Consultation and implementation: Where, When & How I Work Policy
Last week the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) finalised the updated Where, When & How I work Policy as a part of the implementation of Premier’s Circular C2024-03 NSW Government Sector workplace presence.
The PSA still harbours concerns that the policy will decrease the efficiency and effectiveness of the organisation, but this is NSW Government and all staff have a contract of employment with DPIRD that allows the agency to direct staff to work out of an office. With no industrial entitlement to enforce Work From Home arrangements, the PSA must negotiate. This has the potential to cause significant disruption to staff who, during the past five years, have administered their role and created a lifestyle away from their workplaces, especially those in regional areas where distance issues to workplaces are often magnified.
The PSA had provided our generic concerns previously to DPIRD and the NSW Government to reach a level of consistency across the state’s Public Sector agencies. The specific policy proposed by DPIRD has its own issues.
The PSA response to the WW&HIW policy
- As for the actual substance of the policy, due to the truncated consultation and implementation after nearly five years, the PSA seeks a review of one year to allow for changes if matters are not working.
- A workplace should be defined as the location that the agency deems individuals should work from based upon their contract of employment; through the direction to work in a temporary location or agreements with individuals and their managers to vary that work location. This would mean that individuals who are administering a role in a face-to-face manner with stakeholders or communities are meeting that requirement to attend principally a workplace.
- Negotiation and agreement on the number of working days and temporary office changes should be administered at the lowest possible delegation. Reviews of decisions at the proposed delegation are impractical.
- An arbitrary decision for agreements not to include 100 per cent working from home arrangements should be seen negatively but not be discounted to the extent that it is not possible.
- DPIRD has no ability to determine where individuals take up residence and work for the NSW Government. This is an overstep by DPIRD in attempting to force any such arrangement.
- The ability to rescind agreements at any time is in some cases, impractical and short sighted. Many reasons to work from home relate to the provision of care arrangements that can’t simply be changed on whim or due to business decisions. Giving Managers unfettered expectations that if things are going wrong automatic changes can be made in working arrangements is unreasonable.
- The administration of this policy will increase employment-related expenditure. It seems lopsided that the agency can make those decisions to increase employment related costs yet have a policy that does not allow this from an employee-related perspective.
- Unsatisfactory performance issues would require there to be a demonstration why the remedial actions require physical attendance at a workplace. It makes zero sense if supervising staff are located in a different office location or another part of the state.
- There is insufficient direction with regard to those Officers who work in a part-time manner or through processes of condensed hours on how to meet the attendance requirements.
- DPIRD should take the necessary steps to address with employees if their current designated headquarters is the appropriate fit before adopting the policy.
- DPIRD should advise the PSA and its staff whether the outcomes of this policy will affect the previous administration of more senior roles being advertised as ‘location agnostic’.
- DPIRD should be in a position to understand if there are any infrastructure issues in terms of technology or accommodation constraints at office locations before seeking to return staff.
- DPIRD should engage with the PSA to ensure that training on the adoption of the policy is not only transparent but unitary. The fundamental concern is that there will be a number of different interpretations by individual managers.
- DPIRD should provide commitments up front that hybrid working arrangements should not be used as some form of leverage used by Managers to co-opt staff into administering work that is outside of their scope or as a pseudo performance management tool.
- DPIRD needs to provide the PSA with an understanding of how and with whatever tools the organisation will attempt to police or administer such a policy.
What are the flow-on effects?
DPIRD will need to address the previous policies regarding:
- senior roles being recruited for using terms like location agnostic, or location flexible.
- the previous Regional Hubs Strategy that was established by the previous Government.
- the previous DRNSW Regionalisation Strategy.
- the administration of the Flexible Working Hours Agreements where core hours and bandwidth were relaxed due to the COVID emergency. The administration of compressed working hours arrangements that are now part of the ‘flexibility conversation’ again.
- the operation of virtual teams that administer statewide projects programs from a multitude of locations.
Where the rubber hits the road is the implementation of this policy. This is the reason the PSA has asked for the establishment of an implementation committee to consult on systems, accessibility and infrastructure.
Why?
Because the DPIRD administers more than 180 workplaces across the different divisions and, to date, is having difficulty in providing the PSA with detailed assessments of their office space usage especially in those locations where DPIRD staff co-locate with other DPIRD divisions or other public sector agencies.
It’s about having the right amenities, systems and infrastructure in these locations to deal with the myriad of employment classifications and the operational requirements of frontline and support staff. Where staff have had five years to develop their own systems of flexible working, this is being thrust on the DPIRD to administer in a much shorter timeframe with the involvement of external parties like Property Management NSW, who have spent those years reducing workplace footprints and generifying office accommodations as a means to reduce employment related costs.
The implementation of the policy will throw up all kinds of scenarios for our members outside of any individual agreements that are made between managers and their staff. Other policies like limitations on Home Garaging only provide further levels of complexity.
What should our members be doing?
If seeking Working From Home (WFH) or remote working arrangements, members should be:
- reviewing your letter of offer and seeking to change the Headquarters location that is set up in the system.
- discussing flexibility arrangements with staff from your business unit to seek consensus on things like meeting days and office-based days.
- discussing the headquarter options with your managers if there are identified operational issues.
- discuss the limitations of certain workplaces to accommodate the work it is that you do in the terms of systems, access and infrastructure.
- providing detailed assessments on reasons and rationales for variations to the construct of the policy.
- discussing workplace adjustments if required, outside of the confines of this policy.
What’s the difference between formal and ad hoc arrangements?
A WFH plan is designed to operate in a more formalised manner, but that should not curtail the discussions that staff have between their managers on administering where when and how you work, rather to place a framework around it.
Ad hoc discussions between staff and managers on flexibility arrangements should be encouraged and facilitated by both parties. Hard and fast interpretations of the policy by managers is counter intuitive.
Reading this and not a member? Its’ time that you joined the PSA.