First, I want to say that, as a public employee, there's so much ignorance and stereotyping that goes on about this sector; it's very tiring and frustrating to hear constantly. But there's no question that many, if not most, of the dedicated and hard-working people I've ever met work in government.
And folks are delusional if they think an office setting is absolutely necessary; a massive chunk of the public sector workforce is not front-office facing. It's 2024, folks.
That's not to say that there's not a good chunk of positions that benefit from being in-person, but just like any other sector, public employees deserve flexibility for their personal lives. Not to mention, with WFH flexibility (at least part-time) quickly becoming an expectation for white-collar workers, municipal government absolutely has to follow suit to remain competitive for talent attraction. This is how the world works now.
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Originally Posted by EastSideHBG
It can be a chicken/egg argument but with QOL issues and inflation I don't know many people who can afford to patronize lunch spots every day like they could before and who want to hang out after work. The world has changed and we need to figure out how to adapt to this.
An issue that comes to mind for me is the pay and the loss of some of the perks that made up for that (the government work package is just not what it used to be) so if you don't want to lose talent to private industry there is going to need to be some other incentive and WFH could be a good selling point.
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Excellent point. There's a lot of nuance to this discussion that greatly relates to increased costs for commuting. It's a completely ignored point.
Look, we all want to make sure big city downtowns are vibrant and can recover daily foot traffic, and I do agree with at least a part-time in-office requirement. But the "genie is out of the bottle" regarding WFH, and everyone needs to accept that at this point. It was likely always going to be an inevitability with computer-based employment; we're just now dealing with the a massive uptick very quickly rather than gradually.
Nevertheless, the city can and will recover daily foot traffic through increased tourism and job growth/ more firms committing to part-time in-office requirements. It just takes some creativity and strategic effort.