Remote work works — my story; what’s yours?

A personal reflection and a call to action

We all need different conditions to bloom and to thrive. One thing however is for sure, we all do better when we have favorable conditions. Telework is a favorable condition for many whose comfort is not the office.

This post will be a collage of previously shared reflections elsewhere, with some new additions.

Within 10 days of the new direction on prescribed office presence, 28% of the union-represented workforce is against the return to office mandate, sending letters to their MP!

This is a wave of change.

Those who know me, know that distributed teams and flexible work is something I am very passionate about and advocate for fiercely.

In the fall of 2024, I will be coming back from maternity leave as a mom of 2. For our family of two full-time working parents who cherish the time with our children and each other, flexibility is more important than ever.

In my work time, I am a regional Manager located in Vancouver, managing a distributed team that works across Canada. There is no reason for me to be in the office, as we are all located in different areas. The work we do is digital to support teams across Canada. We work better when we are empowered to choose how we work.

As an individual, I live with generalized anxiety and a number of chronic health conditions. Working from home allows me to manage and improve my symptoms, while being most productive at work and in my personal life.

I see telework as a necessary modern work condition, not a luxury or a privilege, as some choose to frame it. How we work impacts our non-work lives. Asking for better work conditions is not being entitled.

My story — celebrating over 6 years of remote work

In 2014, a Manager that believed in distributed talent and workforce convinced their Director to hire a regional employee - me - a recent MLIS grad from Vancouver, to support an all Ottawa-based information management team working on rolling out GCDocs across Canada Revenue Agency (back then, over 40,000 employees). I was the only remote employee. At that time, still working from an office space, but with no team members around me. There was no video conferencing software at the time (just teleconferencing) and no way for my Manager to know that I was doing the work, aside from, of course, the outcomes of my work, which spoke for themselves.

Accomplishing a lot on a distributed team showed me that I do my best work under autonomous conditions, with lots of agency, and ability to network and collaborate broadly. I’ve sought out these conditions ever since to grow and contribute meaningfully to many initiatives.

From December 2018 onwards, I’ve negotiated to work fully remotely at 2 organizations: the Canada School of Public Service and the Canada Revenue Agency, doing important work while never needing to step into a physical office.

In 2020, I was hired as a Manager during the pandemic, to lead a distributed team, under a verbal agreement to continue working remotely. This was an important condition for me, given that I’ve negotiated my 2 prior positions to be remote before the pandemic.

The flexibility of working from home has allowed me to have a more meaningful life with my young child and to also manage a number of health conditions that have daily impact on my wellness and ability to contribute fully.

You can learn more about the work I did in these roles in another post: Reflections + 5 lessons learned from 10 years in the public service | by ksenia cheinman | Medium.

Over the period of my 10+ year career in the federal public service, I’ve advocated for distributed teams and supported remote employees in many ways:

• Every time I saw a job posting I wanted to apply for that said the hiring location was NCR (National Capital Region), I would email the HR contact listed on the job to inquire why this job was requiring in-office presence in Ottawa, in the hopes that it would inspire HR to question their limiting hiring practices
• As a Manager hiring employees, I would challenge the recruitment recommendations I received such as that hiring folks in NCR or near large offices would be easier. I’ve fairly justified many hiring decisions that did not follow these rules and I am so proud of having been able to expand the reach of my teams and the sources of talented individuals who have joined the public service as a result.
• As a Manager, I intentionally built teams that were located across Canada, rather than co-located. This ensured I could hire folks who would work well together, supporting the culture of equity and care. This also enabled us to better understand challenges faced by the different regions with empathy and extended work hours (with a 4 hour difference between Vancouver and Halifax for example).
• When developing curriculum for Design at the Digital Academy, I advocated for and created a hybrid model for learning, encouraging folks to deliver some of the training virtually to both scale it and enable us to extend the offerings to those who were not located in NCR.

These are just 4 examples of many others of my commitment to supporting distributed teams and remote work because I believe in the value they bring to the employees, the employer, and the socio-environmental fabric at large.

Remote work is essential for a healthy public service

I see remote work neither as a luxury nor as an accommodation, I see it as essential to a healthy public service, a cause worth advocating for.

I strongly believe that remote work and virtual teams have allowed the Federal Public Service to evolve.

Remote and flexible work works on so many levels, it works for:

• employees (supporting autonomy, self-awareness, self-care, personal values, improving mental and physical health, increasing quality of life for families, single folks, and pet parents alike)
• employers (supporting productivity, creating a diverse and representative Canadian public service from coast to coast, attracting and retaining talent, and building organizational resilience)
• social justice (supporting equity, creating better conditions for marginalized folks including people living with disabilities or health issues, neurodivergent individuals, people facing financial constraints, people experiencing discrimination based on their gender identities, sexual orientation or race, people disproportionately taking on caregiving responsibilities for children and aging family members, people at an intersection of many of these identities)
• environmental justice (supporting environmental consciousness and desire to make choices in our lives that consider our planet’s long term sustainability)

However, with the new direction on required in-office presence, instead of an inspiring, forward-looking movement where as a Federal Public Service we unite to better the world we live in (by reducing the environmental footprint, elevating our ways of working, improving working conditions for those who don’t fit into the office culture), we are regressing.

As a Manager who prioritizes relationships and building shared connection on a distributed team, I foresee some significant challenges as a result of this direction:

• Feeling demotivated and depleted because Managers have no agency to support their employees with the level of flexibility they might need to do their best work.
• Difficulty motivating and inspiring employees who do not feel autonomous in how they deliver their best work.
• Barriers to recruiting regional talent because employees would be required to go into an office without any colleagues, only to spend many hours a day in online meetings, rather than growing with and benefiting from a fully distributed team.
• Difficulty retaining talent. Flexibility and giving employees autonomy in how they prefer to work is the best way to retain talent and deliver excellent results.

This is not the Story I want to be telling a few years from now!

I trust that through collective effort, we can change the course of this Return to Office Story.

What’s your story?

I have met so many colleagues across Canada who have their own amazing remote work/ telework/ working from home stories.

Share your stories to help the Unions advocate for your needs.

All stories are worth telling:

• long or short (even if it’s just a vignette of a few sentences)
• stories about your remote work successes, show what you’ve accomplished as a virtual employee
• stories about someone else who helped improve the public service through telework
• stories about how working from home has supported you as an employee

Share your stories with #RemoteWorkWorks hashtag.

Together, we can change the Story of Return to Office!

Call to action

Did you know that in Canada, paid maternity leave benefits have only been around since 1971?

This change significantly increased women’s participation in the workforce from 30% in 1960 to over 60% in 2022.

This did not happen effortlessly. Labour unions pushed for better working conditions and advocated for the changes in policy. Each working condition improvement helped secure more important changes down the line — adoption leave, paternity leave, parental leave, expansion of how family is defined, etc. Labour improvements support those who are excluded and disadvantaged by existing policies. #betterWorkConditions

The recent Treasury Board announcement of an increased prescribed presence in the workplace (return to office) creates barriers similar to the lack of maternity leave benefits of pre-1971.

Some folks are saying that those advocating for flexibility in their work and against the requirement to work in the office are “entitled”. Were those advocating for the maternity leave benefits in 1970 also “entitled”?

Remote work is a feminist issue and an equity issue for many! It is not a luxury, it is essential for mental health and psychological safety in our workplaces, to retain talent, and build resilience.

What if “entitlement” is a new word for seeking better, more modern working conditions? Let’s #BeEntitled 🤰 👩‍👩‍👧 👨‍👧 ♿

To change the system, we need many voices and allies (even if you don’t see the benefit, realize that many, many will benefit from the flexibility)! Executives, we know you are not thrilled about it, we need your support! #BeAnAlly

For many, being maximally present in the office, means being minimally present in their non-work lives due to fatigue, masking overload associated with disabilities, and limited time to spend with family, among other examples.

As of May 10, 2024, out of 260,000 federal public service workers represented by PIPSC, PSAC, CAPE, and ACFO unions, 72,000 have sent a letter to their MP showing their dissatisfaction with the return to office decision.

28% of the represented workforce is against the new return to office mandate!

Yet I am certain that more than 30% can benefit from flexible work!

Add your voice now!

Immediate actions unionized employees can take:

CAPE represented employees

✍ Send CAPE letter to support flexible work (over 25,000 letters sent to MP)

PSAC represented employees

✍ Send PSAC letter (over 40,000 letters sent)

PIPSC represented employees

📩 Fill out PIPSC survey until May 17

✍Send PIPSC letter (over 7,000 emails sent)

Executives

📩 Send APEX your feedback at chiefexecutiveofficer-chefdeladirection@apex.gc.ca

Additional actions you can take:

• If you are an Employee working from a region or from a distant location or for whom being present in the office does not work (due to mental health, disability, neurodivergence, experience of discrimination, etc.), keep advocating for your right to work remotely and illustrate the multi-faceted benefits of this arrangement. Share your stories with #RemoteWorkWorks hashtag, so we can collect them. You can also contact your Union and ask how you can support this cause further
• If you are a Manager or an HR professional hiring for public service positions, advocate for and recruit diverse and distributed team members and question job requirements anchored in a specific location. Most jobs can be done effectively remotely, given intentionality, willingness, and openness to lead distributed teams!
• If you are an Executive, be an ally and push for autonomy in making decisions to support your organization and your teams! Creating caring and flexible working conditions is one of the best ways to motivate your employees to do the best work they can!

#RemoteWorkWorks! Don’t give up! Share your stories!