Federal government workers do not want to return to office work after working from home for the past two years..In online forums for government employees, there has been talk about returning to the office with employees comparing the plans each department is developing..With the seventh wave of COVID-19, more than half of workers want to continue working from home while only one in ten wants to return full-time to the office..“We have done studies of our membership that show that 60% of our members would prefer to stay in a work from home situation, 25% would like to do a hybrid, and 10% would like to come back to the office full-time,” said Jennifer Carr in a statement, Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC) president, who represents about 70,000 workers..Carr said PIPSC members are concerned about returning to the office..“I would say that our inbox is now 90% about return to the office, how people are not feeling comfortable, how they have questions about masking requirements, about the need and the necessity to come into the office when they can work in the safety of their own home and do the work efficiently,” wrote Carr. .PIPSC is not the only government workers’ union complaining about heading back to the office..Greg Phillips, president of the Canadian Association of Professional Employees (CAPE) who represents over 20,000 workers, said his members want to use a hybrid model and feel the government is rushing people back to the office without addressing their concerns..“By and large, the people that don’t want to go back into the office have been fairly vocal about it. They haven’t even addressed … in a lot of cases, accommodation needs,” said Phillips..The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), the largest federal government union with almost 230,000 members, is asking the government to be “flexible” in how they bring workers back to the office as many have anxiety about returning to the office..“We know that most of our members are still working remotely, and many want to continue having that flexibility,” said the PSAC union statement. .”Remote work has become a part of everyday life for many workers and we’ll continue to fight to enshrine it in our collective agreements during this round of bargaining with Treasury Board and agencies.”.A government worker speaking anonymously said she returned to a hybrid model but sees no one in her office because everyone works in their offices with the doors closed..Microsoft Teams, a video conferencing software, is used for meetings, so there is no contact between employees in the office..She said it does not differ from working at home as she does not see people in person..“It’s stupid. Either let me have meetings in person or let me keep working from home,” she said..Many government workers are afraid of catching COVID-19 from a co-worker and that their health is being compromised by going back to the office..“They pretty much told us we wouldn’t be forced back if we didn’t want to. Now minimum two days starting September 12,” said one commenter on a Reddit thread about government workers heading back to the office.
