Deachman: Serving the Canadian public should be all that matters in return-to-office debate

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Imagine you’re returning home from a day trip in upstate New York. You’ve just rolled up to the customs booth at the Ogdensburg-Prescott International Bridge, only to discover a message taped to the window. “Call me,” it reads, above a hand-scrawled phone number. You call the number and reach a Canada Border Services Agency employee. She works from home three days a week, she explains. This is one of those days.

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In hindsight, you probably shouldn’t have responded with a snarky comment, but we can’t change the past, can we? And so you wait for the arrival of the two CBSA agents she’s dispatched to dismantle your car. As they also work from home, it may be a while.

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Of course, that’s a ridiculously exaggerated scenario (we hope). But it serves to underline the single question that ought to be answered when deciding who in the public service may and may not work remotely, and how often: Is the public being served? That’s why they’re there, after all. Public service — it’s even built into the name.

Clearly, border workers need to be at the border, just as Canadian Coast Guard workers who perform search-and-rescue operations on the high seas need to be on the high seas. Similarly, public servants who directly serve the needs of the public need to be where the public can find them.

In short, people need to be where they can do their jobs.

So if people are standing longer in line than necessary at the passport office or listening to pan flautist Zamfir’s entire repertoire while on hold because someone isn’t by the phone in their 12th-floor office or at a service counter, then that worker needs to saddle up and get out of the house. If recent hires in the public service can’t do their jobs properly because they need someone to show them the ropes, those mentors need to put on a shirt and tie — and pants — and skedaddle off to work.

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If, on the other hand, a public servant’s job can be done just as effectively from home without at all compromising the public good, then by all means let them work from their La-Z-Boy in their jammies.

So much of the noise about remote work has been just that: noise. The argument that government workers are needed in the office to rejuvenate Ottawa’s downtown core, for example, misses the point. As worried as we in Ottawa ought to be about the future of downtown, it’s not the job of individual public servants to fix that.

There’s also the argument, by many online commenters, that public servants working from home are simply screwing the pooch. I’ve always believed that people who slack off at work will do so no matter where they are. If I’m wrong and that’s part of the government’s reasoning, it would be nice for it to explicitly say so and provide data that supports that contention. Yet, by its own admission, the Treasury Board Secretariat hasn’t undertaken any studies on productivity or collaboration that would support its decision, which is alarming. Nor, at least according to the Public Service Alliance of Canada and other unions whose members are directly affected, did the government consult its rank-and-file workers.

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By my reading of the letter of agreement on telework between PSAC and the Treasury Board, it doesn’t have to. While there’s a mechanism to address employees’ dissatisfaction with decisions resulting from government directives, the feds really hold the power. “Telework arrangements can be initiated by the employee, are voluntary and require the mutual agreement of the employee and the Deputy Head or the authorized representative within each department or organization,” the letter states.

Further, “Telework is not a right or an entitlement of the employee unless agreed upon in connection with the duty to accommodate.”

The wording of a similar letter of agreement between the province and the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) is even clearer. “The parties recognize that the Employer has the right to deny, alter or require modern and flexible work arrangements,” it says. “The Employer’s exercise of discretion pursuant to this letter shall not be grievable.”

Still, I’m reminded of what Abacus Data CEO David Coletto said to me early on in the COVID-19 outbreak, that the trend towards hybrid work was already underway when the virus hit; the pandemic simply hastened it. “People have always wanted more flexibility to decide when and how they work, and those who have the ability to do it now expect this to be the norm,” he said in 2021.

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Judging by the current rancour, the issue is far from settled. The provincial agreement expires at the end of this year, and the federal one in June of next year. We can expect 2025 to be anything but calm on the public service front.

Meanwhile, the genie of working from home won’t easily be stuffed back into its bottle. For many people, the option to work from home has become an important checkmark in the life/work-balance column. Governments should consider whether tamping down that option instead of using it as a drawing card will attract the best workers, and whether that will best serve the public. Because, at the end of the day, public service is their business.

Born in Fort William, Ont., a city that no longer appears on maps, Bruce Deachman has called Ottawa home for most of his life. As a columnist with the Citizen, he works at keeping Ottawa on the map. You can reach him at bdeachman@postmedia.com. You can also support his work and our mission to share information that keeps you plugged into life in Ottawa by purchasing a digital subscription at https://www.ottawacitizen.com/subscribe

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