for a minimum of four days a week starting July 6<\/a>.<\/p>\nBut according to the memo, GAC’s unionized staff will continue to be allowed to report to the office only three days a week for an indefinite period of time.<\/p>\n
Starting Sept. 15, at least one of those three days must be either a Monday or a Friday, according to the memo.<\/p>\n
Executives will still be required to be in the office five days a week starting May 4, as originally planned.<\/p>\n
Managers, whether unionized or not, and assistant directors reporting to a director will be required to work from the office four days a week and will be phased in between July 6 and Sept. 15.<\/p>\n
The physical presence of managers “helps ensure employees receive timely and consistent in-person guidance, which contributes to strengthening teamwork and collaboration,” according to the memo. Managers present four days a week will be provided with an assigned workspace.<\/p>\n
The new plan will remain in place until “sufficient workspace” becomes available, the memo went on to state.<\/p>\n
“This flip-flop confirms exactly what we\u2019ve been stating from the beginning: forcing everyone to return to the office is a logistical mess,” the Public Service Alliance of Canada union said in an emailed statement.<\/p>\n
Ongoing renos also cited<\/p>\n
The department has decided to implement a “phased” return-to-office approach due to “ongoing renovation work that is limiting available workspace,” according to the memo.<\/p>\n
Entitled “New approach to increasing on-site presence at headquarters and regional offices,” the document does not specify the date when unionized employees will eventually have to be on site four days a week.<\/p>\n
Radio-Canada has reached out to GAC for comment. The department had 7,657 employees as of last year.<\/p>\n
The department also announced it is introducing a “standardized annual telework agreement renewal cycle,” saying it will provide “greater clarity and predictability” in workspace management.<\/p>\n
Telework agreements must be renewed in order to take effect on Sept. 15.<\/p>\n
Radio-Canada has also reached out to the Treasury Board for comment.<\/p>\n
Others may follow suit: union<\/p>\n
Sean O’Reilly, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, believes GAC won’t be the only department to reverse course on its return-to-office plans.<\/p>\n
“It’s refreshing to finally have a department realize what we’ve been saying for months \u2014 that there’s not enough space,” O’Reilly said told CBC.<\/p>\n
“I wouldn’t be surprised if more departments [start] making similar announcements over the next couple of weeks.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Global Affairs Canada (GAC) says most of its employees will not be required to work in the office…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[17,8769,8768,8771,7702,8770],"class_list":["post-16910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-canada","tag-gac","tag-global-affairs-canada","tag-office-space","tag-radio-canada","tag-unionized-employees"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}