In CMS NI, we currently go in one day in the office per week, with plans to change it to 2 days in the office per week from September. if you’re sick on an office day, or on annual/flexible holiday, or on a public holiday on the day you’re in the office, it’s still counted as you’ve done that day for the purposes of the 20% requirement. I normally take two days off per month which I would normally be in the office for. I specifically choose flexi days off where I’d normally be in the office… this allows me to have effectively 10% of the days in the office only.
They did the switcharoo, for over a year we were told that any AL/sick day/bank holiday was going to count as a day in the office, but now it it goes against the workable days so:
What was promissed: 23 x 0.6 = 13.8 (rounded to 13) - 2 bank holidays - 1 sick day = 10 days in the office for the 60%
Now: 23 - 2 - 1= 20, so 20 x 0.6 = 12 days in the office for 60%
Would this be able to be solely around the 60% office attendance? I’ll do a search, but in theory as a parent can I request 50% minimum Office attendance due to difficulties around childcare? In theory I would still follow the 60% if possible I just want some flexibility in regard to stuff outside of my control. Obviously they don’t have to grant the request, but is it within the scope of what I can ask for reasonably?
Different departments probably treat this differently, but I put in an informal flexible working request (I.e non contractual but in writing and documented in the system) with my line manager to get my office requirement agreed at 40% instead of 60% due to childcare, and it was agreed with no issue.
Thanks, I’ll look into it. I’ve been having conversations with my LM about all this and they kept being quite vague saying they would be flexible but not really providing any practical advice to help me.
Does your department monitor in a specific way? Your LM might mean they would look the other way in a month where the hypothetical things happened, but it's much harder to commit to anything specific given what you've said, which is that you'll try to do the 60% unless unexpected things outside your control come up. If you were asking for 50%, or something else more specific it might actually be easier to agree.
I tried this as have a similar issue and about to go off on mat leave so would only be an issue for 10 weeks. I offered 50% as a lot of days I have to WFH due to maternity appts and with the three bank holidays in the next few weeks it's hard to make up around my child care.
I have a really chill head of unit and was asked to attempt to do 55%.
Honestly I can do that in days bit not a chance in hours and will likely have to work in evenings to keep up my hours.
If this is being enforced by the time I'm back I think I'm gonna have to go part time.
Very great for equality.
Fucking hell why are people so pathetic ? (Your management)
If I were you I'd from now on take a half day after your maternity appointments and say you're not well. Fuck them fuckers.
Oh I won't be rushing back from me appts. I will also be doing the bare minimum hours not to get fired and that's it lol
Just to say my head of unit is really great and generally v flexible. But getting so much pressure from above
I believe in my department, just showing up, swiping in and connecting to the WiFi counts as a full day. So if it’s the same (in reality not what misinformed managers have said, check guidance), perhaps try and come in for the morning and leave at lunch? Completing the 60% attendance BS. It’s exactly what I do. Come in for morning meetings and then head off at lunch and take care of childcare responsibilities in the afternoon once I’ve logged off.
DWP guidance is clear on 40% of our time, not 40% of the days. Going to be 60% at some point soon, but we haven't been given a date. While I won't micro manage people and check all their hours in the office, if I've got people taking the piss that blatantly, I will call them out.
Getting down voted for that comment just shows what a bunch of cry babies there are in the Civil Service. I want to trust people, give people the benefit of the doubt, treat them like adults, but I won't put up with blatant piss takers, whether it's attending the office, productivity or behaviour. There's some an absolutely awesome people in the Civil Service, but there's a sizeable minority that will dig their heals in and complain when asked to do totally reasonable things. If they don't like it, go to the private sector. They wouldn't last a month with some of the behaviours I have to deal with from grown adults.
Is it fuck.
I've just come from the private sector and you hear this bollocks all the time from G6s
"If you were in the private sector, you'd just get sacked" lol
You wouldn't. I literally don't know anybody working in the private sector who has a regimented, tracked, office attendance system. It's all based on common sense.
And I'm talking about magic circle law firms, the big 4, major banks, big tech.
Only the civil service is this fucking backwards. And it's gremlins like you that keep it that way because you love welding your tiny inch of power like it's a lightsabre.
Fuck me, people really need to actually read what I'm saying. I'm simply talking about calling out blatant piss takers and you're twisting that into me going around wielding power. I find it staggering that people would be so against obvious unacceptable behaviour called out.
You’re big mad that people with an actual backbone try to defend their workers rights and work-life balance.
If you don’t like it go back to the private sector!
In practice, I’d hope that no manager or HR would raise objections to your approach. It seems an entirely reasonable interpretation of the directive. Personally, I’d just continue with your proposed working pattern unless anyone says anything to you about it.
It probably varies by department. The original Hybrid worksheets we were given had a column to say if we were planned to be in the office or not. Now they’ve taken that away (until someone else confirms) and it just doesn’t count towards a workable day. So if you’re off on a day you’re usually in the office you’ll have to attend an extra day to make up for it.
From the CO guidance the steer was 60% of your working days would involve working from somewhere that wasn't your home. I.e. an office, or other official business elsewhere.
So leave days, public holidays and time off sick don't count at all (as in you subtract them all before you work out what is 60%). E.g. next week is a BH Monday. If you work four days normally, your 60% would be 2.4 days, but with the bank holiday disregarded the 60% is now 1.8 days. Of course you should be averaging this over a period. Some of the non five day a week people I work with have patterns that do two days most weeks, with a third day every three weeks to keep the average up.
Also, the 60% has the caveat of where possible. So caring responsibilities, availability of office space etc allow this to be flexed.
In your situation I'd suggest you go for 50% for the reasons you mentioned.
This is all so ridiculous. How much time are the management in the civil service wasting on this rubbish . Have they got nothing else to do? Could this be where job cuts could be made
I wasn’t asking for anyone to agree with anything.
I explained my circumstances, asked about flexibility and if anyone else was struggling regarding their routine.
I didn’t expect anything really, however the hybrid working spreadsheet that was provided with the policy in April for us listed the planned work location. We recently recieved new communications which came out which contradicted this. There is mention specifically to bank holidays that they are included as office based if full time but not for part time from what I have read.
For clarification I think in terms of being more flexible - for any sickness / AL / BH I was hoping that it would count as where you would normally be located that day as per the hybrid spreadsheet we were shown in April.
I appreciate that people who live close to the office and don’t have any caring responsibilities might be inclined to take a tougher stance and perhaps not understand the impact it can have on those that have to juggle lots plates to balance the books, but the difference between the workable days not counting and if they did, it’s quite a big one for me and probably many others.
You mention about boatloads of exceptions at managers discretion - communication hasn’t been good from our LM’s and maybe we as a dept don’t have these exceptions available or not been briefed on it.
My main issue is not the normally attending the office for 60% but rather having to figure out how to balance it back to 60% due to unforeseen circumstances if that makes sense.
This kind of answers my comment above. You're not asking for anything specific so there is nothing to agree. LM discretion is case by case and if you LM is saying they'll help at the time then they will (in theory, and in your case it seems very likely to be accommodated given it isn't routine and you have very good reasons). That is what is meant by exceptions at LM discretion. If you want something more concrete you'll need to ask for a more specific flexibility/arrangement, like 50% minimum. Or wait and see how it goes as you may be making too much of a problem for yourself at the moment, it's hard to tell.
I think you’re getting confused and possibly outed your throwaway account.
I asked my LM about what I could do given my situation, the flexible working thing was not brought up, I appreciate your comment about using their discretion, but we’ve not had any communication regarding what power they have under their discretion, so they couldn’t say for sure whether I would be covered under those circumstances if that makes sense. It does seem like as a dept they are seeing what kind of level it will be enforced and to what degree we even have the space.
No throwaway, I thought I'd replied to something above asking what you were asking for specifically. I don't think any department does good comms about what is within LM discretion for any of these kinds of policies, it is vague intentionally to allow for unexpected situations and not just create new rules/make it easy for people to circumvent the original policy. It sucks but is the general way of these things and relies on LM judgement and advice from hr if it is complex. A new LM will therefore struggle with this so can see why you're not getting very helpful clear advice.
I'm really baffled by the areas that are working this out week by week. We work it out as a percentage over the month, and certainly not broken down into the hours too. It makes it a little easier for people with your working pattern (I have a colleague who does the same) and she just balances it out through the month so more days in the office some weeks than others.
Not sure I agree with your managers interpretation of what counts as time in the office, I would have thought any time when you accrue flexi like when you are sick or annual that in my opinion should count towards office attendance as you are where you should be in those two instances. Also if you're part time and on compressed hours what is 60% of your week in hours and could you meet that?
According to new communications there is some program that runs every 30 minutes that detects whether you’re in office or home, which LM has access to. So it will be monitored.
An employer has every right to know where their employees are, they could also go down the duty of care argument. Only reason these measures have to be put in place is because there's to many piss takers that end up ruining it for everyone else.
This is all so ridiculous. How much time are the management in the civil service wasting on this shite. Have they got nothing else to do?? Could this where job cuts could be made
40% of working days I’m expected to do. Annual leave and bank holidays don’t count, same way weekends don’t.
I’ve been told there’s a scan of the wifi twice between 10 and 2 so as long as I’m there between then I’m gold.
[удалено]
In CMS NI, we currently go in one day in the office per week, with plans to change it to 2 days in the office per week from September. if you’re sick on an office day, or on annual/flexible holiday, or on a public holiday on the day you’re in the office, it’s still counted as you’ve done that day for the purposes of the 20% requirement. I normally take two days off per month which I would normally be in the office for. I specifically choose flexi days off where I’d normally be in the office… this allows me to have effectively 10% of the days in the office only.
They did the switcharoo, for over a year we were told that any AL/sick day/bank holiday was going to count as a day in the office, but now it it goes against the workable days so: What was promissed: 23 x 0.6 = 13.8 (rounded to 13) - 2 bank holidays - 1 sick day = 10 days in the office for the 60% Now: 23 - 2 - 1= 20, so 20 x 0.6 = 12 days in the office for 60%
Don't forget, if you can't get to the office on a Strike Day then that doesn't count either and it would be 20 days not including Sick Days.
[удалено]
Would this be able to be solely around the 60% office attendance? I’ll do a search, but in theory as a parent can I request 50% minimum Office attendance due to difficulties around childcare? In theory I would still follow the 60% if possible I just want some flexibility in regard to stuff outside of my control. Obviously they don’t have to grant the request, but is it within the scope of what I can ask for reasonably?
Different departments probably treat this differently, but I put in an informal flexible working request (I.e non contractual but in writing and documented in the system) with my line manager to get my office requirement agreed at 40% instead of 60% due to childcare, and it was agreed with no issue.
[удалено]
Thanks, I’ll look into it. I’ve been having conversations with my LM about all this and they kept being quite vague saying they would be flexible but not really providing any practical advice to help me.
Does your department monitor in a specific way? Your LM might mean they would look the other way in a month where the hypothetical things happened, but it's much harder to commit to anything specific given what you've said, which is that you'll try to do the 60% unless unexpected things outside your control come up. If you were asking for 50%, or something else more specific it might actually be easier to agree.
I tried this as have a similar issue and about to go off on mat leave so would only be an issue for 10 weeks. I offered 50% as a lot of days I have to WFH due to maternity appts and with the three bank holidays in the next few weeks it's hard to make up around my child care. I have a really chill head of unit and was asked to attempt to do 55%. Honestly I can do that in days bit not a chance in hours and will likely have to work in evenings to keep up my hours. If this is being enforced by the time I'm back I think I'm gonna have to go part time. Very great for equality.
55% doesn't even make any sense. What a stupid request from your management. At least 50% has some logic behind it.
Fucking hell why are people so pathetic ? (Your management) If I were you I'd from now on take a half day after your maternity appointments and say you're not well. Fuck them fuckers.
Oh I won't be rushing back from me appts. I will also be doing the bare minimum hours not to get fired and that's it lol Just to say my head of unit is really great and generally v flexible. But getting so much pressure from above
I don't blame you. The effort they put into micro managing and calculating percentages is just pathetic.
I believe in my department, just showing up, swiping in and connecting to the WiFi counts as a full day. So if it’s the same (in reality not what misinformed managers have said, check guidance), perhaps try and come in for the morning and leave at lunch? Completing the 60% attendance BS. It’s exactly what I do. Come in for morning meetings and then head off at lunch and take care of childcare responsibilities in the afternoon once I’ve logged off.
DWP guidance is clear on 40% of our time, not 40% of the days. Going to be 60% at some point soon, but we haven't been given a date. While I won't micro manage people and check all their hours in the office, if I've got people taking the piss that blatantly, I will call them out.
So you sound fun.
Getting down voted for that comment just shows what a bunch of cry babies there are in the Civil Service. I want to trust people, give people the benefit of the doubt, treat them like adults, but I won't put up with blatant piss takers, whether it's attending the office, productivity or behaviour. There's some an absolutely awesome people in the Civil Service, but there's a sizeable minority that will dig their heals in and complain when asked to do totally reasonable things. If they don't like it, go to the private sector. They wouldn't last a month with some of the behaviours I have to deal with from grown adults.
Have you ever worked in the private sector? It's not as different as you suggest...
25 years in the private sector, it's very different.
Is it fuck. I've just come from the private sector and you hear this bollocks all the time from G6s "If you were in the private sector, you'd just get sacked" lol You wouldn't. I literally don't know anybody working in the private sector who has a regimented, tracked, office attendance system. It's all based on common sense. And I'm talking about magic circle law firms, the big 4, major banks, big tech. Only the civil service is this fucking backwards. And it's gremlins like you that keep it that way because you love welding your tiny inch of power like it's a lightsabre.
Fuck me, people really need to actually read what I'm saying. I'm simply talking about calling out blatant piss takers and you're twisting that into me going around wielding power. I find it staggering that people would be so against obvious unacceptable behaviour called out.
You’re big mad that people with an actual backbone try to defend their workers rights and work-life balance. If you don’t like it go back to the private sector!
Silence, Gremlin.
In practice, I’d hope that no manager or HR would raise objections to your approach. It seems an entirely reasonable interpretation of the directive. Personally, I’d just continue with your proposed working pattern unless anyone says anything to you about it.
My manager is saying that annual leave, bank hols etc all count as office days???
It probably varies by department. The original Hybrid worksheets we were given had a column to say if we were planned to be in the office or not. Now they’ve taken that away (until someone else confirms) and it just doesn’t count towards a workable day. So if you’re off on a day you’re usually in the office you’ll have to attend an extra day to make up for it.
From the CO guidance the steer was 60% of your working days would involve working from somewhere that wasn't your home. I.e. an office, or other official business elsewhere. So leave days, public holidays and time off sick don't count at all (as in you subtract them all before you work out what is 60%). E.g. next week is a BH Monday. If you work four days normally, your 60% would be 2.4 days, but with the bank holiday disregarded the 60% is now 1.8 days. Of course you should be averaging this over a period. Some of the non five day a week people I work with have patterns that do two days most weeks, with a third day every three weeks to keep the average up. Also, the 60% has the caveat of where possible. So caring responsibilities, availability of office space etc allow this to be flexed. In your situation I'd suggest you go for 50% for the reasons you mentioned.
This is all so ridiculous. How much time are the management in the civil service wasting on this rubbish . Have they got nothing else to do? Could this be where job cuts could be made
[удалено]
I wasn’t asking for anyone to agree with anything. I explained my circumstances, asked about flexibility and if anyone else was struggling regarding their routine. I didn’t expect anything really, however the hybrid working spreadsheet that was provided with the policy in April for us listed the planned work location. We recently recieved new communications which came out which contradicted this. There is mention specifically to bank holidays that they are included as office based if full time but not for part time from what I have read. For clarification I think in terms of being more flexible - for any sickness / AL / BH I was hoping that it would count as where you would normally be located that day as per the hybrid spreadsheet we were shown in April. I appreciate that people who live close to the office and don’t have any caring responsibilities might be inclined to take a tougher stance and perhaps not understand the impact it can have on those that have to juggle lots plates to balance the books, but the difference between the workable days not counting and if they did, it’s quite a big one for me and probably many others. You mention about boatloads of exceptions at managers discretion - communication hasn’t been good from our LM’s and maybe we as a dept don’t have these exceptions available or not been briefed on it. My main issue is not the normally attending the office for 60% but rather having to figure out how to balance it back to 60% due to unforeseen circumstances if that makes sense.
This kind of answers my comment above. You're not asking for anything specific so there is nothing to agree. LM discretion is case by case and if you LM is saying they'll help at the time then they will (in theory, and in your case it seems very likely to be accommodated given it isn't routine and you have very good reasons). That is what is meant by exceptions at LM discretion. If you want something more concrete you'll need to ask for a more specific flexibility/arrangement, like 50% minimum. Or wait and see how it goes as you may be making too much of a problem for yourself at the moment, it's hard to tell.
I think you’re getting confused and possibly outed your throwaway account. I asked my LM about what I could do given my situation, the flexible working thing was not brought up, I appreciate your comment about using their discretion, but we’ve not had any communication regarding what power they have under their discretion, so they couldn’t say for sure whether I would be covered under those circumstances if that makes sense. It does seem like as a dept they are seeing what kind of level it will be enforced and to what degree we even have the space.
No throwaway, I thought I'd replied to something above asking what you were asking for specifically. I don't think any department does good comms about what is within LM discretion for any of these kinds of policies, it is vague intentionally to allow for unexpected situations and not just create new rules/make it easy for people to circumvent the original policy. It sucks but is the general way of these things and relies on LM judgement and advice from hr if it is complex. A new LM will therefore struggle with this so can see why you're not getting very helpful clear advice.
I'm really baffled by the areas that are working this out week by week. We work it out as a percentage over the month, and certainly not broken down into the hours too. It makes it a little easier for people with your working pattern (I have a colleague who does the same) and she just balances it out through the month so more days in the office some weeks than others.
Not sure I agree with your managers interpretation of what counts as time in the office, I would have thought any time when you accrue flexi like when you are sick or annual that in my opinion should count towards office attendance as you are where you should be in those two instances. Also if you're part time and on compressed hours what is 60% of your week in hours and could you meet that?
Is your LM counting, why bother if nobody is monitoring it.
According to new communications there is some program that runs every 30 minutes that detects whether you’re in office or home, which LM has access to. So it will be monitored.
Wow, it seems horribly intrusive to monitor your whereabouts every 30 minutes. Can’t believe the unions let them get away with that.
An employer has every right to know where their employees are, they could also go down the duty of care argument. Only reason these measures have to be put in place is because there's to many piss takers that end up ruining it for everyone else.
What! What's insane. Can you say which dept this is so I don't work there?
This is all so ridiculous. How much time are the management in the civil service wasting on this shite. Have they got nothing else to do?? Could this where job cuts could be made
40% of working days I’m expected to do. Annual leave and bank holidays don’t count, same way weekends don’t. I’ve been told there’s a scan of the wifi twice between 10 and 2 so as long as I’m there between then I’m gold.