Canada’s work-from-home boom was a little too popular and has resulted in flight from big cities to more affordable suburbs. Now the governments and their agencies across Canada are facing pressure to bring workers back to the office. Canada Post’s non-operational staff in major cities are the latest being ordered back to the office for a minimum number of days per week. This is part of a larger response to corporate and political pressure to anchor workers to pricey downtown cores and prevent the hollowing out, as more people flee the city for greener (and more affordable) pastures.
Canada Post Office Staff Ordered Back To The Office Next Month
Canada Post will soon require workers to appear a minimum number of days in office starting next month. Back when the pandemic started, the agency implemented a flexible “hybrid work” model for its non-operational staff. These are essentially office workers whose presence isn’t regularly required on-site.
A hybrid model technically requires an on-site presence but the in-office component doesn’t appear to have been clarified or rigidly enforced. As a result, it was easy to interpret this as the “new normal” policymakers pitched, where people are judged on the quality of work produced, rather than the number of hours they can be physically inspected by their employer. Nope.
“We have since reassessed our practice and updated our approach to create a truly hybrid workplace,” explained Valérie Chartrand, a spokesperson for Canada Post when reached for comment.
Adding, “As such, starting October 15, 2024, all Canada Post employees in non-operational groups – with a work location in Ottawa, Toronto or other major centres – will be expected to work from their official work location a minimum of two days a week.”
Canada Hopes To Reverse The Hollowing Out of Pricey Downtowns, & Reverse Flight With Anchors
Canada Post is amongst the many government employers suddenly rolling out “prescribed minimums.” These set out a minimum number of days that an employee is required to appear in the office, as well as a strategy to audit the time spent. It’s often presented as a way to build community and improve productivity, but there’s a problem with that narrative. There’s often no other planning involved—employees don’t have to show up on the same day and it’s not clear how boosting productivity occurs by simply being on-site. In fact, with office workers, studies show the exact opposite.
The decision to return office workers is part of a broader move from federal and provincial governments. It follows corporate and political pressure trying to reverse the hollowing out of downtown cores, as economic activity and households moved from pricey downtown cores to distant suburbs.
Two to three days in office aren’t enough to build an office culture. However, it is enough to anchor employees to these pricey cities and prevent flight. That can have a big impact on demand distribution, returning a premium to big city cores and obliterating the newfound market boom that smaller cities have seen.
GOC is giving audit access to IP addresses for audit to ensure it happens. They could just force managers to create benchmarks for a minimum output, but it’s not about the work. It’s about controlling these employees.
haha. FFS. This is the gov in a nutshell. They want you to spend the maximum share of your paycheque in their elite cities. It’s not about the work or thinking employees are working less. It’s about inflating land value and driving demand in places they have investment exposure.
Feels desperate. Desperate moves usually don’t create a very substantial amount of pressure. Good for the restaurants and shopping downtown, and that will also likely boost the presence of people and reduce the new influx of crime.
However they waited too long. There’s no way to do this without ripping through the economy of small cities where people moved, hoping they would only have to show up once in a while to the office.
Sounds like all of the new gov workers in Halifax that spent $1 million on a house 2-hours from the city pulled a FAFO. Good lesson for them next spring when they wonder why their home’s value craters.
This is going to fail hilariously. Expect even worse service from this poorly performing entity.
The demand from government agencies and big cities for workers to return to the office to prevent a hollowing out of their cities, shows just how badly those cities are managed. Any investor worthy of his money will tell you that you don’t place all of your money in a single investment, housing. Those same cities and corporations should be doing what they preach to preserve assets and liquidity, diversify their investments by lowering taxes, regulations and encouraging more manufacturing and light industrial businesses to locate to their cities, thus expanding their tax base without the need to force workers to live in big expense cities.
Soon they can live and work in same location. If they work in location that might have housing the government is mandated
Unbelievable, whining is all I hear from Public service and Crown Corporation ! If they want to work from home cut there benefit and pay because their productive is at a all time low ! Private companies have the right to choose if their employees should work from home because they are profitable and if not profitable “YOUR FIRED” ! Public servants should be in the office 5 days a week or 4 day 10 hour week. The Government is grooming very lazy people or should I say freeloaders.
Quit Whining freeloaders and get back to work
Hybrid or remote work is the future and people should stop resisting it. It’s not lazy, it improves quality of life. Those employees are more productive,
can be more present as parents, and they have more disposable income to put into the economy. The only ones who gain from the in office presence are old men who need to see “their” employees to feel important and those in commercial real estate.
I’m sure large commercial landlords were lobbying as hard as possible to get government workers back. Commercial land prices should be in free-fall right now. Fraud and rampant government waste is the only thing keeping prices afloat.
What happens to the Canadian economy when the labour force has to spend more money on commuting and have less to spend on discretionary items?
Not terrible for AB, keeps a price floor on oil demand some what. What’s interesting is gas is hitting 1.39 in GTA and spikes to 1.46 and then drops back the day after. Like they’re trying to maximize profits but people won’t buy until it goes to 1.3x. Weird times.
If your spending 90% on income on housing. There is no point of working, you are just a slave in a hamster wheel.
I am certainly curious about how many work-from-home or remote jobs “Canada Post” has. Canada Post has continually been one of the absolutely worst experiences that I continually am forced to engage with, through lost packages, and terrible customer service, heck in my town we are told to “not bother with calling because they will not answer phone calls”. And then we see them go on strike continually? It costs more to ship a letter-sized package than it does to expedite a parcel. I often pay for the 2-3 day delivery but am, nearly always facing an 8-10 day delivery even after being “guaranteed” the prior. I could go on about the numerous infractions and fallacies, but I shall spare you my ignorant whining. Personally, I hope Canada Post is entirely removed and a proper package delivery/mail delivery can exist that cares about their service, and will actually work for/with Canadian Citizens. While I understand not all city services are the same, This is the consensus opinion in my area as a whole. And a multitude of complaints have seen no change in staff. policy or behaviour.