New return-to-work guidelines from the Canadian Government have confirmed that most Federal Public Servants will be working remotely for the foreseeable future — some even permanently.
Individual Departments have been tasked with bringing back only their most critical staff for the time being, according to the guidelines, which have been issued by the Treasury Board of Canada.
The Federal Government sent most of its roughly 250,000 workers home in mid-March as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold.
Certain employees remained in the office only in exceptional circumstances.
President of the Treasury Board, Jean-Yves Duclos (pictured) said the return would be gradual, would vary by Department and would put health and safety first.
“There are no Government-wide standards and no dates are included in the guidelines,” Mr Duclos said.
“Instead, Deputy Heads of Departments will be in charge of determining critical priorities; who can perform the work, whether it has to be done in an office, how those offices can be kept safe, and when those critical employees could potentially return,” he said.
Mr Duclos said one lesson learned from the pandemic was that it was possible, and perhaps practical, for some Public Servants to work from home permanently.
“We’ve started reflecting on the number of offices and office spaces that we want over the next few years, as the private sector is doing,” he said.
“The Federal Government has doubled its number of secure connections to its servers to 280,000, and since mid-March has increased its teleconference capacity to 100,000 workers at any given time.”
He said this had proved that many Federal employees could be as effective in remote work as they were in the office.
Ottawa, 24 June 2020
