Having spent time in the civil service in the past, I can tell you that this will make a slow and dysfunctional bureaucracy even slower and more dysfunctional.
The gardai going to be working from home 1 day a week? Because if I’m honest I don’t think the wife will do any work in the house, she’ll play with the dog just.
If you were government, and were long term focused, you’d be gunning pretty hard to get as many civil and public servants as you can working from home 4+ days a week.
At 4+ days a week remote you reach the point where people can happily live almost anywhere. If you allow the one or two days a week in the office to be done in a remote working hub in regional towns then you open up the entire country.
There are obvious and huge advantages to this for government. They have a number of really serious challenges that are hard to solve, and setting an example work their own staff is important, but would also make an impact in and of itself.
Problem 1: housing crisis. This is obvious, the housing crisis is most acute in Dublin and commutable towns in Kildare, Wicklow, Louth, Meath. Allowing people to move down the country immediately takes some of the pressure out in the short term, and makes delivery of new supply easier in the long term as land prices in Dublin are one of the bigger constraints on affordability
Problem 2: rural decline. Moving as many workers as possible down the country, and many will return to their own communities, is a major benefit. People who live and work in their communities and are in professional jobs are huge assets in every sense. From increasing participation in local groups and democracy, to spending money in the local economy. Early effects of this in rural towns from covid, with new coffee shops etc opening are already obvious
Problem 3: transport. Dublin has a major and increasing problem with congestion. The hardest part of this to deal with is those who need to commute to the city centre from an increasingly spread out hinterland as workers are priced out of the cities. Having people commute into the city less is an easy win that takes pressure off of the road network at peak times and thus makes other solutions to congestion and moves towards less climate costly transport options easier.
Problem 4: childcare. Government has a major problem with early childcare provision, and there are no easy solutions to it. Currently prices are insane, wages are low, and profits for most providers are low. Government can only intervene by providing funding, which will be expensive. However, if people are enabled to move back to their own communities then the traditional arrangement (which is much less costly) of grandparents stepping in to help with childcare becomes an option for more people.
Problem 5: elder care. This is the mirror image of the above. We are facing an increasing crisis with elder care over the next decade due to demographic factors. Again, government can only really intervene here with funding, which will be expensive. Enabling adult children to live near their parents will enable them to provide more care to parents for longer, both formally and informally. That is a desirable outcome usually for most people, who prefer the care of their family over nursing homes and it enables them to live more independently for longer. It’s not a feasible option where adult children instead have to live in Dublin.
Problem 6: refugee crisis. Over the next two decades we are likely to see increases in waves of refugees reaching our borders. The Ukrainian crisis is a good taste of what this will look like, but as the geopolitical effects of climate change start to take effect we will see more instability that leads to large migrations. This will be much harder to deal with if Dublin remains the main engine of economic activity and rural towns continue to decline, as refugees will find it hard to integrate into communities of elderly and economically disadvantaged rural communities while constraints on housing capacity in the capital will make it difficult to provide for them there without causing significant backlash. There are other ways to deal with this, but thriving and economically active communities spread throughout the country will make it much less difficult.
I see Plenty of justification for WFH but I see little for being in the office more then you have to.
Right now I am about 50/50 home and office and outside of a hour long weekly unit meeting which I think works best face to face the office has been wasted time.
“The government has hailed the move as a “major shift” in working arrangements for around 40,000 civil servants, which will see officials able to work from home at least 20% of the time.”
If its held at the lower end of 20% remote working (1 day a week) then a few people will look to move to other sectors of the civil service or change to private sector even with lower amount of job security since its a bit ridiculous to say you can’t do your job at least 50% remote even when most departments still have yet to return to the office on a regular basis
I’m currently working full time from home, my job is set up to be fully remote, the only reason for me to be in the office is if some management decides they want to see my face regularly for no fucking reason. I work for DSP.
I’ve a friend in Revenue who has to go to the office 1 day every 2 weeks, I’d take that permanently.
I have another friend in the passport office, full time, all the time, no option of remote working because he deals with “sensitive material” according to his management.
That’s the thing about all jobs, all it takes is a dickhead manager with no trust or faith in their workers to kill the idea of remote working.
Just a question. Would you do your job from home for less money if it means better quality of life/lower costs?
9 comments
Finally getting decentralisation.
Definitely a positive move.
Having spent time in the civil service in the past, I can tell you that this will make a slow and dysfunctional bureaucracy even slower and more dysfunctional.
The gardai going to be working from home 1 day a week? Because if I’m honest I don’t think the wife will do any work in the house, she’ll play with the dog just.
If you were government, and were long term focused, you’d be gunning pretty hard to get as many civil and public servants as you can working from home 4+ days a week.
At 4+ days a week remote you reach the point where people can happily live almost anywhere. If you allow the one or two days a week in the office to be done in a remote working hub in regional towns then you open up the entire country.
There are obvious and huge advantages to this for government. They have a number of really serious challenges that are hard to solve, and setting an example work their own staff is important, but would also make an impact in and of itself.
Problem 1: housing crisis. This is obvious, the housing crisis is most acute in Dublin and commutable towns in Kildare, Wicklow, Louth, Meath. Allowing people to move down the country immediately takes some of the pressure out in the short term, and makes delivery of new supply easier in the long term as land prices in Dublin are one of the bigger constraints on affordability
Problem 2: rural decline. Moving as many workers as possible down the country, and many will return to their own communities, is a major benefit. People who live and work in their communities and are in professional jobs are huge assets in every sense. From increasing participation in local groups and democracy, to spending money in the local economy. Early effects of this in rural towns from covid, with new coffee shops etc opening are already obvious
Problem 3: transport. Dublin has a major and increasing problem with congestion. The hardest part of this to deal with is those who need to commute to the city centre from an increasingly spread out hinterland as workers are priced out of the cities. Having people commute into the city less is an easy win that takes pressure off of the road network at peak times and thus makes other solutions to congestion and moves towards less climate costly transport options easier.
Problem 4: childcare. Government has a major problem with early childcare provision, and there are no easy solutions to it. Currently prices are insane, wages are low, and profits for most providers are low. Government can only intervene by providing funding, which will be expensive. However, if people are enabled to move back to their own communities then the traditional arrangement (which is much less costly) of grandparents stepping in to help with childcare becomes an option for more people.
Problem 5: elder care. This is the mirror image of the above. We are facing an increasing crisis with elder care over the next decade due to demographic factors. Again, government can only really intervene here with funding, which will be expensive. Enabling adult children to live near their parents will enable them to provide more care to parents for longer, both formally and informally. That is a desirable outcome usually for most people, who prefer the care of their family over nursing homes and it enables them to live more independently for longer. It’s not a feasible option where adult children instead have to live in Dublin.
Problem 6: refugee crisis. Over the next two decades we are likely to see increases in waves of refugees reaching our borders. The Ukrainian crisis is a good taste of what this will look like, but as the geopolitical effects of climate change start to take effect we will see more instability that leads to large migrations. This will be much harder to deal with if Dublin remains the main engine of economic activity and rural towns continue to decline, as refugees will find it hard to integrate into communities of elderly and economically disadvantaged rural communities while constraints on housing capacity in the capital will make it difficult to provide for them there without causing significant backlash. There are other ways to deal with this, but thriving and economically active communities spread throughout the country will make it much less difficult.
I see Plenty of justification for WFH but I see little for being in the office more then you have to.
Right now I am about 50/50 home and office and outside of a hour long weekly unit meeting which I think works best face to face the office has been wasted time.
“The government has hailed the move as a “major shift” in working arrangements for around 40,000 civil servants, which will see officials able to work from home at least 20% of the time.”
If its held at the lower end of 20% remote working (1 day a week) then a few people will look to move to other sectors of the civil service or change to private sector even with lower amount of job security since its a bit ridiculous to say you can’t do your job at least 50% remote even when most departments still have yet to return to the office on a regular basis
I’m currently working full time from home, my job is set up to be fully remote, the only reason for me to be in the office is if some management decides they want to see my face regularly for no fucking reason. I work for DSP.
I’ve a friend in Revenue who has to go to the office 1 day every 2 weeks, I’d take that permanently.
I have another friend in the passport office, full time, all the time, no option of remote working because he deals with “sensitive material” according to his management.
That’s the thing about all jobs, all it takes is a dickhead manager with no trust or faith in their workers to kill the idea of remote working.
Just a question. Would you do your job from home for less money if it means better quality of life/lower costs?