In the public sector, productivity is the lowest it has been since 1997 – except for the pandemic lockdown years – and some blame working from home. Since November 2023, civil servants have been called back in for between two to three days a week.
But in several public bodies, including at the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in Newport, South Wales, some staff are refusing to return.
Ed, an IT delivery manager at the ONS and a rep for the PCS trade union, said he has worked almost entirely from home since the pandemic. He says it helps him to get his children to school and nursery and not waste time on commuting.
“We’ve never been told by senior leaders at the ONS that there is a problem with productivity, there’s a problem with quality, there’s a problem with meeting deadlines,” he said.
“We will never see this opportunity again. We have to fight for workers’ rights.”
He and other union members are threatening to strike if they are forced to travel into the office 40% of the time. Civilian staff in the Metropolitan Police and union members at the Land Registry are also in dispute over policies on returning to the office.
The ONS, which is in talks with the union, says it believes “face-to-face interaction” helps to “build working relationships, supports collaboration, and innovation”.
But whatever the outcome of disputes such as this, it is clear that all of us working full-time in the office is now a thing of the past.
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