BC bets on a future of remote work

BC’s top bureaucrat says the government favors remote work to recruit and retain talent while it struggles to fill vacancies.

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Shannon Salter, Deputy Minister to the Prime Minister, last week sent a memo “strongly encouraging” departments to approve flexible working arrangements for staff who wish to do so. It also included new guidelines outlining how these decisions should be made.

The memo also said that new job postings are no longer tied to a single office or location, and that staff only need to live in a municipality where their ministry has an office.

Unions say it marks a major change in the government’s approach to remote work after contract negotiations in which the province resisted including a right to remote work in collective agreements.

According to Salter, the policy aims to bring diversity to the public service and to attract and retain employees who view face-to-face work as a deal-breaker.

The result could change the nature of work for thousands of government employees and create more high-paying jobs in smaller communities – and transform downtown Victoria, where many businesses depend on government employees for business.

“Like other employers, we are experiencing labor shortages in the BC public sector,” Salter said Monday, without giving specific numbers. “We’re looking at creative ways to ensure we continue to be the employer of choice.”

Before 2020, few government employees worked remotely. Then the COVID-19 pandemic forced thousands of workers to move from tall buildings in downtown Victoria to kitchen counters and home offices.

Some of those employees have since returned to the office, but many others have enjoyed the move. The Treasury estimates that up to 17,500 workers are still working remotely at least two days a week.

“It’s always been about work-life balance,” said Stephanie Smith, president of the BC General Employees’ Union. Some workers prefer to skip the commute. Others cannot afford apartments in Victoria or Vancouver.

“It’s also about affordability, to be perfectly honest,” Smith said. “We’re seeing people moving farther and farther away from where they actually work—members commuting from Chilliwack to Vancouver.”

Smith said remote work was a “big issue” when the BCGEU and the government negotiated last year. Members wanted the right to work remotely on contract, but Smith said the employer would not budge.

Employees are currently required to obtain approval to work remotely. If they wish to work remotely for more than two days a week, they need approval from a Deputy Deputy Minister or a Minister-designate, which is not always granted.

“When I hear from our members, I feel like it’s not easy to get approval to work from home for more than two days,” said Melissa Moroz, industrial relations officer at the Professional Employees Association.

Moroz, whose union represents about 1,300 accredited professionals working for the provincial government, including agrologists and engineers, estimates about 95 percent of PEA members could do the job remotely.

But she and Smith said not all workers are successful with their applications, which they attribute to a single manager’s decision. For example, Smith said they’ve heard of cases where two employees doing similar jobs at the same department had different answers when applying for remote work.

Both said the ability to work remotely is an important issue for members.

“The market is certainly competitive for professional workers, who are the kind of workers that the PEA represents,” Moroz said. “And they know they have to move up here or they’ll lose employees to other employers that offer more flexible work arrangements.”

The memo comes amid a larger debate about the role of remote work. The federal government, for example, announced in December that its more than 300,000 employees will have to come to a physical office at least two days a week starting this spring.

The Federal Treasury Board said in-person work encourages collaboration and consistency, but unions said their members had proven remote work doesn’t hurt productivity.

Shelagh Campbell is a professor at the University of Regina who has been working on remote work as part of a global network of researchers since 2020. Through studies of employees at 14 universities in Canada and Australia, they found that the pros and cons of remote work are hugely variable. Some people would like to spend more time with their families; others missed the separation of work and life. Some people found it easier to work without interruptions; others needed face-to-face meetings with colleagues.

“You could have two data entry technicians with school-age children living 15 miles from where they work,” Campbell said. “Some might prefer to go to the office because they like the break and prefer to get out of the house, while others might not.”

According to Campbell, Salter’s memo is a good way to recruit employees looking for flexibility, especially in a tight job market where employees have options.

According to Salter, about 3,000 people left the public service in BC last year, more than in previous years, although the number of retirements has remained constant.

“What has changed is that people are less likely to come into BC public service and stay there until they retire,” Salter said. She sees remote work as a key benefit.

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“It’s something both BC officials have asked for and asked us to look at more broadly, but we also know from research that it’s something that very qualified, exceptional candidates see as a priority,” Salter said .

Campbell noted that it was significant that government job postings would no longer require applicants to be resident in a specific location.

Salter said the move – which would still require staff to live in a community where their ministry has an office – was designed in part to open up jobs to diverse groups, particularly indigenous peoples who she believes are in Government jobs are underrepresented.

Campbell says the change could lead to more high-paying jobs in remote and rural parts of the province.

But the changes could be seen as a setback for downtown Victoria and Vancouver businesses that may be dependent on government officials.

“There’s an undercurrent of economic policy there,” Campbell said. “The downtown core is dying because you have a big employer that has to accept remote work. We have seen many businesses fail during COVID due to lack of downtown traffic.”

Jeff Bray, CEO of the Downtown Victoria Business Association, acknowledged the government’s announcement was “a bit disappointing” for members but said it came as no surprise. He said many downtown businesses have adapted. “This is really just a codification of what has already happened. It doesn’t change what has already happened,” Bray said.

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A bigger question might be what will happen to the existing provincial government office space in these downtown cores. The government oversees and maintains more than 1,800 buildings covering about 17 million square feet of land, according to its website.

“That’s a conversation we’re starting to have,” Salter said. She said officials have discussed “reconfiguring” existing spaces, including more “collaborative” spaces and housing multiple ministries or departments together in the same space.

Campbell suggested governments might look to convert office buildings into housing to help cope with skyrocketing prices in communities like Vancouver, although Salter said that’s not on the table yet.

“These are really interesting conversations to have in the future. Our priority now is to think about how we can best use this space to modernize the way our workforce works,” said Salter.

Smith points out that Salter’s memo hasn’t really changed remote work policy: it remains something entirely at the employer’s discretion and will remain on the agenda for the next round of negotiations.

But she says the message is clear: Unlike at the federal level, remote work is to remain.

“I read from the memo that the direction to departments is: don’t default to no,” Smith said.

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