Working From Home

[Culprit]

^^It's always money over lives. I am lucky enough to be an in-demand worker where they need me and many others to make money. I feel sorry for people in retail and hospitality who are on the front line. I've worked in that industry and you don't get paid enough to deal with the crap they have to put up with.

Stu, starting in the New Year I am going to a 4 Day Week with the same pay, and I now receive 5 weeks annual leave. 2025 I plan to go to a 3-day work week in 2025 as I am not getting any younger and plan to transition into retirement in 2025 and retire in 2030.

[stui magpie]

^

Good luck to you if you can do it. As you said, you're an in demand worker so you have the leverage but i think it's a lurk that all these public servants want to work 4 days on a full time wage.

When I was being head hunted to my last role I negotiated a 4 day week on the same salary as I was getting at the time, plus 2 days at home but I was able to do that because they badly wanted me to join them.

[Culprit]

The Defence APS I currently work with are paid 30% less on average than us private sector workers so I can understand them wanting to shift to a 4-day week. This is at a time when the government wants to build the APS as the previous government contracted out everything and cut the APS to basically a skeleton crew so their mates could profit from those contracts. Unless they increase the APS Salaries by at least 15% which I can't see it happening, the 4-day week has to be an option to attract workers.

[stui magpie]

That makes logical sense

[eddiesmith]

With Dans 1.5% cap, the VPS is going backwards quickly and could also probably make a lot more elsewhere where they aren’t locked in to such low, ridiculous salaries.

[Culprit]

If Governments put public servant rates up, the media and the opposition would have a field day as they are just another political football. Nearly every area in Government and Local Councils is outsourced. Now I clearly benefit from this being the case as do many others.

[stui magpie]

^

There's a lot of not for profits that rely on state government funding in the fields of family violence and child services.

The VPS departments provide the framework and interfere from time to time, the NFP's do the work (and good work generally too) but they don't pay big salaries either. They don't have the money. Most frontline workers get Award rates plus 1 or 2%

Salary Packaging is a nice perk but many of the frontline staff don't earn enough to make it worthwhile.

[Culprit]

^^It's farcical that we want people to do these types of jobs and pay them peanuts. A good example is workers in aged care and people wonder why we are bringing in people to fill these roles as locals refuse to do them.

[Culprit]

Back in the News and the LNP as always are going with the line that we have less productivity. That's not what the feedback is where I work. If anything productivity has increased. No one is out for coffee or long lunches. No chats at work, everyone gets in and does their work. Many start early or work late. I chatted with my GM today about this and he said to me if he pushed people back into the office with the competitive nature of our work we would have a new term WFO, Working For the Opposition. We have the media and the NOaltion who have nothing better to do than attack workers thinking they will win votes.

[stui magpie]

^

I heard today that Albo and co have asked Fair Work Australia to look at providing some entitlement for (some) people work from home.

I'm not sure about more rules, but in theory it's a good idea.

In practice, good organisations will do it well, bad ones will do it bad. Covid clearly showed that people can work from home with no loss of productivity, the negatives are that micro managers lose control (not a bad thing) and relationships formed over video aren't the same as those formed in person.

I read an article the other day that basically said, if your employer makes you come to the office 2 days a week and you spend it in an office on video calls, they've fvcked up. Smart organisations need to plan, get teams in the office at the same time so they can socialise, strategise and plan, accepting the loss of productivity that comes with the team building.

I spent most of one 12 month job during Covid working from home. After months of forming relationships over video, it's a whole different experience when you first walk into the office and see them in person. It was fkn awkward.

The Hybrid model should be here to stay and only dumb employers will try to push against it when they stand to save so much money in rental, utilities and incidental costs if they do it right.

[Culprit]

WFH within our industry is here to stay because we can simply go elsewhere. That may not be the case with everyone and having rights to WFH seems the natural progression. I have to have an office, I can't lay on the couch and work.

Went out for lunch with a few co-workers as one is retiring at 73. We talked about all the lunches we used to have and drinks etc and a younger co-worker asked me what's changed. I pointed to COVID-19 and how most of us are not in the office at the same time now as we WFH. I took that on board and as most are in on Thursdays (I am not) I have taken his input on board and we will do a lunch every second Thursday. The main office is Tues, Weds & Thurs. This is in our own time and you can make up time or do extra time so you don't need to come back to work. This is what we did before Covid.

[lazzadesilva]

[lazzadesilva]

DP

[eddiesmith]

Interesting that today I was out of the office on a training course but looking at Teams chat the entire team was WFH, even those who had already done their allocation this week and the one who chooses to be in the office more. So not sure if they all made a conscious decision due to the weather or the boss actually supported WFH today, but I never saw any comms but may have been excluded as usual.

But there was a lot of backlash after last weeks storms at the lack of communication or forewarning leaving us stranded in an office with no power and then people travelling home in severe and dangerous weather.

Now we can’t exactly let the whole organisation WFH on days like today, but those not involved in operations there is definitely a push to make extreme weather days a supported WFH day and not counted in your 2 permitted days.

[Culprit]

It's a two-way street. I have a very flexible company and the GM decided Tue-Thurs in the Office for those who are currently working in the office. Now we can do that as we only have visitors by appointment. Now those working on Defence sites around Australia like myself have to have the ADF, APS, and the MSP we are contracted to agree with our WFH arrangements. Initially, there was pushback from all as Micro Managing is real. Now when push came to shove where workers simply quit and walked and no replacements were available they went the total opposite and said what do you want to do? I was told they wanted 3 days and I said I would do 2 (Tues and Fridays) and if physically needed I would come in on another day. I work in J-Block which was the original Police Hospital back in the 1800s and it's empty on a Friday. Many joke I am right at home, with bluestone walls, bars on windows, and guards on doors/gates. Note: Pre Covid Vic Barracks had an average of 1800 people per day in there. Now on average, it's 400.