Kerre Woodham: The Public Service Commission should be keeping track of who's working from home

The big corporations have already started ordering their staff back into the office, now the Government’s had enough too. Nicola Willis made the announcement yesterday. While carefully defined, working from home arrangements can benefit workers and employers, she said, if the pendulum swings too far in favour of working from home, there are downsides. And that's even before we consider the effects for the CBD retailers, restaurants and cafes.

She said there are good reasons why employees have traditionally been physically brought together for work. It allows for face-to-face conversation, the sharing of skills and experience, and relationship building. It supports younger and newer employees to observe, learn from and form connections with their more experienced colleagues. She said many good employers have been taking active steps to ensure their working from home policies are fit for purpose. Nicola Willis said its time at the government did the same.  

Damn straight. Conor Whitten from the Wellington Chamber of Commerce told the Mike Hosking Breakfast that the directive will indeed have a positive impact.  

“We do think that this has the real potential to make a difference for Wellington and it's important to recognise that at a time when public finances are pretty tight, it's something that really doesn't cost the government a cent. We all know it's been a hard time for businesses in Wellington, but particularly for retail and hospitality, working from home trends are definitely a very big part of that.

"And look, you're right, the numbers are a little bit hard to quantify but we will have those numbers because public sector CEOs will be required to report on it. But look it’s the ballpark figures, there are 28,000 public servants who still work in Wellington according to the Public Service Commission, if they're working from home and average of two days a week, that's more than 50,000 fewer potential customers for businesses in the CBD and in a city the size of Wellington, that makes a real impact. So if we get some of those people back in the city, not everyone's going to buy a coffee or go shopping or head out for a Friday drink, but tens of thousands more people in the city the size of Wellington, it’s going to make a real impact at a time when businesses are doing it tough.” 

So sure benefits, but I cannot imagine that workers are being ordered back to work simply to save Wellington's cafes. From the release, it would appear that the Government is simply looking for the public service bosses to be a little bit more aware of who's working from home and whether they're earning their keep or not. I find it incredible that, according to the press release, data is not currently being centrally collected by the Public Service Commission regarding the prevalence of working from home arrangements. So if you asked the Public Service Commission how many public servants are working from home, reading that line, you'd expect them to say, oh, I don't know. A few I suppose.  

If you're a boss, wouldn't you want to know how many of your team were actually working from home and how many were expected in the office? And if they were working from home, what are they doing there? Are they meeting KPI's? The people we talked to last week who either phoned in or texted in said that they had KPI's that they had to meet, that there was an expectation about what their role would be, that for some of them there was flexibility - they could look after a sick child or they could go for a long run if they're training for a marathon or something, and then the work would be done in the evening. There was no real need for them to work between 9 – 5 pm so long as the work got done.

But reading between the lines here, it would appear that many public service bosses have absolutely no idea who's at home, who's not, who's expected to be. And it's that sort of sloppy record keeping that I think the government's going after, and I think the taxpayer was getting sick of. If you go into any Public Service department and said how many of your people are working from home and what are they doing there, as a minister, I'd expect them to know. But the line in this press release says data is not currently being centrally collected by the Public Service Commission regarding the prevalence of working from home arrangements. Does that sound like a breach of business management 101?  

The bosses that we talked to last week said it can work. They were quite happy to have staff working from home. There were clear expectations of what they would do, they were regularly checked on – where there was a high level of trust, the arrangement worked. But when you've got somebody going “oh whatevs”, it's not going

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Carrywood and Morning's podcast from News
Talks d B this morning.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
We thought we would start with and we were talking
about it just the other day. You know, the big
corporations have already started ordering their staff back into the office.
Now the government's had enough to Nikola Willis made the
announcement yesterday. While carefully defined working from home arrangements can
benefit workers and employers, she said, if the pendulum swings

(00:36):
too far in favor of working from home, there are downsides,
and that's even before we consider the effects for the
CBD retailers, restaurants and cafes. She said, there are good
reasons why employees have traditionally been physically brought together for work.
It allows for face to face conversation, the sharing of
skills and experience, and relationship building. It supports younger and

(01:00):
newer employees to observe, learn from, and form connections with
them more experienced colleagues. She said, many good employers have
been taking active steps to ensure they're working from home
policies up for purpose. Nichola Willis said it's time the
government did the same. Damn Straight Color Wisten from the

(01:21):
Wellington Chamber of Comments told the mic Costking Breakfast that
the directive will indeed have a positive impact.

Speaker 3 (01:27):
We do think that this has the real potential to
make a difference for Wellington, and it's important to recognize
that at a time when public finances are pretty tight,
it's something that really doesn't cost the government assent. We
all know it's been a hard time for businesses in Wellington,
but particularly for retail and hospitality. Working from home trends
are definitely a very big part of that. And look,
you're right the numbers are a little bit hard to quantify.

(01:47):
We will have those numbers because public sector CEOs will
be required to report on it. But look at some
ballpark figures. There are twenty eight thousand public servants who
still work in Wellington according to the Public Service Commission.
If they're working from home and average of two days
a week, that's more than fifty thousand fewer potential customers
for business and the CBD and in the city size
of Wellington, that makes a real impact. So if we

(02:10):
get some of those people back in the city. Not
everyone's going to buy a coffee or go shopping or
head out for a Friday drink, but tens of thousands
more people in the city the size of Wellington. It's
going to make a real impact at a time when
businesses are doing it tough.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
So sure benefits, but I cannot imagine that workers are
being ordered back to work simply to save Wellington's cafes.
From the release, it would appear that the government is
simply looking for the public service bosses to be a
little bit more aware of who's working from home and
whether they're earning their keep or not. I find it
incredible that, according to the press release, data is not

(02:47):
currently being centrally collected by the Public Service Commission regarding
the prevalence of working from home arrangements. So if you
said to the Public Service Commission, how many public servants
are working from home? Reading that line, you'd expect them
to say, oh, I don't know few I suppose. I mean,

(03:07):
if you're a boss, wouldn't you want to know how
many of your team were actually working from home and
how many were expected in the office. And if they
were working from home, what are they doing there? Are
they meeting? KPIs The people we talked to last week
who either phoned in or texted said that they had
KPIs that they had to meet, that there was an

(03:29):
expectation about what their role would be. That for some
of them there was flexibility. They could look after a
sick child, or they could go for a long run
if they're training for a marathon or something, and then
the work would be done in the evening. There was
no real need for them to work between nine and five,
so long as the work got done. But reading between

(03:49):
the lines here, it would appear that many public service
bossors have absolutely no idea who's at home, who's not,
who's expected to be. And it's that sort of sloppy
record keeping that I think the government's going after and
I think the taxpayer was getting sick of. You know,
if you go into any public service department and said

(04:14):
how many of your people are working from home and
what are they doing there? As a minister, I'll expect
them to know. But the line in this press release
says data is not currently being centrally collected by the
Public Service Commission regarding the prevalence of working from home arrangements.

(04:35):
Does that sound like a breach of business management? One
oh one the bosses that we talked to as well
last week said it can work. They were quite happy
to have staff working from home. There were clear expectations
of what they would do. They were regularly checked on.

(04:56):
Where there was a high level of trust the arrangement worked.
But when you've got somebody going, oh whatevs, it's not
going to work. People will extract the Michael if they
think there are no controls on what they can do,
or no checks and balances on what they do and
how they do it. They also made the point that

(05:20):
it doesn't mean there won't be any working from home arrangements.
You can still negotiate to be able to have flexible
working hours. It's just hello, Wellington Civil Service. They are
not an automatic entitlement. But you can't really blame the
workers if nobody's checking up on you, nobody cares, nobody

(05:45):
has an expectation that you'll turn up in the office.
Nobody is requiring you to account for yourself when you
haven't been in the office for a week or so.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
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