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TAS said:
During election, Cartmell advocated for 5 days a week. Knack countered that promise and is staying consistent to what he said at that time - contracts have already been negotiated and signed with how often city workers are in the office.
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Also, we really need to be consistent here. People complain about tax hikes and service cuts - what are they ready to sacrifice in order for the city to pay for the upcoming renewal of the office buildings they're trying to sell? Not to mention that we'd then have to pay millions down the road for ongoing operations and maintenance of those buildings for decades to come. Is that really the best use of our very limited tax dollars, rather than incentivizing residential development or something?
 
Greenspace said:
Unionized workers voted Knack in. His answers are consistent with appealing to that constituency, not about what's best for Downtown.
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Does Knack have the ability to unilaterally change the current workers contract, or as mayor is he required to honour what has been signed and agreed to previously? I'm not fully aware of all the powers of mayor.

Since the province controls the city, or wants to, can they step in and require 5 days a week for city workers?
 
Greenspace said:
Simple answer is no. The decision around WFH is up to the City Manager. But he takes direction from City Council. I don't believe WFH is in the new contract.
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Oh, so if wfh is not something negotiated in workers new contract, then I guess the city could require people come in 5 days a week.
 
Greenspace said:
Simple answer is no. The decision around WFH is up to the City Manager. But he takes direction from City Council. I don't believe WFH is in the new contract.
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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."
 
Greenspace said:
Unionized workers voted Knack in. His answers are consistent with appealing to that constituency, not about what's best for Downtown.
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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?
 
TAS said:
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."
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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!
 
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.
 
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.
 
thommyjo said:
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.
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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.
 
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TAS said:
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.
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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.
 
CplKlinger said:
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?
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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.
 
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