[Greenspace]

^Yes, I read that as well. That's the union's perspective.

 

[CplKlinger]

Unionized workers voted Knack in. His answers are consistent with appealing to that constituency, not about what's best for Downtown.

Would it not be better if the city instead stuck with hybrid so that it could proceed with selling the two surplus office buildings as planned, and put the sale proceeds, along with some savings from the upcoming renewal work that would no longer occur, toward extending the Student Housing Accelerator or some other incentives for residential developments/business attraction?

 

[itom987]

I'm impressed with Knack, he has been more active than Sohi was as Mayor so far.

 

[Offworld]

From a quick online search - a recent cbc story.

"The hybrid work agreement isn’t enshrined in the collective agreements for city staff, but Bryce Jowett, president of CSU 52, said ending hybrid work would go against the spirit of what was agreed to at the bargaining table."

What garbage logic. It wasn't agreed to and that means it was agreed to.

Unions: who in this day and age can honestly defend them!

 

[kcantor]

I think one of the things that keeps getting missed here is that city employees don’t do their work in a vacuum that is independent of other employees out the public. The more flexible their schedules are, the more difficult it is to arrange meetings between departments and more difficult yet to arrange meetings with outside parties requiring city services or providing services to the city. The individuals may appear to be equally productive and handling just as many files but each of those files can end up taking longer to resolve. From a downtown perspective it’s not just that the employees are downtown, all of their meetings and everyone attending them are also downtown. At one time the city of Vancouver used to work a modified fortnight schedule Monday to Thursday one week and Tuesday to Friday the following week. Half the staff would get the extra long weekend one week and the other half would get theirs on the alternate weekends. What Ross meant was the city was effectively fully open for business three days a week (Tuesday through Thursday). The inefficiencies were primarily borne by the private sector… interestingly enough, there is no real savings on office space as the space needed Tuesday though Thursday is the same.

Staggering the WFH days across the full workweek might save on individual workspaces for those that can work from hoteling stations but It doesn’t reduce the space needed for those requiring permanent spaces our offices and doesn’t reduce what’s needed for receptions or meeting rooms or mail rooms or lunch rooms or washrooms or file rooms…. It’s also worth noting that those savings are offset by never having full staff contingents available, never mind only having them not available 40% of the time.

 

[thommyjo]

To me, the WFH discussion shouldn’t be about downtowns or economic recovery of local businesses, but about productivity of the workers.

I run an organization that’s fully remote, but it’s small and therefore enables high accountability and ownership of outcomes. To me, I think that works, but even still there can be downsides.

But when I think back to my time at a big accounting firm, I would never let a company like that be WFH if I was a manager. Too little incentive for employees to honour their time and too easy to “hide” in the size of company.

I think that’s a risk as well for a lot of city departments. And anecdotally, at the provincial level, I have a few friends that proudly talked about walking dogs, watching Netflix, and scrolling tiktok during their workdays. So I think the bureaucracy and lack of “profit-driven” management gives way to higher risk for time theft and inefficiency.

 

[TAS]

To me, the WFH discussion shouldn’t be about downtowns or economic recovery of local businesses, but about productivity of the workers.

I run an organization that’s fully remote, but it’s small and therefore enables high accountability and ownership of outcomes. To me, I think that works, but even still there can be downsides.

But when I think back to my time at a big accounting firm, I would never let a company like that be WFH if I was a manager. Too little incentive for employees to honour their time and too easy to “hide” in the size of company.

I think that’s a risk as well for a lot of city departments. And anecdotally, at the provincial level, I have a few friends that proudly talked about walking dogs, watching Netflix, and scrolling tiktok during their workdays. So I think the bureaucracy and lack of “profit-driven” management gives way to higher risk for time theft and inefficiency.

I'm not sure how many 311 operators the city has, as an example, but I wonder what the productivity benefit would be to have a position like this in the office versus WFH. These types of positions are usually monitored in terms of volume of calls they take in, how much time per call etc. I don't see as much benefit of being in the office every day.

I go into the office everyday but my colleague I work closely with is almost always WFH (2 or 3 days per month at the office) and she is just as productive as me if not more. She has two young kids and they are often sick and it goes through the household. But she will often work all or part of some of those days - if her only option was to work in office, she would not be coming in on those days when she is not well or where she may need to stay home with her kids.

Overall, I have realized some productivity benefits of working in the office that trump WFH for me and the position I have, but when I look at the various types of roles and circumstances I encounter with my colleagues, I recognize there are also notable benefits to a flexible workstyle and in some cases a primarily WFH position with periodic days in office for in person team trainings, connections and collaborations.

On some brutal weather days, I also see a lot of downsides and lost productivity to having to commute to the office.

 

[thommyjo]

I'm not sure how many 311 operators the city has, as an example, but I wonder what the productivity benefit would be to have a position like this in the office versus WFH. These types of positions are usually monitored in terms of volume of calls they take in, how much time per call etc. I don't see as much benefit of being in the office every day.

I go into the office everyday but my colleague I work closely with is almost always WFH (2 or 3 days per month at the office) and she is just as productive as me if not more. She has two young kids and they are often sick and it goes through the household. But she will often work all or part of some of those days - if her only option was to work in office, she would not be coming in on those days when she is not well or where she may need to stay home with her kids.

Overall, I have realized some productivity benefits of working in the office that trump WFH for me and the position I have, but when I look at the various types of roles and circumstances I encounter with my colleagues, I recognize there are also notable benefits to a flexible workstyle and in some cases a primarily WFH position with periodic days in office for in person team trainings, connections and collaborations.

On some brutal weather days, I also see a lot of downsides and lost productivity to having to commute to the office.

100% agree. Certain jobs are better than others for WFH. Something like 311 where the oversight of calls is so easy to track is great. Jobs that are higher admin, work across lots of departments, and have less task orientation are a bigger concern though. Easier to live as a middle man email pusher and pretend you’re working when you’re just barely keeping enough activity going to not be “caught”. This is well documented online that hundreds of thousands are scamming companies like this. And it can happen in the office sometimes too, but not as easily.

 

[Greenspace]

Would it not be better if the city instead stuck with hybrid so that it could proceed with selling the two surplus office buildings as planned, and put the sale proceeds, along with some savings from the upcoming renewal work that would no longer occur, toward extending the Student Housing Accelerator or some other incentives for residential developments/business attraction?

Great idea, except that when the buildings sell, the revenues will just go into general funds. Rarely does any Council restrict them in this way. I'd love if Downtown money went into Downtown things.

 

[Gus Haynes]

A realist: https://edmontonjournal.com/news/do...wntown-as-provincial-workers-return-to-office

Thousands of Alberta government employees returned to on-location work full-time this week, but some Edmontonians are split on what that means for Downtown.

Chocolatier Brett Roy is skeptical about whether there will be increased foot traffic to his business, Sweet Lollapalooza, located on the first floor of Commerce Place.

“I just don’t think they’re the ones that spend money, the government workers,” Roy said.

He’s been at this location for 18 years and said during the pandemic his sales dropped by around 60 per cent as he went from five employees to just himself.

His bottom line was affected when several major corporate anchor tenants moved out.

“The professional outfits that used to be here, they would spend more money on corporate gifts and whatnot,” Roy said.

So even with the news of a few thousand more workers coming to the core each day, Roy is setting his sights on moving his businesses south of the river.

 

[policyenthusiast]

A realist: https://edmontonjournal.com/news/do...wntown-as-provincial-workers-return-to-office

After all, everyone knows that... government employees don't want chocolate? Is that the claim?

 

[CplKlinger]

Great idea, except that when the buildings sell, the revenues will just go into general funds. Rarely does any Council restrict them in this way. I'd love if Downtown money went into Downtown things.

I know it would go into general funds, but there would be nothing stopping council from making that decision either. It's just a matter of requesting an unfunded service package, and then funding said package. I'm just saying I think we could get a better bang for our buck on downtown revitalization than by getting Edmonton's office staff in the office an additional three days per week.

 

[policyenthusiast]

I know it would go into general funds, but there would be nothing stopping council from making that decision either. It's just a matter of requesting an unfunded service package, and then funding said package. I'm just saying I think we could get a better bang for our buck on downtown revitalization than by getting Edmonton's office staff in the office an additional three days per week.

If it were so simple as throwing money at the problem for the billionth time, it would have happened already.

 

[Gus Haynes]

After all, everyone knows that... government employees don't want chocolate? Is that the claim?

I would imagine that after 18 years of business, he knows his clientele. If he was making the bulk of his money doing corporate gift packages as opposed to walk-ins, you could understand why he feels that a few extra public servant butts in Commerce Place isn't going to move his bottom line much.

It is a shame, though -- Commerce Place's retail was never really great, but it's pretty much non-existent now.

 

[CplKlinger]

If it were so simple as throwing money at the problem for the billionth time, it would have happened already.

But that's what RTO basically is - throwing money at offices in the hopes that workers throw money at businesses. I'm not saying it's as simple as throwing money at the problem, I'm just saying if the city were to spend money, that there are better things to spend it on than office space for city workers.