only need my laptop to work, I occasionally speak to management on Skype and that's it. There's zero reason for me to be in the office other than formality. Half the time I'm also plonked on a random desk away from anyone I actually work with, it's just pointless.

@Youcancallmeirrelevant well I'm a professional stream and SCS so obviously I'm not clock watching and I find the work interesting and take pride in a job well done. Very happy to work late but not after a day of clucking hens gossiping in my ear and the stench of their lunch still lingering.

a day of clucking hens gossiping

Nice to know people value their colleagues.

Never said i don't take pride in my work, but also i would never work for free, i clock every hour i work, and why would i work extra hard when my pay isn't going up. I get my work done in my hours, like when we used to be in the office 5 days a week, but that isn't flat out work for 7.5hrs as that isn't a normal working day. I just find it funny people so angry about having to go back into office

My department line so far was basically to ignore it. I've not done regular days in the office for over ten years. Almost no one has since covid.
Not enough desks even if everyone agreed to a return to 1-3 hour commutes. I'd argue it discriminates against disabilities and anyone with childcare issues

That's fair enough people work for different reasons. I would be miserable in a job that I just did for the cash. I live outside London and the pay is completely amazing compared to what you'd get in the private sector (and these hours and the leave entitlement just wouldn't exist in the private sector) so I don't feel hard done by working later. I would rather work an extra hour than sit in traffic for half an hour.

What I’ve seen states it will be down to local agreement so obviously places where there isn’t sufficient desk space won’t be enforcing 60%. It just irritates me that this blanket announcement is made with no proper consideration of whether it will improve productivity / efficiency when it will clearly negatively impact morale & retention. As if life isn’t hard enough for most of us already without increasing childcare, commuting etc costs. I suspect very little will actually change and people will have been put through a load of unnecessary stress.

Spot on @Stargazer46

Every few months the people who miss after work drinks have a little tantrum, everyone has to fill in a form and then it goes away again.

And good luck to the govt finding competent people to come into central London for the money they pay at most grades

I just find it funny people so angry about having to go back into office

It is weird isn't it? The amount of moaning I've heard over the last couple of days. You'd never guess that it used to be completely normal to work full time in an office.

It's cemented my mind to get a disability passport in place!

I'm immune compromised, wheelchair user, and up to now I've gone into the office twice a week, mainly because one of my immediate colleagues works in the same office so it's nice to work together, but a mandated 60% will mean a return to people dragging themselves in with respiratory infections, so bang goes my run of good health and ironically would probably lead to me having to get agreement to work in the office less!

I'm lucky that I'm only ten minutes drive from my local hub and obviously my parking is guaranteed, but we are one of the lowest paid departments in the CS and it will certainly be a stretch for some of my colleagues to manage the travelling, especially as nobody else is in the same office as anyone else in the team so will gain nothing!

It's all fodder for the daily mail etc who think we only work for 40% of the time, rather than the fact many of us are hard workers who do our utmost to do a good job!

You'd never guess that it used to be completely normal to work full time in an office.

It used to be completely normal to wash clothes by hand, for the toilet to be outside, to have to type everything on a type writer etc etc etc....would you happily go back to those days without resistance because it used to be "completely normal"?

Smoking and whisky in the office used to be normal too @Woman2023

Things improve

@Woman2023 but it out CS organisation we used to have loads local offices. Now most people live at least 1-2 hours from an office. They sold off space so no one has own desk etc My commute went from 15 min to 90min

That's a good point @eurotravel, moving jobs away from near where people live then demanding daily long commutes is completely unreasonable.

Spot the cynical experienced civil servants!

My business is connected to the public sector but it is technically a limited Co 100% HMG owned. We are subject to the same policy. Our Managers appear to have very limited enthusiasm to implement. It has been mentioned but with words like "targeted" and "norm" are used. There is absolutely no measurement. Some of our Managers moved a fair distance from the office during Covid and it would not suit them to implement this change. Also, we have downsized the office and if we were to move strictly to three days a week even with staggering we would not all fit into the office. There is no sense in doing this and that is before we start discussing the benefits of WFH in terms of flexibility, stress reduction and productivity.

@Youcancallmeirrelevant yes the salaries aren't the best, which is why I don't want to spend an extra £400 on nursery which is what it will cost me to cover the extra travel time. Add to that the commuting cost for a 4 hours round trip 3 days a week.
I got this job recently when flexible hybrid was the norm, so it's not helpful saying 'oh everyone knew we'd go back to the office eventually', I didn't work here before and they told me this is how it works now. Hardly fair.

Yeah @User65412 they very literally said remote working was the future. No more being tethered to the office for no reason. It's infuriating.

I'd sit tight and see how it pans out. There is lots of variance in the responses across different departments and I know some which don't have enough office space have immediately said 60% from Jan without considering this fact 🤔

Not all departments have adopted it either.

Realistically lots of people have joined CS in the last couple of years on the premise they don't have to attend the office very much. This includes SCS - I'm quite amused by the apparent assumption that SCS are somehow special and therefore able to teleport to the office 5 days a week because the cabinet office says they should.

We're all people with lives - this won't fall into place just because CO said it should. It was merry hell trying to get people back in the office d the first time round. No department has the resources or time to discipline or sanction half its workforce if they don't come in to the office 60%, it's a pipe dream.

Sadly though it will mean we lose a lot of talented people from the CS.

I'm in the 75% of HMRC staff that already have to do 60%. We do struggle for desks, we aren't allowed to book a desk, just have to find one when you get in. Now the 25% of staff who only had to do 40% are going to be coming in more it'll be even more rammed.

An automated monitoring tool, based on office IT log ins, was introduced for G7s upwards in September, and that is being rolled out to everyone in January.

There used to be lots of HMRC local offices, you would sit with your whole team and you had your own desk. Now we only have a few Government Hubs and they are not designed for people to be in the office as often.