With federal public servants mandated to return to the office four days a week this summer, experts and unions are sounding the alarm over a lack of clear strategy or infrastructure to support such a move.
Federal employees are currently mandated to come into the office three days a week, or four days a week for executives.
On Thursday, the Treasury Board of Canada suddenly announced that executives must return five days a week starting May 4, and everyone else must return four days a week starting July 6.
But Shawn S. Hamilton, principal at Proveras Commercial Realty, said the government needs a “demonstrable strategy” to prove that it can accommodate all those workers.
“You can’t just bring people back for the sake of bringing them back. You’ve got to bring them back and locate them with their teams and … create opportunities for collaboration,” he said.
Our offices are overcrowded. We’re spending time having to search for desks in the morning.– Vivian Funk, Association of Justice Counsel
Hamilton, who has worked with tenants and lessees in both the public and private sectors, said he hasn’t heard of any such plans to grow office space in the National Capital Region. He said even with the government’s planned workforce reductions, he’s skeptical of the logistics.
“We haven’t been hearing anything on the street,” he said. “We’re questioning the math of where people will go.”
In light of the federal government’s ongoing plans to dispose of some of its properties, Hamilton said the latest mandate sends a confusing message.
“I’ve mapped this over the course of my 30-plus-year career, and I can’t remember a time that the federal government has ever projected an image of stability or optimism for Ottawa,” he said.
“[We need] some better messaging that allows us — the rest of the city — to sort of operate without a fear of abandonment or a fear of catastrophic downsizing.”
Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) declined to comment, pointing instead to a recent public statement.
“In locations where sufficient space is not available, we will work to identify potential solutions as quickly as possible,” the department said.
Asked if the July timeline seems feasible for the government to find sufficient office space, Hamilton said the commercial real estate sector is able to “react very quickly” to demand.
“[But] July is essentially today in terms of our business, so it is tight,” he said.
An ‘opportunistic move’
Tyler Chamberlin, an associate professor at the University of Ottawa’s Telfer School of Management, said the government’s latest mandate seems like “an opportunistic move” amid significant job cuts.
“The feeling is like, ‘If we are going to do this … we should do it now when everybody is kind of believing that we’re in a crisis,'” said Chamberlin, whose background is in economics of innovation and power divisions in the workplace.
Chamberlin said the government could struggle to stick to its own timeline, especially given the lack of office space and Ottawa’s ongoing public transit woes.
“This may end up being a bit of a fudge on the part of the government,” he said.
Pierre Barrieau, an expert in transportation planning with Gris Orange Consultant Inc., also noted the significant concerns around parking and public transit, especially on the Gatineau side where the Société de transport de l’Outaouais (STO) has “suffered decades of underfunding.”
“As people will go back to work, it’s going to put incredible pressure on the network,” Barrieau said. “They need help, and they need it now.”
In an email, the STO said all its resources are already deployed.
“It remains to be seen how this return [to the office] will translate to the road network,” the public transit agency wrote in French.
In Ottawa, an OC Transpo spokesperson said Friday that the transit service has “assured” the federal government that it’s working toward supporting the July mandate.
Unions have long list of concerns
Unions representing federal employees have expressed a long list of concerns.
“Our offices are overcrowded. We’re spending time having to search for desks in the morning,” said Vivian Funk, vice-president of health and safety with the Association of Justice Counsel.
She added that many workers are commuting to the office “just to sit on ,” and noted some federal office buildings have mould and other airborne contaminants.
“Some of our members are coming in to find mouse droppings on their desks in the morning,” Funk said. “In the North, we have members and buildings where the heat doesn’t work … so they’re wearing parkas at their desks, and gloves.”
Funk said she also worries about burnout among employees who are forced to return to overcrowded workspaces.
“The plain reality is, without additional space … it’s going to be an ongoing challenge,” she said. “It’s not good for productivity. It’s not good for morale.”
Alex Silas, national executive vice-president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, warned that the return-to-office mandate will come with a “huge cost.”
“At a time where … the Carney government is pinching every penny and trying to find savings, this move makes absolutely no sense,” he said.
Nathan Prier, president of the Canadian Association of Professional Employees, agreed.
“So we ask, who are you serving with this decision? It’s time for that answer to really be given to Canadians and to all federal public servants out there,” Prier said.
Chamberlin suspects the four-day mandate might be as far as the government is able to push, given current constraints.
“So it would be very surprising to take that sort of last step [to five days a week],” he said. “I think that that this is probably as far as they go.”
The Treasury Board said Thursday that the new mandate will “strengthen” the public service, and pledged to work with unions to “best implement this approach.”