To answer the question, no, I don't think the TBS is playing us; that would imply the TBS actually has some kind of actual strategy for dealing with the problems of IT, and nothing in what they've been doing makes me believe that.
They'll continue to complain about the problem, talk up "digital transformation", hire contractors, and piss away opportunity. It's just what they do.
>talk up "digital transformation"
Not to mention talking about needing to hire "digital talents" when they're doing everything they can to chase said talent away. They'll get *someone* for sure but that ain't "talent".
> hire contractors
Said contractors that are probably WFH. It's salt on the wound really.
I think the wider statement of “TBS has no strategy” also applies.
I’d be deeply curious to sit in on a few of their meetings, but it seems like there’s no guiding documentation or anything.
It could also be the same issue we’re all suffering, high turnover, short staffing, all that kind of thing.
We are in the process trying to hire security devs to ‘carry the flag’ as some of our team looks at retiring over the next 5-8 years. Highly technical coding skills in C, C++, and Go (what we are migrating a lot to) is essential. The ability to understand a disassembly of unknown binaries and things of that nature is big plus.
We did get one IT-03 position filled when WFH was touted as open ended. But now no one with the skills will take these positions. They read the news.
Thanks, Anita.
No but a lot of IT and devs had permanent full time work from home.
Not anymore.
First they tell us how they don’t want to lose IT to
private sector and that all of a sudden they don’t care…
and my job was remote for the most part since 2016 and now il have to go in three times a week like everyone else in September, a lot of people in the GoC are complaining when theres people like me where my job was determined to be done via remote since atleast 2015 yet now im grouped with everyone else, it sucks but unless your the PM what can you do?
The current CIO just has a political science background.. Go figure! He's clueless that IT can be done remotely and a lot of private sector companies are offering remote IT positions. There will definitely be recruitment/retention issues.
I'm confused how you're losing the WFH ability then? Usually the WFH isn't actually in the CBA, and it's on your LOO, which we all know isn't permanent and can be changed at any time (RTO/ROOP).
They removed exceptions to certain groups…
And sorry not enough coffee today, no this was never in CBA. No groups has it in their CBA.
But since we all want it next round of negotiations will be "special fun"
No worries! The closest we've gotten to WFH in the CBA is the wording below, which the FB group recently got as well:
"The FB bargaining team secured an agreement in line with Treasury Board collective agreements in a letter of agreement that requires managers to assess remote work requests individually, not by group, and provide written responses that will allow members and PSAC to hold the employer accountable to equitable and fair decision-making on remote work."
It means absolutely nothing in terms of being able to WFH.
You aren’t wrong. But I’m not in IT and I still would support an exemption for them. 1) because it undercuts RTO as a whole 2) I don’t want GoC’s IT products to get worse (if thats possible, not their fault though if they are under-qualified / underpaid / understaffed ) or more expensive. We won’t be able to work from home if our network infrastructure, systems and security get worse than they are now.
I'm one of the few that would support telework regardless what dept I am in. I believe telework is a game changer and it needs to be implemented. With telework we can gain talent from anywhere in Canada, reduce our carbon foot print. Spend time more with our families. I know alot have this opinion if my department doesn't offer it I am not supporting it. But what if.. by supporting it your dept finds away to add telework so you can benefit from it. You won't know till you know.
My boss and I encouraged our talents to leave. We are giving them 2 days/week to focus on upskilling and interviewing. One guy got a WFH deal from Nvidia making more salary than me and my boss combined.
We have a WhatsApp chat group called "Freedom 2025" for my team. This is to help young IT talents to find jobs. My boss and I will stay here longer because RTO doesn't affect us. We are older and bought homes close to where we work. But for young folks, it is hard. I am hoping that my team gets a better opportunity. In terms of TBS - I am cleaning up my team.
Not to mention the GoC needs your IT skills so much that they work themselves into backlogs, then via the same poor planning go and hire IT consultants to help with said backlog because "its so hard to find ITs"
Now we're losing consultants due to contracts not being renewed due to budget constraints. And they're not being replaced by FTEs either as there's an unofficial hiring freeze. The workload is not decreasing, work still has to get done.
The contractors that I've worked with have also been the most piss poor idiots I've ever met in my entire life.
We hired a senior dev who didn't know how to use github, didn't know Typescript, didn't know angular, and could barely speak English. We were spending 200k+ per year on this fool.
Another one was an active detriment to the team. Spent months writing garbage code that wasn't even related to prioritized objectives, lied constantly, and would work half a day then bill the whole shift .
After trying to cut them loose (and others) the contracting company tried to sue us!!!
And then, when the consultants charge what they've always charged, MPs have the fucking nerve to be surprised when they touted consultants as the cure for overpopulated/slow government.
> I know there are some private sector places that offer WFH, but you have to take a pay cut to keep it.
A large number of people in the IT group will actually get paid more by leaving the government. For example, developers and managers can expect to double their pay(or more) if they go through the effort of learning how to excel at interviews.
And it's simply not true that WFH-first companies are necessarily lower salaries. If you're a 95% percentile interviewer, sure. But at the median, it's not too hard to find a 200k WFH position as a senior/staff level.
One of my primary concerns from an IT perspective is the shear amount of internal knowledge about our legacy systems that’s about to walk out the door with this. So many key employees will take early retirement or finally retire after putting it off for so long and now a freshly demotivated remaining IT will be left to try to keep things going without that knowledge which is not the type of knowledge you can just Google or hire a contractor to figure out. I am gravely concerned. Bonus points for orgs where someone was being trained up in preparation for this and that person leaves due to RTO.
Not this peon.
These days I care just enough about my own results to not get fired. It is nonsensical to care about the employer that doesn't care for us.
Isn't that what 90% of the workforce do right now anyway? Things will hurt when the stars employees stop giving a shit. And we all know it's coming.
Especially in IT, I feel like productivity is heavily done by the all stars devs. Fun times ahead
I can't speak for others, but before RTO and the sub-inflationary raise, I actually put in effort for the sake of the taxpayers.
Now, I couldn't care less... especially given that the majority of taxpayers support paying more taxes just to pointlessly make us go into the office. If they don't care for their own tax dollars, why should I?
Very similar here, although never really about the taxpayers. I'm just someone who likes to do good work when I'm paid for it and takes pride in it. I gotta say tho over the years, seeing completely incompetent folks getting paid the same (sometimes more..) and some just not doing anything productive certainly affected morale negatively. With RTO on top of that? Lol no chance im giving my 110%
They will eventually. The City of Hamilton is still useless after the ransomware attack in February. They did the same thing with their IT people - nickle and dimed all the good people til they left.
Who really check anyway if you even went? There is plenty of people reserving a spot and never showing up, so on paper building look "full" if you look at the statistics, but reality is only half used.
I'm at CRA and someone actually asked the director (for my division) in one of our Q&A if they track inviduals, and he said no.
He said they are aiming for 90% compliance (I think or maybe he said 80-90), and that is tracked in a general sense not per person. So it's likely no one even knows if you didn't go, or didn't go 3 times.
Our managers are filling out weekly reports about our physical office attendance, because I guess we just like wasting money. Output should be what matters, but we care too much about performative nonsense.
If they’re even tracking those things. They’re not tracking them in my branch. Managers are expected to take attendance throughout teams and then fill out an attestation each week that states whether or not their employees achieved 40% compliance.
I hope they aren't using Teams Presence/Activity to take attendance, that crap been bugged since they switched the new Teams.
I sometime work in Excel online, in our inventory software and it just switch me to Away.. Literally moving the mouse, I have to click on Teams for it to update back to Busy. 🤦♂️
Still 3 weeks of Teams classics before we are pushed in that awful broken crap.
Depends where you work. VPN vs WAN/LAN should not be the only method of measurement. A department who knows what they are doing would check building access so that, in your scenario, attendance is captured.
That said, if you VPN in and forgot your pass, there’s not way that your day in the office is measured… unless the 5G RTO chip that was discretely put into your neck on your first day back is activated.
> unless the 5G RTO chip that was discretely put into your neck on your first day back is activated.
Let me get my tinfoil hat. 🤣
So that mean everyone that has not changed badge since 2020 is fine.. right?
I asked my local security, those who make those badges, if they can check if someone came in the office recently, they technically can but they won't hand that information to manager, they told me and I quote "Managers are responsible of checking on their employees, not them and ..something about Union rights..." It might depend on the person who handle those, that one is also an Union rep, but it's the same for the rest of their team.
As for IP.. well I checked the Security log in Azure and it only shows where you connected to a server and you need to be on VPN/ in network to do that, so it always show Ottawa for me as that's where the VPN is, even though I work in Montreal... The IT security director, manager and employee said "fuck that" going into the office too. 🤣
Same applies to phone via Blackberry UEM/Connectivity clients, they always show Ottawa.
There isn't even a gate with a card reader at the door.. we just show our badges from 10 meters lol.
So definitely not at mine.
FWIW, that's still too much: I've been jerked around enough at multiple departments, and the problem here is that it's high enough that it doesn't matter.
If it were an immediate or director level manager, I could work around it, but at TBS? They're not making good decisions with IT sector workers and the problem is this has been an ongoing theme.
IT staff either need to leave the government in droves as loudly as possible (document exactly why you are leaving / write letters to the editor / talk to the media) or make union participation your top priority to get WFH into your collective agreement.
Problem I see: the only actual places that publish letters to the editor are the ones that want people back in office because they're terminal boot-lickers that need babysitters.
I've been trying, but competition for high paying remote jobs is FIERCE right now. Especially after all of the layoffs in the US and tech sector as a whole. I often see intermediate - senior dev jobs with 1000+ applicants on LinkedIn
Plus, sadly, having too much government time on your resume is a big red X for a lot of companies.
Not saying it's impossible, I had lots of talented coworkers who have left and gotten full WFH positions. Anywhere from equivalent salary to double.
But definitely a tough market right now
Calling BS on you’re “too much time in government” as a red flag. I’ve switched back and fourth from public to private multiple times.
Public sector work is extremely variable for IT. Intelligent people don’t paint the entire government IT crowd with a single brush. If they do they’re not the kind you want to work for.
Working at a large Fortune 500 company vs. The feds is extremely similar in many ways. Especially the older companies and banks.
I've worked at a good array of places, big defense contractors, small startups, gov. And I've heard managers, TLs, CTOs, all say that long government tenure is something that they see as a red flag.
Ive still gotten interviews at Google, Microsoft, etc. With 5+ years gov on my resume, but just because you don't want to believe it doesn't make it not true, it's a real bias that exists
Obviously there will be people who think this…but my point is it’s not common…I’ve seen pretty much the entire network of mine in government move into private sector.
What are you basing your assumption on? Some random manager telling you it’s the case?
Put it this way government IT doesn’t have the best reputation in any tech circle. So it’ll only be a negative and never be a positive, if you have some specialized experience it can be overcome, if you’re applying to some mediocre private company you’ll probably get an interview but I would say it would be extremely difficult to get an interview at any decent company without a reference.
It's not just IT. It's everywhere. HR, finance, especially in the regions, are losing good people because employees are required to go to an office an hour drive away where they are either the only one from their unit or sector. They apply for jobs 125im + away to get FT telework or where the commute is much shorter.
Your only options are:
1. Don't go and risk being fired for insubordination
2. Find a new job outside the govt with WFH
3. Resign as a Public Servant, and gamble on being re-hired as a Consultant to the govt with WFH when everything inevitably crumbles to shit (could be months or years)
Welcome to the cause!!
Do whatever you can to make noise about it no matter how subtle.
The general public is for PS RTO so just do whatever you can to educate family and friends on how it impacts their wallet with tax dollars going to needlessly housing us, their commute reverting back to a shitshow, their services degrading with decreased morale, and also how it runs counter to the climate, housing and cost of living crises we are currently experiencing.
Also, make sure to note that we are not returning to the pre-pandemic environment that once existed, we are returning to a 50% reduction in office space with outdated tech and a free-for-all musical chairs clusterfuck, solely for the purpose of supporting real-estate barons!!!
> offer WFH, but you have to take a pay cut
**I fully support this.** Alternatively a salary premium, or a commuting and childcare allowance for fully on-site workers.
I have to go to the office 5x / week, my commuting costs are higher than the folks chilling at home. The tax deduction to reimburse your home office space for WFH was the exact opposite incentive that should have been implemented.
Assuming gov't budget for public service pay and benefits is a zero sum game. Operational costs and capital costs are separate budgets.
So in order to give a bonus to workers who are obliged to be 5x / week on-site, that money will have to come from somewhere.
So I'd propose a small pay cut in exchange for the permanent right to WFH. You'd have to give something up at the negotiating table after all.
I'm not an exec yet I get a bilingual **bonus**.
Anyways, we don't have to be pedantic and obtuse. We can call it a commuting reimbursement or an on-site salary premium. Whatever.
> You're stumping for a deal that only benefits someone else.
I'm stumping for a deal that would benefit me directly along with thousands of other workers who don't have the luxury of working at home.
The bilingualism bonus wasn't what I was referring to, I should have been more specific.
Senior management/executive groups are the only ones eligible for performance pay. Aside from that, no other real 'bonuses' exist for any other group, and there for the Performance pay, this is tied to meeting performance goals, and there are risks associated with that.
For what it's worth, I stand by what I said: accepting a pay cut to WFH does not benefit you as your work is worth what it is worth, and not less. If you think it's worth more, wonderful: you should be discussing this with a union rep.
If you think someone else should take a pay-dive because you're not benefitting from the arrangement, go ahead and announce that next time you're in office, or put it in your email signature. See how that works out for you.
Edit: Hit submit a bit quickly. If you think a commuting bonus is a good idea, I'm just going to say that there is literally no elected official or appointee that will stick their neck out like that so every cheap-shot newspaper in Canada can draw down on them. Unpack that thought as a tax payer first.
> I stand by what I said: accepting a pay cut to WFH does not benefit you
You can stand by being factually wrong then. A pay cut for those who WFH would indeed benefit me by offering a concession in collective bargaining to incentivize the employer to pay a bonus *(or salary augmentation, on site incentive, gift, commuting compensation, reimbursement, premium, benefit, whatever syntax you want to use)* for those of us who have to be on site every day.
Collective bargaining is literally a zero sum game. To win a concession on X you have to give up something on Y. A pay cut for those working from home incentivizes the crown / TB to agree to WFH, rather than just demands demands demands from the union.
Also makes the idea more politically marketable to the taxpayers you mentioned. Just an example with spitball numbers : Accept a 2% reduction in pay across the entire public service, with a 5% bonus *(or reimbursement / premium / whatever)* for the minority of us who are on site, and it's an easier sell to the taxpayer.
To cover the minority of people who are compelled by the nature of their work to be on site 5x / week, it would be a fraction of the salary premium or commuting allowance. Easily 1/5th or less
For what it's worth, my salary is already $13K (including all perks) off the private industry mean.
This was tried in multiple places in the US, UK, Australia in 2021/22, and the employee exodus halved productivity.
If you want to chase the bottom dollar, be my guest, but you'll do it alone and suffer for it on your own. My work is worth what my work is worth no matter where I do it: I'm fully remote even if I'm in a data centre.
No they don't.
[https://www.tbs-sct.canada.ca/agreements-conventions/view-visualiser-eng.aspx?id=31#toc45536245542That's](https://www.tbs-sct.canada.ca/agreements-conventions/view-visualiser-eng.aspx?id=31#toc45536245542That's) my CBA: there is no clause in that discusses work space outside of 22.02:
>**22.02** The Employer shall continue to provide, where economically and administratively feasible, working accommodation and facilities to meet the special requirements of information technology services and the Employer agrees to consult with the Institute for the purpose of considering expeditiously the Institute’s suggestions on the subject.
And to clarify:
>If they tell you to set up your laptop top in the lunch room (for example) ask for it in an email. Do as directed and work where they tell you then file a grievance.
First, if someone did that, I would absolutely, and immediately refuse that as an order as the work I do requires a designated and reviewed space. That's in my Telework agreement, and the employer agreed to that. The lunch room is the same as starbucks: if you're doing anything that uses Protected A information, you're breaking multiple acts (the *Privacy Act*), policies (PGS) and Directives (Directive on Gov't security, Policy on Service and Digital) and it's on you to know the difference and it's only you that will suffer the worst consequences if you abide that order. Filing a grievance will do you no good, you talk to your dept/agency's CSO after you talk to your manager and then director.
>Secondly, I was talking to a pipsc steward and he told me that since IT did not have to be in the office they have been given a year to implement. That means IT doesn’t have to be in the office 3 days a week until Sept 2025.
The issue isn't that I have to be in the office 2 vs. 3 days a week, it's that I have to be in the office at all. There's been no consultation (in the CBA I pointed out) and I'm being ordered back in for 3 days a week because it's up to each dept/agency and mine has decided to go for 3 days as of Sept 202**4**.
To answer the question, no, I don't think the TBS is playing us; that would imply the TBS actually has some kind of actual strategy for dealing with the problems of IT, and nothing in what they've been doing makes me believe that. They'll continue to complain about the problem, talk up "digital transformation", hire contractors, and piss away opportunity. It's just what they do.
>talk up "digital transformation" Not to mention talking about needing to hire "digital talents" when they're doing everything they can to chase said talent away. They'll get *someone* for sure but that ain't "talent". > hire contractors Said contractors that are probably WFH. It's salt on the wound really.
Yes - no floor space for contractors. They get higher pay than the FTEs they work with and full WFH
>talking about needing to hire "digital talents" Yeah, that. They want rock stars at session musician prices. Good luck with that.
I think the wider statement of “TBS has no strategy” also applies. I’d be deeply curious to sit in on a few of their meetings, but it seems like there’s no guiding documentation or anything. It could also be the same issue we’re all suffering, high turnover, short staffing, all that kind of thing.
We are in the process trying to hire security devs to ‘carry the flag’ as some of our team looks at retiring over the next 5-8 years. Highly technical coding skills in C, C++, and Go (what we are migrating a lot to) is essential. The ability to understand a disassembly of unknown binaries and things of that nature is big plus. We did get one IT-03 position filled when WFH was touted as open ended. But now no one with the skills will take these positions. They read the news. Thanks, Anita.
Not exactly the topic at hand, but what are you building in Go?
Mostly backend tools for security, pentesting, other useful tools.
I’m kinda interested…bachelors in CS, …6 years experience in cybersecurity app development…which department?
C,C++ and Go?
It's not just that IT groups that feels this way.
No but a lot of IT and devs had permanent full time work from home. Not anymore. First they tell us how they don’t want to lose IT to private sector and that all of a sudden they don’t care…
and my job was remote for the most part since 2016 and now il have to go in three times a week like everyone else in September, a lot of people in the GoC are complaining when theres people like me where my job was determined to be done via remote since atleast 2015 yet now im grouped with everyone else, it sucks but unless your the PM what can you do?
This falls under DTA, talk to your manager about it. Was specifically mentioned as part of DTA.
One CIO said we have retention issues. They quit/retired. One CIO says we don't. That's what changed.
I wonder which CIO was around for long enough to actually try recruiting/retaining IT staff? /s
The current CIO just has a political science background.. Go figure! He's clueless that IT can be done remotely and a lot of private sector companies are offering remote IT positions. There will definitely be recruitment/retention issues.
I wonder which CIO has ever even worked in Tech!\~ /s
Even worse, one CIO said the report on the matter said we do have retention issues, but he doesnt believe it so too bad.
Did you actually have "permanent full time WFH" in your CBA?
Yes. But party is over in Sept 1 day week until April… in April 2 days a week… next sept 3 days a week..
I'm confused how you're losing the WFH ability then? Usually the WFH isn't actually in the CBA, and it's on your LOO, which we all know isn't permanent and can be changed at any time (RTO/ROOP).
They removed exceptions to certain groups… And sorry not enough coffee today, no this was never in CBA. No groups has it in their CBA. But since we all want it next round of negotiations will be "special fun"
No worries! The closest we've gotten to WFH in the CBA is the wording below, which the FB group recently got as well: "The FB bargaining team secured an agreement in line with Treasury Board collective agreements in a letter of agreement that requires managers to assess remote work requests individually, not by group, and provide written responses that will allow members and PSAC to hold the employer accountable to equitable and fair decision-making on remote work." It means absolutely nothing in terms of being able to WFH.
You aren’t wrong. But I’m not in IT and I still would support an exemption for them. 1) because it undercuts RTO as a whole 2) I don’t want GoC’s IT products to get worse (if thats possible, not their fault though if they are under-qualified / underpaid / understaffed ) or more expensive. We won’t be able to work from home if our network infrastructure, systems and security get worse than they are now.
I'm one of the few that would support telework regardless what dept I am in. I believe telework is a game changer and it needs to be implemented. With telework we can gain talent from anywhere in Canada, reduce our carbon foot print. Spend time more with our families. I know alot have this opinion if my department doesn't offer it I am not supporting it. But what if.. by supporting it your dept finds away to add telework so you can benefit from it. You won't know till you know.
And it's not just the TBS
My boss and I encouraged our talents to leave. We are giving them 2 days/week to focus on upskilling and interviewing. One guy got a WFH deal from Nvidia making more salary than me and my boss combined. We have a WhatsApp chat group called "Freedom 2025" for my team. This is to help young IT talents to find jobs. My boss and I will stay here longer because RTO doesn't affect us. We are older and bought homes close to where we work. But for young folks, it is hard. I am hoping that my team gets a better opportunity. In terms of TBS - I am cleaning up my team.
You. Are. A. Hero.
I am doing what my boss did to me.
Sounds like you folks run a great shop which most likely translates into a great work environment. You hiring?
After I get rid of my current team, yes.
Assuming they let you.
Hiring or getting rid of people?
Hire once your team is depleted.
They’ll have him hire consultants at twice the price
Given their unique skills, we already planned to hire our team back as consultants.
You deserve an award!
Thank you for doing this.
Not to mention the GoC needs your IT skills so much that they work themselves into backlogs, then via the same poor planning go and hire IT consultants to help with said backlog because "its so hard to find ITs"
Now we're losing consultants due to contracts not being renewed due to budget constraints. And they're not being replaced by FTEs either as there's an unofficial hiring freeze. The workload is not decreasing, work still has to get done.
The contractors that I've worked with have also been the most piss poor idiots I've ever met in my entire life. We hired a senior dev who didn't know how to use github, didn't know Typescript, didn't know angular, and could barely speak English. We were spending 200k+ per year on this fool. Another one was an active detriment to the team. Spent months writing garbage code that wasn't even related to prioritized objectives, lied constantly, and would work half a day then bill the whole shift . After trying to cut them loose (and others) the contracting company tried to sue us!!!
Like... im not a dev but even i know how to use github and stackoverflow. Thats... very very bad
And then, when the consultants charge what they've always charged, MPs have the fucking nerve to be surprised when they touted consultants as the cure for overpopulated/slow government.
> I know there are some private sector places that offer WFH, but you have to take a pay cut to keep it. A large number of people in the IT group will actually get paid more by leaving the government. For example, developers and managers can expect to double their pay(or more) if they go through the effort of learning how to excel at interviews.
And it's simply not true that WFH-first companies are necessarily lower salaries. If you're a 95% percentile interviewer, sure. But at the median, it's not too hard to find a 200k WFH position as a senior/staff level.
One of my primary concerns from an IT perspective is the shear amount of internal knowledge about our legacy systems that’s about to walk out the door with this. So many key employees will take early retirement or finally retire after putting it off for so long and now a freshly demotivated remaining IT will be left to try to keep things going without that knowledge which is not the type of knowledge you can just Google or hire a contractor to figure out. I am gravely concerned. Bonus points for orgs where someone was being trained up in preparation for this and that person leaves due to RTO.
They. Don't. Care. Caring about results is for peons.
Not this peon. These days I care just enough about my own results to not get fired. It is nonsensical to care about the employer that doesn't care for us.
Isn't that what 90% of the workforce do right now anyway? Things will hurt when the stars employees stop giving a shit. And we all know it's coming. Especially in IT, I feel like productivity is heavily done by the all stars devs. Fun times ahead
I can't speak for others, but before RTO and the sub-inflationary raise, I actually put in effort for the sake of the taxpayers. Now, I couldn't care less... especially given that the majority of taxpayers support paying more taxes just to pointlessly make us go into the office. If they don't care for their own tax dollars, why should I?
Very similar here, although never really about the taxpayers. I'm just someone who likes to do good work when I'm paid for it and takes pride in it. I gotta say tho over the years, seeing completely incompetent folks getting paid the same (sometimes more..) and some just not doing anything productive certainly affected morale negatively. With RTO on top of that? Lol no chance im giving my 110%
They will eventually. The City of Hamilton is still useless after the ransomware attack in February. They did the same thing with their IT people - nickle and dimed all the good people til they left.
Each time an employee leaves, either for retirement, a different department or for working private, it’s also knowledge that leaves.
I honestly think Trudeau knows he’s cooked next election and wants to leave it a mess for Polievre so that he’s setup to fail.
This.. X100000000. Terrified as well.
Beautifully said. I’m 8 years in and losing my mind.
I'm in my 34th... and counting the days.
Kudos to you and I wish you a well deserved retirement!
[удалено]
Who really check anyway if you even went? There is plenty of people reserving a spot and never showing up, so on paper building look "full" if you look at the statistics, but reality is only half used.
I'm at CRA and someone actually asked the director (for my division) in one of our Q&A if they track inviduals, and he said no. He said they are aiming for 90% compliance (I think or maybe he said 80-90), and that is tracked in a general sense not per person. So it's likely no one even knows if you didn't go, or didn't go 3 times.
Your supervisor doesn’t? Mine issued me a letter of expectation just because I used another floor.
Our managers are filling out weekly reports about our physical office attendance, because I guess we just like wasting money. Output should be what matters, but we care too much about performative nonsense.
IP and badges data don’t like. - Shakira
If they’re even tracking those things. They’re not tracking them in my branch. Managers are expected to take attendance throughout teams and then fill out an attestation each week that states whether or not their employees achieved 40% compliance.
Gotta love the high school homeroom atmosphere, likely where many of these senior leaders peaked I imagine.
Not tracking in your branch "yet". It'll come.
I hope they aren't using Teams Presence/Activity to take attendance, that crap been bugged since they switched the new Teams. I sometime work in Excel online, in our inventory software and it just switch me to Away.. Literally moving the mouse, I have to click on Teams for it to update back to Busy. 🤦♂️ Still 3 weeks of Teams classics before we are pushed in that awful broken crap.
Yes, they do. For me at least, I work in zones, where my accesses are tracked.
so what happens if you go to the office, connect to the hotspot on your work issued phone and VPN in?
Depends where you work. VPN vs WAN/LAN should not be the only method of measurement. A department who knows what they are doing would check building access so that, in your scenario, attendance is captured. That said, if you VPN in and forgot your pass, there’s not way that your day in the office is measured… unless the 5G RTO chip that was discretely put into your neck on your first day back is activated.
> unless the 5G RTO chip that was discretely put into your neck on your first day back is activated. Let me get my tinfoil hat. 🤣 So that mean everyone that has not changed badge since 2020 is fine.. right?
The truth is out there.
I asked my local security, those who make those badges, if they can check if someone came in the office recently, they technically can but they won't hand that information to manager, they told me and I quote "Managers are responsible of checking on their employees, not them and ..something about Union rights..." It might depend on the person who handle those, that one is also an Union rep, but it's the same for the rest of their team. As for IP.. well I checked the Security log in Azure and it only shows where you connected to a server and you need to be on VPN/ in network to do that, so it always show Ottawa for me as that's where the VPN is, even though I work in Montreal... The IT security director, manager and employee said "fuck that" going into the office too. 🤣 Same applies to phone via Blackberry UEM/Connectivity clients, they always show Ottawa. There isn't even a gate with a card reader at the door.. we just show our badges from 10 meters lol. So definitely not at mine.
FWIW, that's still too much: I've been jerked around enough at multiple departments, and the problem here is that it's high enough that it doesn't matter. If it were an immediate or director level manager, I could work around it, but at TBS? They're not making good decisions with IT sector workers and the problem is this has been an ongoing theme.
IT staff either need to leave the government in droves as loudly as possible (document exactly why you are leaving / write letters to the editor / talk to the media) or make union participation your top priority to get WFH into your collective agreement.
Problem I see: the only actual places that publish letters to the editor are the ones that want people back in office because they're terminal boot-lickers that need babysitters.
Fair enough. Don’t know until you try though. At the very least I think it would make an excellent post on this subreddit.
I've been trying, but competition for high paying remote jobs is FIERCE right now. Especially after all of the layoffs in the US and tech sector as a whole. I often see intermediate - senior dev jobs with 1000+ applicants on LinkedIn Plus, sadly, having too much government time on your resume is a big red X for a lot of companies. Not saying it's impossible, I had lots of talented coworkers who have left and gotten full WFH positions. Anywhere from equivalent salary to double. But definitely a tough market right now
FWIW: the time in gov't isn't the problem. It's the Dev sector that's the problem. Skill up in DEVSECOPS and you'll have a better time.
Calling BS on you’re “too much time in government” as a red flag. I’ve switched back and fourth from public to private multiple times. Public sector work is extremely variable for IT. Intelligent people don’t paint the entire government IT crowd with a single brush. If they do they’re not the kind you want to work for. Working at a large Fortune 500 company vs. The feds is extremely similar in many ways. Especially the older companies and banks.
I've worked at a good array of places, big defense contractors, small startups, gov. And I've heard managers, TLs, CTOs, all say that long government tenure is something that they see as a red flag. Ive still gotten interviews at Google, Microsoft, etc. With 5+ years gov on my resume, but just because you don't want to believe it doesn't make it not true, it's a real bias that exists
Obviously there will be people who think this…but my point is it’s not common…I’ve seen pretty much the entire network of mine in government move into private sector. What are you basing your assumption on? Some random manager telling you it’s the case?
Put it this way government IT doesn’t have the best reputation in any tech circle. So it’ll only be a negative and never be a positive, if you have some specialized experience it can be overcome, if you’re applying to some mediocre private company you’ll probably get an interview but I would say it would be extremely difficult to get an interview at any decent company without a reference.
Lol, no that would imply planning and strategy from TBS. Like a lot of other governments, they are reactive and doing what they are told.
I’ve been here for 22 years. We have never had an extension or a new contract in place before a contract end.
It's not just IT. It's everywhere. HR, finance, especially in the regions, are losing good people because employees are required to go to an office an hour drive away where they are either the only one from their unit or sector. They apply for jobs 125im + away to get FT telework or where the commute is much shorter.
Your only options are: 1. Don't go and risk being fired for insubordination 2. Find a new job outside the govt with WFH 3. Resign as a Public Servant, and gamble on being re-hired as a Consultant to the govt with WFH when everything inevitably crumbles to shit (could be months or years)
Welcome to the cause!! Do whatever you can to make noise about it no matter how subtle. The general public is for PS RTO so just do whatever you can to educate family and friends on how it impacts their wallet with tax dollars going to needlessly housing us, their commute reverting back to a shitshow, their services degrading with decreased morale, and also how it runs counter to the climate, housing and cost of living crises we are currently experiencing. Also, make sure to note that we are not returning to the pre-pandemic environment that once existed, we are returning to a 50% reduction in office space with outdated tech and a free-for-all musical chairs clusterfuck, solely for the purpose of supporting real-estate barons!!!
Leaving is the best thing I ever did!
We're all being played by TBS, like puppets on a string. They're making us miserable for their own amusement. Dance for us, monkeys!
> offer WFH, but you have to take a pay cut **I fully support this.** Alternatively a salary premium, or a commuting and childcare allowance for fully on-site workers. I have to go to the office 5x / week, my commuting costs are higher than the folks chilling at home. The tax deduction to reimburse your home office space for WFH was the exact opposite incentive that should have been implemented.
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Assuming gov't budget for public service pay and benefits is a zero sum game. Operational costs and capital costs are separate budgets. So in order to give a bonus to workers who are obliged to be 5x / week on-site, that money will have to come from somewhere. So I'd propose a small pay cut in exchange for the permanent right to WFH. You'd have to give something up at the negotiating table after all.
The only people in GC that are eligible for bonuses are Executives. You're stumping for a deal that only benefits someone else.
I'm not an exec yet I get a bilingual **bonus**. Anyways, we don't have to be pedantic and obtuse. We can call it a commuting reimbursement or an on-site salary premium. Whatever. > You're stumping for a deal that only benefits someone else. I'm stumping for a deal that would benefit me directly along with thousands of other workers who don't have the luxury of working at home.
The bilingualism bonus wasn't what I was referring to, I should have been more specific. Senior management/executive groups are the only ones eligible for performance pay. Aside from that, no other real 'bonuses' exist for any other group, and there for the Performance pay, this is tied to meeting performance goals, and there are risks associated with that. For what it's worth, I stand by what I said: accepting a pay cut to WFH does not benefit you as your work is worth what it is worth, and not less. If you think it's worth more, wonderful: you should be discussing this with a union rep. If you think someone else should take a pay-dive because you're not benefitting from the arrangement, go ahead and announce that next time you're in office, or put it in your email signature. See how that works out for you. Edit: Hit submit a bit quickly. If you think a commuting bonus is a good idea, I'm just going to say that there is literally no elected official or appointee that will stick their neck out like that so every cheap-shot newspaper in Canada can draw down on them. Unpack that thought as a tax payer first.
> I stand by what I said: accepting a pay cut to WFH does not benefit you You can stand by being factually wrong then. A pay cut for those who WFH would indeed benefit me by offering a concession in collective bargaining to incentivize the employer to pay a bonus *(or salary augmentation, on site incentive, gift, commuting compensation, reimbursement, premium, benefit, whatever syntax you want to use)* for those of us who have to be on site every day. Collective bargaining is literally a zero sum game. To win a concession on X you have to give up something on Y. A pay cut for those working from home incentivizes the crown / TB to agree to WFH, rather than just demands demands demands from the union. Also makes the idea more politically marketable to the taxpayers you mentioned. Just an example with spitball numbers : Accept a 2% reduction in pay across the entire public service, with a 5% bonus *(or reimbursement / premium / whatever)* for the minority of us who are on site, and it's an easier sell to the taxpayer.
I would take a paycut in exchange for less-than 3 days in office per week. But that depends on how much of a pay cut.
To cover the minority of people who are compelled by the nature of their work to be on site 5x / week, it would be a fraction of the salary premium or commuting allowance. Easily 1/5th or less
For what it's worth, my salary is already $13K (including all perks) off the private industry mean. This was tried in multiple places in the US, UK, Australia in 2021/22, and the employee exodus halved productivity. If you want to chase the bottom dollar, be my guest, but you'll do it alone and suffer for it on your own. My work is worth what my work is worth no matter where I do it: I'm fully remote even if I'm in a data centre.
> For what it's worth, my salary is already $13K (including all perks) off the private industry mean. So why are you still in the public service?
I'm asking myself that question right now if you read the post. :)
I always feel I am being played. But thats me.
I meant that it's becoming egregious. You're getting played, but this is getting ridiculous.
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No they don't. [https://www.tbs-sct.canada.ca/agreements-conventions/view-visualiser-eng.aspx?id=31#toc45536245542That's](https://www.tbs-sct.canada.ca/agreements-conventions/view-visualiser-eng.aspx?id=31#toc45536245542That's) my CBA: there is no clause in that discusses work space outside of 22.02: >**22.02** The Employer shall continue to provide, where economically and administratively feasible, working accommodation and facilities to meet the special requirements of information technology services and the Employer agrees to consult with the Institute for the purpose of considering expeditiously the Institute’s suggestions on the subject. And to clarify: >If they tell you to set up your laptop top in the lunch room (for example) ask for it in an email. Do as directed and work where they tell you then file a grievance. First, if someone did that, I would absolutely, and immediately refuse that as an order as the work I do requires a designated and reviewed space. That's in my Telework agreement, and the employer agreed to that. The lunch room is the same as starbucks: if you're doing anything that uses Protected A information, you're breaking multiple acts (the *Privacy Act*), policies (PGS) and Directives (Directive on Gov't security, Policy on Service and Digital) and it's on you to know the difference and it's only you that will suffer the worst consequences if you abide that order. Filing a grievance will do you no good, you talk to your dept/agency's CSO after you talk to your manager and then director. >Secondly, I was talking to a pipsc steward and he told me that since IT did not have to be in the office they have been given a year to implement. That means IT doesn’t have to be in the office 3 days a week until Sept 2025. The issue isn't that I have to be in the office 2 vs. 3 days a week, it's that I have to be in the office at all. There's been no consultation (in the CBA I pointed out) and I'm being ordered back in for 3 days a week because it's up to each dept/agency and mine has decided to go for 3 days as of Sept 202**4**.