Reject the shift to 60% office attendance at DLUHC

As someone with severe social anxiety and mild autism, I find coming in the office twice a week too much, especially when the Hemel office is busy, too much noise, too many people, too many distractions. 1 day a week is a struggle anyway due to the volume of people in the office but 1 day a week talking and interacting with colleagues in person keeps me sane.

3 days a week in the office is the wrong side of the balance - 2 days/week was the right side

Clarity is required on the extent of the reach of politicians of the day have over the operational aspect of the civil service. Where a policy doesn’t consider real life impacts but requires exceptions to meet defined legal obligations it is not a fairly drafted policy. It is incumbent on the employer to make clear what, if any, contractual implications the proposed policy of ‘expectation’ may have on employees and to ensure existing contractual options to the policy are also made clear e.g. home working contracts.

I am able to juggle work far more effectively working from home more, with the added childcare and caring responsibilities I have. Having to factor in 2 hours of travel will mean less of a work life balance having to make up more time during out of office hours. When I have tried to book a desk it is often difficult to find a space anywhere near my team (or a desk at all), also being a very national team we still have to have meetings online with the majority. Flexibility was one of the benefits moving from private sector to civil service, if this is no longer the case then many people will move to private as things like financial benefit will outweigh any CS offerings following the change.

Before lockdown, we were told to work at home for 2 days per week to save the Department's office resources, particularly as the number of desks had been drastically cut. Make up your minds!

A completely outdated mindset of the few dictating to the majority how they should work and collaborate. Physical office attendance costs time, money, impacts the environment and reduces productivity. The offices are designed with a one size fits nobody approach. The wifi is terrible and locked down preventing certain skills/professions from being able to carry out their duties. The temperature switches between convection oven and meat-locker depending on the weather. There is no room for people anyway and what fresh hell is that desk and room booking thing anyway! I could go on but more than anything what bothers me is that the people clamouring for this are the ones who stand to benefit the most from making people go back into the office. The ones who have been rewarded and thrived in that environment. In a distributed/remote working environment such people can't talk over others in meetings quite so easily, or use other methods of non-verbal communication to get their way. They can't dress smartly and win friends and influence people in the pub after work or practice all the other outdated 'way the world works' nonsense that frankly needs to get right to the bottom of the sea. This 60% notion takes money out of my pocket, reduces the time I have with my family, makes me less able to do my best work and negatively impacts my health and happiness. So no thank you.

I attend the office two days a week, I enjoy this but a lot less productive if being honest. I wish the Dept would focus on those who are not attending the office at all, and who do not have exemptions. to do so. This would increase the office attendance!!

This is very stresful for arranging already expensive and carefully plnned childcare and adding expense I just cannot afford. I make use of my 40% well and don't see a need for this to increase and cause undue stress and upset being a parent to a young child this will be very difficult

If I presented a policy proposal to senior leaders with the level of evidence and analysis as has been the case here, I would be laughed out the room and never trusted to make policy proposals again. Why are there higher standards for my policy making than the heads of departments?

Doesn't seem to be evidence led and is not right for everyone. Personally I am far more productive working from home, and able to work longer hours due to not commuting for 2 hours. Office attendence should be encouraged and is good in many ways. 60% broad brush mandated approach will lead to loss of talent to the private sector for niche roles such as digital, where private sector offer flexible hybrid.

This has been thrown together without any opportunity to discuss. Without evidence that this move is backed by any real evidence, or that it will work in our constrained office environment

This seriously undermines the purported kindness, understanding and collaborative working of DLUHC. No consultation, no evidence to this decision, and a lack of understanding / care shown. It also seriously calls into question the benefits of working for the Civil Service, of which one strong benefit was flexible working!

Working from home has helped me to manage health issues in various ways.

we don't have the capacity to all go into the building at the same time - we don't have access to enough meeting rooms or quiet areas for 2 days, never mind more. We are more productive when we don't have to travel through rush hour systems.

Does this mean, in the coming months ahead, for whatever reason, LMs will dictate which days we come in? I have mobility issues and prefer to start early to avoid the rush hour, to and from work, so I do not attend the office on the two days there are team meetings ending after 4pm. I have been asked in the past, if I could alternate my days.

The way this has been handled is a poor and leaves civil servants with little confidence that this process will be carried out fairly or effectively.

I can't see any justification for this change beyond political posturing. If DLUHC wants to recruit and retain talented people, it needs to offer flexibility and choice, since it cannot compete with the private sector on salaries (and the gap is growing due to below-inflation pay increases). We also do not have enough desks. There is little point in coming into the office if we can't sit with our team because there isn't space.

I don't think this is necessary at all.

There is indeed no evidence that increasing the amount of office working will lead to increases in productivity or better working.

My team are spread out across the UK so I will spend most of my time on Teams calls anyway. I do enjoy being in the office but I think the balance of 40% was good