A Shared Future of Work

I’ve been watching from afar the tensions unfolding as public service organizations implement return to office measures. Prior to going on maternity leave in summer 2022, I co-lead the FlexGC Network, a grassroots collective of public servants who provided a rapid response to supporting public servants in adapting to remote work throughout the pandemic. Still on leave, I admit I’ve been gritting my teeth on the sidelines as I watch how the rollout of return to office decisions are playing out. After the time I’ve spent supporting and listening to public servants throughout my time with FlexGC, I cannot understate enough the importance of an empathetic, respectful, and evidence-based approach to decisions (and the communication of those decisions) related to the future of work. This is what drove me to finally put some thoughts down.

Conversations around return to the office are happening.

Some may wish to think it’s only a vocal minority who are raising alarm bells about the public service’s approach to “experimenting” with hybrid work models this summer but while the most vocal on social media may represent a minority of the public service, their sentiments are echoed loudly at dinner tables and between public servants all across the country.

Public servants are people. We are Canadians. And like most Canadians, we have been experiencing anxiety, uncertainty, and loss of control due to the pandemic, inflation, international conflict, the climate crisis, and social turbulence within our own country.

Unfortunately, return to the office plans are triggering a lot of anxiety and trauma. Many public servants also feel betrayed. After two years of adapting to a situation which was completely out of our control and being praised for our productivity and effectiveness during this time, it seems many are now being forced into a situation that, once again, feels out of our control.

From afar, it is clear that a step back is needed to examine the decisions being made, how they are being implemented, and the communication and change management around the future of work.

Where We Work and When We Work There

The design challenge posed by modernizing how and where we work isn’t simple. The fact is there are people who thrive working from home, people who thrive working in a traditional office setting, and people who thrive from having the fluidity to move between the two with ease.

When it comes to building flexible workplaces, there’s an entire spectrum of work that needs to be considered, from location-specific roles that allow for little flexibility (think on-site service delivery, for example) to roles that can be effectively completed from home 100% of the time, and everything in between. Most organizations have roles that fall into every category on this spectrum, so even within a single department or agency, creating one standard to rule them seems insensible.

On top of this, a once in a century event like the pandemic we’ve been experiencing is life changing. People have reflected, adapted, and made major life changes. If it’s not clear to everyone yet, life is short and how you spend it matters. This means some public servants — myself included — have made huge decisions, like moving away from their organization’s headquarters, because it is the right decision for themselves and/or their families, not based on the sentiment of “yippee’ we can do whatever”, as one unnamed, out of touch executive was quoted saying in a recent Policy Options article.

What all of this means is that setting a single, system-wide standard for where we work and when is folly.

Yet it seems that many organizations are taking the approach of setting a 2-day in-office standard, even — bafflingly — for people who don’t work in the same city as the rest of their team, for the purposes of experimentation.

So let’s talk experimentation

Nesta’s The Experimentor’s Inventory provides an in-depth look at what experimentation is but I’ll add some highlights here:

• Experiments establish a clear idea, carefully defined, which can be tested or trialled.
• Experiments set out a process for systematic and transparent learning. They have an unambiguous structure: fixed timelines, limits and checkpoints are established, at which results are assessed and decisions made. These are agreed at the start and can’t be changed at whim or manipulated to suit the experimenter.
• Experimentation allows us to learn positively from failure.
• Experimentation means being transparent about what doesn’t work, as well as what does.

And of extreme importance, especially when conducting experiments involving people, experiments must be ethical. Employment and Social Development Canada’s Innovation Lab has published a draft of its practical guide to research ethics in government. It’s a fairly comprehensive guide to ethics in experimentation and touches on respect for human dignity — which includes respect for humans (a cornerstone of which is autonomy), welfare, and justice. It also touches on consent, privacy, community, diversity, and more.

In the times of Covid, still a very present and likely long-continuing threat to our wellbeing — the risks of which Michael Karlin does an excellent job outlining in his recent piece Government From Home — the guideline that experiments involving people should consider “whether the level of risk is greater than what the participants would encounter in their everyday lives” is especially relevant in the great hybrid work “experiment” of 2022.

Centring Wellness

We, as a country, are in a mental health crisis, and every employer in Canada should be asking themselves how they can create the conditions for their employees to thrive.

We cannot talk about mental health in the workplace in one set of talking points while lacking empathy in implementing pre-set conditions for people to return to the office in another.

Creating flexible workplaces will look different in different contexts — for example, if we look at the private sector, creating conditions for grocery store employees to thrive might include paid sick days, a living wage, flexibility to have more control over their schedule, and effective health and safety measures.

We could hypothesize all day about the best way to move forward but the best way? Co-creating the future of work together.

Building a Shared Future Together

We know the employer is opting to exercise its right to determine location of work. Fair enough.

But fairer?

Designing the future of work together using human-centred design and shared power principles. In her letter with instruction to experiment with hybrid work, the Clerk of the Privy Council, Janice Charette, recently reminded deputies, “you are collectively responsible for the development of the federal public service of today and tomorrow.”

I would interpret that as an imperative to create an empowering, flexible workplace in which people can thrive. This plays into the employer’s responsibility to manage and steward well. A healthy and empowered workforce is a productive workforce. And a productive workforce means better results and services for Canadians.

The Centre for Public Impact’s shared power principle was developed to identify how to strengthen relationships and build trust in government. If we turn inward to how we manage the public service, the five principles are just as relevant:

• Working together with people towards a shared vision
• Bringing empathy into government
• Bringing an authentic connection
• Enabling (the public) to scrutinize government
• Valuing (citizens) voices and responding to them

This means a shift in how many public service executives and managers currently lead but the results of co-creating an empowered, healthy, and productive workforce would be staggering.

A Healthy Future (and Present)

We have been told that departments are experimenting for the summer — a time when people are traditionally taking vacations — to implement a hybrid work approach for the Fall.

At the time of writing, we are also in a seventh wave of Covid. People are feeling anxiety, loss of control, and uncertainty about the future. Any experiment must centre that. Any experiment should also have appropriate timelines and take place at an appropriate time, be transparent, and have an ethics charter or review committee to limit harm.

Every major change requires a strong change management strategy . I can think of few bigger changes employees will endure than the shift to new, longer term working models.

Further, our work sites must implement health and safety measures that follow evidence — better ventilation, masking, transparency about exposures and air quality. Anything less than this should be unacceptable.

Future of Work Lenses

We know that women in particular have had to bear an intense amount of caregiving and juggling of responsibilities throughout the pandemic. At a time when some have found ways to balance that, whether that includes changing their childcare options, moving closer to family, or having more time at the beginning or end of their day, it is understandable that they are reluctant to backslide on any life changes that have helped them to manage the burden.

In recent years we’ve also seen a much-needed focus on diversity and inclusion efforts across the public service. But talking about diversity and inclusion is not enough if our actions don’t mirror our words. To create a public service that’s truly reflective of the Canadians we serve, we must have representation across Canada, in urban and rural areas. The traditional over-concentration of public servants in the National Capital Region (Ottawa and Gatineau) must slowly evolve so that we make policies and deliver programs and services that meet the needs of Canadians, and the only way to do that is to broaden our knowledge of, and experience living in, different regions across Canada.

To be successful, any return to office plans must be considered through both a GBA+ lens and with consideration of how we can use this opportunity to increase the diversity of and improve inclusive practices within the public service.

Focusing on Teams

We will be most successful in navigating the way forward if teams co-create their futures together. Psychologically safe workplaces, healthy team dynamics, agreed upon ways of working, and clearly defined roles and accountabilities are all vital to any team, whether fully remote, hybrid, or fully in-person.

My last side project with FlexGC Network before I went on maternity leave was a team charter kit. Having these conversations and agreements can enhance team dynamics. Teams and managers can also invest in modern leadership, facilitation, relationship, and communication skill building to improve how they collaborate and meet — whether in-person, online, or a mix of the two.

In Conclusion: Clarity and Kindness

My favourite Brene Brown quote is “clarity is kindness”. This is exceptionally true in terms of how we work together. After more than two years of major emotional and mental bruising — not just for public servants but for all Canadians — centring wellbeing and co-creating our future together is kindness of the highest order. This kindness will yield results but without it, our institutions will falter as people find roles that allow them to bring value while also putting their own lifestyle values at the forefront.