Federal public servants returning to the office after years working from home are adjusting to a new emphasis: shared work spaces, rather than a cubicle to call their own.
This hybrid work model is shifting tens of thousands of employees back to in-person work a few days a week. With it comes a host of complications, from making sure they have the right technical hookups to organizing schedules so team members can truly be face-to-face.
Unions have pointed to “chaos,” saying there aren’t enough desks and that some employees have even worked on the floor.
But while the federal government went on a hiring spree during the pandemic — core departments grew by 17,600 people from 2019 to 2022 in the capital region alone — the change in office style isn’t due to a lack of space but rather a rethink that was already in motion.
“The pandemic has really just accelerated that,” said Stéphan Déry, the assistant deputy minister at Public Services and Procurement Canada in charge of office needs and real estate across the country.
‘We’re not Google’
Some public servants never left their scientific labs, ships, or border crossings to work remotely, while others still have their dedicated cubicles of old.
For many others, however, the new norm involves booking a desk and storing their belongings in a locker for the day, then carrying their laptops home in a backpack.
Public Services and Procurement Canada has a strategy to ‘modernize’ federal offices, and intends to have 25 per cent upgraded by 2026. Desks are unassigned, and employees store belongings in lockers. (Supplied by Public Services and Procurement Canada)
On a snowy January morning in Ottawa, several public servants spoke to CBC about the challenges, but none wanted to give their full names for fear of reprisal at work.
One said she often arrives to find someone else has taken the desk she reserved. That day, her team hadn’t managed to book workstations together, so each member planned to log onto a video call from different floors and buildings on the same government campus.
She said she preferred having a cubicle of her own.
“I think losing that sense of permanence really brings down morale. It does for me at least. I feel like I’m no longer a person, just a number.”
“We’re not Google,” said another public servant, who felt the idea of flexible office space might make sense in theory to bosses but not in real life. As for the hybrid work model, he called it “disorganized.”
Still another pointed out that many of the people hired during the pandemic don’t live anywhere near an office in Ottawa-Gatineau.
For him, the big question will be how they “collaborate” in the way the Treasury Board intends.
Ottawa Morning13:29Treasury Board president takes public servants questions on hybrid work
On Monday, federal public servants will begin the transition to working in the office 2 or 3 days a week. Treasury Board president Mona Fortier answers questions raised by federal employees.
‘A shot-in-the-dark solution’
The Conservative shadow minister for the Treasury Board said she’s curious how it will go and whether public servants will feel productive or supported once back in the office.
“This is just a shot-in-the-dark solution,” said Stephanie Kusie, MP for Calgary Midnapore and former diplomat for the federal government.
Kusie said she’s skeptical about the success of the hybrid work model, citing the fact the Liberals have already hired thousands of workers and spent millions of dollars without managing to clear the passport or immigration services backlogs.
For his part, Déry couldn’t speak for any individual department’s desk-booking system.
But as the executive responsible for 6.2 million square metres of federal office space across 103 departments and agencies, he’s confident workers will all have the space they need by the March 31 deadline.
“There’s probably going to be some places where it doesn’t work as well as others, but I think as we got through the pandemic, we’ll get there also,” said Déry, pointing out how quickly teams were set up for remote work after COVID-19 hit.
Offices were at 60% capacity
It might seem counterintuitive that there will be enough room for everyone.
The federal public service has been growing quickly since the Liberals took power in 2015, and reached 254,309 employees in 2022, according to Treasury Board statistics.
(The figure doesn’t include other agencies — like the Canada Revenue Agency, which hired 11,000 people in recent years — ministerial staff, crown corporations, the Canadian Forces or the RCMP, which aren’t covered by the back-to-office order).
Even as numbers grow, not all buildings or floors are open. Several towers at the Portage III complex in Gatineau are closed for a major renovation.
The Canada Revenue Agency’s Taxation Data Centre Complex on Ottawa’s Heron Road will close for construction in January 2024 and the agency says some 1,850 employees will move to temporary offices elsewhere.
Despite these trends, Déry underlines that even before the pandemic, federal offices were operating at 60 per cent capacity. Space often went under-used, he said, with people away on vacation, training or other business.
“We have a responsibility from a fiscal perspective,” said Déry. “We’re thinking about how can we maximize our portfolio and ensure that we have flexible space, but that we don’t have space that sits dormant.”
A ‘modernized’ workspace
That means if public servants don’t have their own desks and are only in the office two to three days per week, the federal government can fit those new hires into their existing offices.
It’s part of a long-term strategy and Déry is a big champion of the move to “modernize” government offices so they suit the types of work “activities” done.
He says those who have made the shift to new digs don’t want to go back.
An example of one of the federal government’s modernized work spaces. (Supplied by Public Services and Procurement Canada)
“It’s what you see in magazines. If you go to Europe, as an example, it’s more collaboration space, an increase in meeting rooms. There’s never enough of those,” said Déry, adding he meets with public sector real estate colleagues in other countries about the “future of work”.
As it stands, 12 per cent of federal office space is “modernized” but Déry says the goal is to hit 25 per cent by 2026.
For one public servant named Natasha, the system of unassigned seating and collaborative spaces is working. She’s even chosen to go to the office five days a week.
“I felt more productive here,” she said. “The routine is better, my routine is better.”
Ottawa Morning9:34Federal workers return to office, but not the office they left
The hybrid-work model rolling out in the federal public service comes at a time when the federal government has been on a hiring spree and is also in the midst of a major rethink about how it uses its office space.
Two Canadian companies have been named in separate frozen-potato price-fixing lawsuits south of the border.
McCain Foods Ltd. and Cavendish Farms are two of the companies accused of being part of a “potato cartel,” conspiring with other large potato processors by sharing pricing data in an effort to raise the price of frozen potatoes in the U.S.
The two other companies named in the class-action lawsuits are U.S. companies Lamb Weston Inc. and J.R. Simplot Co., as well as an industry association called the National Potato Promotion Board.
One of the class-action complaints was filed in an Illinois court on Nov. 15 while the other was filed in an Illinois court on Nov. 17.
The class actions have yet to be certified.
McCain and Cavendish have not responded to requests for comment.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 20, 2024.
OTTAWA – The Canadian and American embassies in Ukraine are closed to the public today after the U.S. warned of a “potential significant air attack” by Russia in Kyiv.
Ukraine’s intelligence agency posted a statement today accusing Russia of spreading fake messages about the threat of an “extremely massive” attack on Ukrainian cities and urging people not to panic.
A message from the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv says it received specific information about a possible attack and out of an abundance of caution, employees are sheltering in place.
Global Affairs Canada’s website says in-person services at the Canadian Embassy are temporarily suspended.
Ukraine used U.S.-supplied missiles to strike inside Russia for the first time this week, a move the Kremlin says adds “fuel to the fire” of the war.
U.S. President Joe Biden gave the green light for Kyiv to strike Russian targets and to use antipersonnel landmines, as part of a larger effort to bolster Ukraine’s defence before Donald Trump takes over the White House in January.
Trump and his allies have been critical of American funding for Ukraine, stoking fears the president-elect could cut off supplies to the embattled country.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters this week that he has long called for allies to give Ukraine permission to strike Russian military targets.
“I have, for months now, talked about how important it is to degrade the capacity of the Russian military to strike into Ukraine with impunity because Ukraine hasn’t been able to strike on factories and military production sites in Russia,” he said in a press conference in Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday.
Trudeau and Biden discussed Ukraine in a bilateral meeting this week at the G20 leaders’ summit.
Trudeau was critical of the G20’s final statement, saying it was not strong enough in its support of Ukraine. Russia is a member of the G20 and this year’s statement from the leaders did not mention Russia at all.
The BBC reported Wednesday morning that missiles supplied by the U.K. have also been used inside Russia for the first time since the conflict began more than 1,000 days ago.
The Biden administration’s move is being seen as an escalation in Moscow.
Asked Tuesday whether a Ukrainian attack with longer-range U.S. missiles could potentially trigger the use of nuclear weapons, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov answered affirmatively.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 20, 2024.
— With files from Dylan Robertson and The Associated Press
LONGUEUIL, Que. – Canada’s new lunar rover will head to the moon when it’s built, but first it needs a name.
The Canadian Space Agency has begun polling the public on four possible choices: Athabasca, Courage, Glacier or Pol-R.
The rover, still in development, will be the first Canadian craft to explore the moon’s surface, with a launch scheduled for 2026 at the earliest.
It is expected to explore the lunar south pole, and among its tasks will be searching search for water ice, a key to the future of human space exploration of the moon.
Online voting starts today and continues until Dec. 20, and the agency is not providing an option for write-in votes.
The agency says it wants the name to be representative of the mission or to allude to Canada’s role in space.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 20, 2024.
