‘Summer of discontent’ coming over public service in-office order: unions (trudeau chooses this hill to die on)

[myata]

2 hours ago, ExFlyer said:

Union studies LOL

Right. Have to be those measuring the level of relaxation and satisfaction. The output doesn't matter anymore, so why bother.

[Moonbox]

9 hours ago, CdnFox said:

You obviously didn't read them. They're both pretty positive about working from home - especially hybrid. But even full time. 

Is that why they're titled:

"Remote Work Might Not Be As Productive As Once Thought, New Studies Show"  and

"Remote workers aren't actually more productive.  Will bosses finally call them back this year?"

Because they're positive about working from home?  

10 hours ago, CdnFox said:

And  while you claim my sources were older data and newer data shows different -  both of yours are actually OLDER than my sources.  Mine were all 2024. 

First, I didn't say or claim anything about your sources.  I spoke generally about the early research, and took issue with your claim that all of the reports/research about remote work show it improves productivity, which is absolutely not true.  

Second, if we do examine your sources, they don't even support what you're saying.  The first is a statscan link that has no data whatsoever on productivity.  The second is a fluff-piece from "Axios", whoever that is, that once again provides no data, and the third is an article from the National Post which, (awkwardly for you) concludes:

“If remote work boosts productivity in a substantial way, then it should improve productivity performance, especially in those industries where teleworking is easy to arrange and widely adopted, such as professional services, compared with those where tasks need to be performed in person, such as restaurants,” Fernald and his co-authors wrote.

But after controlling for pre-pandemic trends by industry, they found little statistical relationship between productivity and the prevalence of remote work since the pandemic.

So, let's "recap":

You claimed that all of the reports say remote work improves productivity (categorically false), and your junky defense is that you are right because the lame-duck links you provided are more recently dated.  🙄

 

 

[myata]

Working as (much as) we like while being paid by the public as though it's for real is of course another piece of nonsensical communism that will accelerate the degradation, and eventual demise of public services in the country. Let's not forget: it is there to produce the output for the public. There aren't any other causes for its existence. Feeding itself is not a valid cause for a public service!

So make it a choice:

a) you choose to work in the traditional model then you're on site as much and long as it needs to verify your output. That's it. You chose it and its in the contract.

b) your pay, including benefits, vacations, sick etc is based on the unit of delivered and verified output for the public. Of course then you can work as much as and however you want, subject to minimal necessary coordination. Makes sense?

If one works online, being paid for real product delivered to satisfied customers, there aren't any issues with remote working. Just be clear about the incentive. Don't reduce it to funny communism, "work as we like, paid as we want". It never worked, cannot work and won't work.

Edited May 10, 2024 by myata

[CdnFox]

6 hours ago, Nationalist said:

Let 'em be furious. Fck 'em. 

 

First - why? They're people.  Us non union people get to work from home, it's still extremely common and frankly i see people screwing around more in the office when i'm in there.  Being in an office doesnt' some how magically mean you're doing your work more 

Quote

I know those unions. They promote laziness and nobody is responsible for anything. You go to the passport office in Toronto and there's staff who don't speak English. It's sickening.

 No argument - but this is being driven by the workers, not the union. The union is only interested because the workers really want it and they want to look like hero's delivering. 

Be cautious of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.  I hate unions but having a bunch of even more disgruntled people running our gov't is a bad idea.  Making them angry for no reason other than to make them angry isn't good policy - it can come back to bite you in the worst ways. 

[myata]

So satisfaction is the key; the reason, rationality, the result don't matter anymore. There you get it: the result of the country's political evolution under the incentive "nothing matters and no accountability hurray": it doesn't matter which head jumps into the chair. They are all (two of them) only about gobbling as much as can be squeezed (and then, some more) and talking wisely about nothing.

Why would it be any different? Think of it: if you were in their place, the chair? Would you have conceived and designed it any different?

You can prove me wrong, easily. Let the legendary "PP" roll back MP salaries for being useless hand-run figureheads. Let employee-representatives"" unanimously or almost, vote for it. There you go. The reality check.

[Nationalist]

12 hours ago, CdnFox said:

First - why? They're people.  Us non union people get to work from home, it's still extremely common and frankly i see people screwing around more in the office when i'm in there.  Being in an office doesnt' some how magically mean you're doing your work more 

 No argument - but this is being driven by the workers, not the union. The union is only interested because the workers really want it and they want to look like hero's delivering. 

Be cautious of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.  I hate unions but having a bunch of even more disgruntled people running our gov't is a bad idea.  Making them angry for no reason other than to make them angry isn't good policy - it can come back to bite you in the worst ways. 

It's already biting me...and you...and everyone in Canada. Our bureaucracy is insanely huge and the bigger it gets, the less effective it gets.

[CdnFox]

3 hours ago, Nationalist said:

It's already biting me...and you...and everyone in Canada. Our bureaucracy is insanely huge and the bigger it gets, the less effective it gets.

Sure, that's true entirely. Justin increased the size of it substantially and wasn't exactly small before.  But that's not the fault of the individual worker. We shouldn't be holding some girl or guy to account for justin's bad decisions personally. 

Or would you prefer to pass a rule that they have to sit on tacks while at the office as well  

We'll reduce the 'worker per population' ratio when PP gets in. There's a 'right' way to do that. 

But now we're going to face a disruptive summer with even less productivity from the civil service and for what. 

[Nationalist]

1 hour ago, CdnFox said:

Sure, that's true entirely. Justin increased the size of it substantially and wasn't exactly small before.  But that's not the fault of the individual worker. We shouldn't be holding some girl or guy to account for justin's bad decisions personally. 

Or would you prefer to pass a rule that they have to sit on tacks while at the office as well  

We'll reduce the 'worker per population' ratio when PP gets in. There's a 'right' way to do that. 

But now we're going to face a disruptive summer with even less productivity from the civil service and for what. 

Ya I get your point but it's insane now. I think Justin's been inventing new programs just to hire his "newcomers".

[exPS]

On 5/10/2024 at 1:30 PM, Nationalist said:

I know those unions. They promote laziness and nobody is responsible for anything.

Let me tell you how it is.

For starters, anything they do is usually a make-work project. And anyone running many of them have no clue as to what they aere doing.

15 minute breaks always turn into well over 30 minutes. 30 minute lunch breaks always turn into well over an hour. The  there are smoke breaks and do you thjink they take them in their two breaks? Nope. In fact if you added the time of all their smoke breaks, it is worth at least 3 weeks out of the year so non-smokers should get that in vacation time added to the already long vacations they get.

Then you have the two additional days off, the volunteer day and what is the other one called, personal leave or some BS thing like that. Then they get Remembrance Day that nobody else gets.

As I stated, working as a Public Servant who is always overpaid and underworked is like being on a PICNIC all year long.

Hell, they don't work when they are at work, so how can you expect them to do more work at home. LOL

[CdnFox]

1 hour ago, Nationalist said:

Ya I get your point but it's insane now. I think Justin's been inventing new programs just to hire his "newcomers".

Justin went through a phase of massive growth for a simple reason -  he thought that the public service would always vote for him because conservatives threaten to reduce it, so by creating massive new numbers of fedreal workers he could win their votes AND the votes of their unions. 

it was about 7.2 fed workers for 1000 people in canada in 2015 at the end of the harper years. Its about 9 per 1000 now.

Population of the federal public service - Canada.ca

He'd hoped they'd all vote for him.

However that has not turned out to be the case and the billions in extra spending has now come back to bite him AND the unions and the union people are turning on him anyway. 

And this won't help. 

PP will most likely reduce it with attrition and hiring freezes.  Meaning as our population grows our civil service will not AND when someone retires nobody is hired to replace them.  Until the level is appropriate again. 

 

We'd be better off to let them work from home more and sell off some of the federal buildings and demand lower increases and raises  because staying at home is a significant financial benefit.  

[Nationalist]

15 hours ago, exPS said:

Let me tell you how it is.

For starters, anything they do is usually a make-work project. And anyone running many of them have no clue as to what they aere doing.

15 minute breaks always turn into well over 30 minutes. 30 minute lunch breaks always turn into well over an hour. The  there are smoke breaks and do you thjink they take them in their two breaks? Nope. In fact if you added the time of all their smoke breaks, it is worth at least 3 weeks out of the year so non-smokers should get that in vacation time added to the already long vacations they get.

Then you have the two additional days off, the volunteer day and what is the other one called, personal leave or some BS thing like that. Then they get Remembrance Day that nobody else gets.

As I stated, working as a Public Servant who is always overpaid and underworked is like being on a PICNIC all year long.

Hell, they don't work when they are at work, so how can you expect them to do more work at home. LOL

And...

13 hours ago, CdnFox said:

We'd be better off to let them work from home more and sell off some of the federal buildings and demand lower increases and raises  because staying at home is a significant financial benefit

I think it's time this PS union was read the riot act.

Simple KPI production analysis and some sensible SLAs would do it.

[blackbird]

First the federal public service has grown enormously under Trudeau.

Secondly, I don't think it can be generalized that the public service is more productive by working at home.

There are lots of variables, different departments, and different types of work.

"

Barriers to productivity

The employees who reported doing less work per hour faced different barriers to productivity. About one in five (22%) reported a lack of interaction with co-workers as the main reason why they accomplish less work per hour (Chart 1). Close to 20% reported having to care for children or other family members. The remainder faced different challenges, such as accessing work-related information or devices (11%), having to do additional work to get things done (13%), having an inadequate physical workspace (10%), or experiencing difficulty with internet speed (5%).Note "

Working from home: Productivity and preferences (statcan.gc.ca)

So I would prefer to see everyone working from the office.  I think that is how most  Canadians work outside the public service.  It should be the same for everyone.

Edited May 12, 2024 by blackbird

[Aristides]

If you can do all your work from home, you can probably be replaced by AI. 

Edited May 12, 2024 by Aristides

[CdnFox]

8 hours ago, Nationalist said:

And...

I think it's time this PS union was read the riot act.

Simple KPI production analysis and some sensible SLAs would do it.

Sure.  And that's regardless of where they're at.  I've said that here myself in the past, someone argued that some of the jobs are almost impossible to measure and i pointed out if they're not producing measurable results then get rid of them - who'd notice?  

obviously there should be a range, strict quotas aren't really practical but obviously one way or another they should produce x results -  so many letters written or so many emails cleared or so many phone calls or applications processed or bills paid or some combination of all of those - it should take next to no time to sit down and say 'Ok, this gov't position does these tasks and we can asses a 'score' for each one and people should reach a certian average 'score' over the course of a week'.  

Sometimes it's even more simple than that.  But we should be able to tell if someoene's doing their job, if you can't tell if someone's doing their job you probably dont' need to have that job out there. 

The unions would resist but they don't realize that actually benefits the worker. Aside from restoring faith in the public service it means that workers wind up with a lot more flexibility. If I don't do my job everybody knows about it very quickly. When I was younger I loved to work as hard as I could and take no breaks and get finished a little early or have a bit of a shorter week. Now I prefer to take a lot more breaks and work less intently and work a little bit longer so to speak each day. My work gets done but I get to live the way I like to live. Workers and unions should be leaning into that.

[blackbird]

Having hundreds of thousands of public servants working from home while practically everyone else in the country must go out to work and many do not have near the pensions and benefits that the public service has, doesn't look good.  

And they're being asked to go in only 3 days a week while everyone else has to go in 5 days a week.  Still complaining.

Make them go in 5 days a week like everyone else and if there is any trouble fire them.  There is far too many public workers anyway.  Increased greatly since Trudeau came in in 2015.

Edited May 12, 2024 by blackbird

[Nationalist]

1 hour ago, CdnFox said:

Sure.  And that's regardless of where they're at.  I've said that here myself in the past, someone argued that some of the jobs are almost impossible to measure and i pointed out if they're not producing measurable results then get rid of them - who'd notice?  

obviously there should be a range, strict quotas aren't really practical but obviously one way or another they should produce x results -  so many letters written or so many emails cleared or so many phone calls or applications processed or bills paid or some combination of all of those - it should take next to no time to sit down and say 'Ok, this gov't position does these tasks and we can asses a 'score' for each one and people should reach a certian average 'score' over the course of a week'.  

Sometimes it's even more simple than that.  But we should be able to tell if someoene's doing their job, if you can't tell if someone's doing their job you probably dont' need to have that job out there. 

The unions would resist but they don't realize that actually benefits the worker. Aside from restoring faith in the public service it means that workers wind up with a lot more flexibility. If I don't do my job everybody knows about it very quickly. When I was younger I loved to work as hard as I could and take no breaks and get finished a little early or have a bit of a shorter week. Now I prefer to take a lot more breaks and work less intently and work a little bit longer so to speak each day. My work gets done but I get to live the way I like to live. Workers and unions should be leaning into that.

We were taught the value of being dependable and hard working. I hope I instilled enough of that in my kids. I'll know this time next year.

[ironstone]

The public servants themselves are reporting that they are more productive at home but I would expect them to say that. I would rather see more data that actually backs that up. A quick search online only revealed one side, the public servants.

Remember that it's government, so there are already low expectations for productivity in the first place.

[CdnFox]

2 hours ago, Nationalist said:

We were taught the value of being dependable and hard working. I hope I instilled enough of that in my kids.

If you did, they will most likely practice it regardless of what location they are in.  

Quote

I'll know this time next year.

Did you send them to boot camp or something? Or are they entering the workforce next year

[CdnFox]

1 hour ago, ironstone said:

The public servants themselves are reporting that they are more productive at home but I would expect them to say that. I would rather see more data that actually backs that up. A quick search online only revealed one side, the public servants.

 

Well there have been numerous studies, I posted a few. They may not apply to these particular public servants but generally speaking people are more productive. This is especially true in a hybrid circumstance.

Having said that, it's definitely not for everybody. For example some people do not have a home environment that lends itself to effective working. I have an entire tiny house to myself so when I "Go to work" I am really in a work environment. Whereas some young couple with a child living in a two-bedroom unit may not have that kind of luxury. 

And some people just don't do well working from home. When covid hit, my old boss kicked absolutely everybody out of the office to work from home, and then went into the office himself because there was no one there anyway and he hated working at home.

But frankly some people don't do well in the office.  I've worked sort of 'hybrid' for years, And I've noticed frequently when I did go into the office there was always one or two people that want to stop and chat and waste time. You don't want to be rude with your coworkers so it tends to suck up a little time.

Then there's always those people who want you to help them with their computer, or show them how to do something and it's not really your job to teach them but your handy so they come to you. This happens constantly in offices, offices are not particularly productive places.

I think that remote working solves a large number of problems in our society. It's down on pollution, it lets people have a better quality of life. It's more productive. It allows people to live outside the downtown core and makes it easier for smaller communities around the cities to thrive because with no commute time you might as well live further out.

We have a serious productivity problem in Canada along with serious housing issues etc, this seems like an easy and cheap win to help 

[Nationalist]

1 hour ago, CdnFox said:

If you did, they will most likely practice it regardless of what location they are in.  

Did you send them to boot camp or something? Or are they entering the workforce next year

Lol...interesting. 

Actually the one boy is going to a boot camp for fire fighting. He goes in October. Once done, he'll be a fireman and will be able to support himself.

The other boy graduates with his degree this time next year and I expect he will then be on his own. Our daughter gets married this August and I won't be surprised if she's preggo by Christmas. 

Once complete, it's gonna be hard for me to justify continuing to work.

[CdnFox]

3 hours ago, Nationalist said:

Lol...interesting. 

Actually the one boy is going to a boot camp for fire fighting. He goes in October. Once done, he'll be a fireman and will be able to support himself.

The other boy graduates with his degree this time next year and I expect he will then be on his own. Our daughter gets married this August and I won't be surprised if she's preggo by Christmas. 

Once complete, it's gonna be hard for me to justify continuing to work.

Wow   You must be very proud of them all, sounds like well grounded kids. 

[Nationalist]

5 hours ago, CdnFox said:

Wow   You must be very proud of them all, sounds like well grounded kids. 

I hope.

[ExFlyer]

21 hours ago, Aristides said:

If you can do all your work from home, you can probably be replaced by AI. 

Wow, now that is a concept and probably not far from reality.

How is the PSAC going to unionize AI?? LOL

[Moonbox]

13 hours ago, CdnFox said:

Well there have been numerous studies, I posted a few. They may not apply to these particular public servants but generally speaking people are more productive. This is especially true in a hybrid circumstance.

...but you didn't.  You posted a Statscan page that had zero data on productivity, a National Post article that specifically concluded against your claim, and a fluff piece from axios.com (whoever they are?).  

Remote work can be more productive for the right people, in the right situations (particularly for higher-skilled work, where individual output can be objectively measured and compensation is heavily performance-based).  

There's a reason the private sector soured on 100% remote work in 2023, and that's because training and especially supervision is required for the large swathes of unmotivated, mediocre workers trading their time for money.  Nowhere would this dynamic be more present than in the public service administration.  

[CdnFox]

8 minutes ago, Moonbox said:

...but you didn't. 

Sigh. But i did. The statcan page specifically talks about productivity and the other pages reference research/studies AND support me. 

Whereas your own proved you incorrect. 

AND mine was the newer data. 

Back to your old games of trying to "win" debates through falsehoods instead of addressing the simple facts. 

The evidence and science shows remote working is generally more productive, and at the very least equally productive. 

Quote

There's a reason the private sector soured on 100% remote work in 2023,

Business didn't sour on it in the slightest. Pre pandemic about 7 percent of people worked from home , now about 20 percent do.  I notice you tried to sneak in the "100 percent' line so you could rule out people who go in once in a blue moon   Doesn't work that way.  Even i go in once every month or three.  But the percent of people MOSTLY working from home or primarily from home is triple pre pandemic. 

It's lower than during the pandemic because a lot of jobs that are NOT suited for remote work were done remotely anyway.  Like teaching - nobody thought remote teaching was better but the pandemic forced it 

About 33 ish percent of jobs COULD be done remotely effectively and we're at around 20 percent, so business has in fact leaned into the idea and is supporting it long term. 

Working from home (for those jobs where it's appropriate) is generally as productive or more, and it has other major benefits.  It's something we should be really leaning into, not shying away from.