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".

@EnolaAlone we are same - our 'office' is nothing like it was

CO themselves won't be able to deliver this in London, they hugely struggle with space, whilst the advice states where capacity allows it is pretty ironic the instigator has an immediate get out clause.

Parliament Street didn't have enough midweek desks in 2017! I whiled away many an hour trying to nab a spot in dcms and hope they didn't notice I was an interloper.

Why is our infrastructure so rubbish eh.

Hopefully it’ll all blow over. It’s just political posturing and everyone will be fretting about something else come Easter. I can’t see any sensible G6 and G7 having the time or the inclination to monitor it.

I am an HEO with a small team of experienced Band Os doing specialist work. If any of them leaves as a result of this nonsense I won’t be happy. We have a problem with retention (in general) as it is.

There'll be the odd clipboard carrier asking why so-and-so is only in 35% or whatever. That’s a problem in the public sector, the small number of people with non-jobs. But hopefully they’ll be ignored.

I'm giving it to a stiff ignoring after the last 2 attempts at this.

It's another dead cat story to appease the Daily Heil.

I WFH full time, travel nationally once a month and I am the only one of my Dept at my local base, so it's utterly pointless.

Exactly what I’m doing. I’m in one of the departments mentioned above where this was already mandated and enforced and currently am only doing 2 days pw in rather than 3 and am just going to see if anyone addresses it with me. I’m on a training program and cannot see the benefit of coming in the office and trying to study (not easy) or coming in the office and sitting with headphones on all day in a tutorial, or taking up a meeting room so I don’t disturb others when I talk on teams.

My team is spread out across the country - from the north of Scotland all the way down to Devon and everywhere in between. We have the odd day in the office for specific groups of us because we need to get together in person and get stuff sorted out, but mainly remote working is just fine.

We're also in a situation where a massive chunk of the team are on homeworking contracts anyway because they were recruited during the pandemic.

I'm currently assuming we're all going to silently ignore it because no one has any desire to go and sit in an office on their own without other team members...

I'll be applying for reasonable adjustments to convert me to a homeworking contract to avoid any risk but honestly it's a total farce.

We have a really REALLY high performing team. And the reason we can do that is because we have the whole country to recruit from, not just a 1hr radius, and because we are flexible so that makes up for the okay but not amazing pay - so we have a decent offer. If we start having to recruit into the big offices only it will really limit us.

I get a hell of a lot more done at home. I have had a ridiculous few weeks and have worked from 7am to 9pm quite a few days - there is no way on earth I could do those hours with a 100minute commute either end of the day.

Plus there's not even any tea, mugs or milk in the office. I know we're the public sector but I think that stuff like that is an inexpensive way of making the office more inviting, and probably a lot cheaper than a pay rise. (See also my feelings about paid for work Christmas dinners but I don't think that will be gaining traction any time soon!)

Our desks don't even have keyboards, mice and monitors anymore, we're just expected to work from our laptops, whatever happened to DSE assessments?! I can't work comfortably off a laptop.

We were moving to hubs so that everyone worked remotely and then met up like once every 2-4 weeks.. hot desks, devices you can borrow.
The 'new' offices were all set up like that. We prob have 20 desks for 60 of us

Wow. That is insane. I would go mad working from a laptop, I already do when I have to meet with someone on the mandated office day and the only free space is to take a laptop to a tiny table somewhere and both/all squint at that.

We do struggle for desks, we aren't allowed to book a desk, just have to find one when you get in.
That would also drive me mad...

@ChristmasFullHouse we have monitors you can use but that's it. You might be lucky to find a keyboard.
That said I've filled in meaningless DSE assessment for years for an office desk I don't actually have - to tick a box

Are you pitching your examples at the right level? With 20 years more experience you may be better applying for the next grade.

Having read this thread I'm left wondering why on Earth this 60% rule is suddenly needed and where it's come from. It's bonkers. Far too many people saying noooo

Hadn’t heard anything about this until I saw this thread. Just been in my home office aka the junk room, and checked out our departmental intranet page and there was a message from the Perm Sec. I wouldn’t have given the message a second glance if I wasn’t specifically looking for it.

If I hadn’t already submitted my resignation last month I would be doing it now.

My branch moved location a few months before the first lockdown. Our bosses insisted that we all needed to move to the new location (out in the sticks) with no flexibility to work in offices closer to home. Then they insisted we WFH and even when Boris was encouraging us to go back to the office our bosses were actively discouraging us from coming into the office. Funny how suddenly we were able to fulfill our responsibilities by not being in the office. My branch now has gone through yet another restructuring and we have staff working from three different sites. If our management insists on 60% office time I’m not sure how they can justify our split locations.

Treat people like individuals and flexibility can work both ways. I usually do 2 days per week in the office but do more if someone wants to see me F2F.

Not the point if the thread but I am looking to get out of teaching too. Did you have to retrain to get into CS?

My partner did but I don't think I could do what he does. He is also upset about this too. Says even if he went in the office some staff live 180 miles away so it would be impossible.

Could also be a security clearance issue. If the PP only has basic then she’ll be below a candidate who is just as good as her - particularly if she’s applying for roles that need SC+ rather than basic or CTC.

I’m sure someone will come back and say I’m wrong, but it’s my experience. Historically I’ve seen some departments saying you need DV to even apply as they need someone asap so if you don’t they will sift you out!

Sorry - slight detour from the original point of this thread!

I think there are a couple of issues specific to the civil service.

There's not been a real-terms pay rise for over 11 years. Salaries have fallen by between 12% and 23% in real terms depending on grade.

One of the big remaining selling points is flexibility so civil servants are really attached to it.

And then also coming into the office is expensive and if your salary has fallen in real terms, it's something you try to cut back on.

The panel members would not know the level of clearance. If it was a mandatory requirement then it must be stated in the advert otherwise I have never known this to be relevant.

@Newtonianmechanics , no I didn't retrain. I've gone in at HEO which is big pay cut from teaching job but in real terms it's not as bad and I'm so much happier - the list of ways my life has improved is endless! There's a FB group called 'exit the classroom and thrive' which has loads of help and resources if you search 'civil service'. I watched YouTube videos and studied the success profiles for weeks before writing my first application and that's the job I got!

Thank you I will take a look.

The difference in my oh not being drained by teenagers is incredible.

I was recruited during covid lockdowns. I work on a regional team covering 1/3 of England and all of Wales. My bosses live near Reading, I'm in Cornwall, my colleagues are near Cardiff and Birmingham.

My contracted base is a shared office in my nearest city, and is a basement for hot desking for keeping the likes of me away from the primary agency staff who work upstairs. It's grim, very badly lit and full of the old crap furniture no one wants so nothing works properly and every time you go in the working chairs have been swapped to broken ones. The toilets are up 3 flights of stairs. There's usually only me on my own or occasionally a group or three women in another department come in together and take over the place which is great for them and a mare for me as it's so loud.

I always get a migraine from working here so can't do two days in a row and avoid it as much as possible.

I also took a £12k paycut for this role knowing I would be saving approx £4.5k in travel costs per year - no bridge tolls, diesel or daily fees for parking. I also no longer have to find £2k per year for a dog walker. My car has far fewer miles on it than expected. My dog is better socialised and entertained. I'm in control of my working environment for my chronic migraine which has been life altering - I get to adjust the lights, temperature, air and scents.

No more smells of people microwaving sardines like in my last office. No more constant interruptions from Clare who would literally pull my headphones off my head to tell me about her 9yo granddaughter going to school that morning. No more putting up with horrific perfumes, braying laughter from the creep in the corner, people chewing with their mouths open....

God I love WFH 😂

I’ll be looking for another job if it’s enforced. I already have to spend two days a week sitting on my own in an office as my team are dispersed all over the country. I am yet to meet any of my colleagues face to face. Another day in the office will just make me feel even more isolated and worse off financially. The CS need to think these things through. They just don't have enough space as it is and I’m
sure at the moment most people don’t do the 40% so it just won’t work.

Re auditing.
We update our calendar to show days in the office. The duty manager has a daily tick list of who is in.
I do work in one of those offices where there is daily cover by a duty manager. We are operational so 90% of staff below SO level have to attend for every shift. In fact the 60% rule might actually help the constant attrition of staff who can find easier jobs!

I can understand people who don't work with teams based locally or who were recruited on the understanding of working predominantly at home, presumably that's what the contract says so it won't be an issue.

But the exact same level of complaints seem to come from people who work in locally based teams, where they need to do frequent communication with each other.