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Speaker 1: Now working from home right has been the talk, big

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Speaker 1: talking point of the week so far. What we don't

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Speaker 1: have is a lot of numbers, so we thought we'd

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Speaker 1: crunch a few of them just to get a bit

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Speaker 1: of context into this debate. And Gareth Kernan is Informetric's

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Speaker 1: chief forecasters, who's been a forecaster, who's been doing the

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Speaker 1: numbers for us at Gareth evening here, mate, do we

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Speaker 1: have any idea how many people are actually working from home?

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Speaker 2: Stat Sens did a survey last year and showed that

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Speaker 2: about forty three percent of people have the option to

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Speaker 2: work from home, and some other numbers suggest that around

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Speaker 2: about eighty percent of those people have worked from home

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Speaker 2: in the last three months or so, not saying they

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Speaker 2: work from home every week, but at least utilizing that

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Speaker 2: option to some extent. It's interesting when you look at

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Speaker 2: professional services, which you know, the talk has been about

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Speaker 2: the government this week, and it's probably the closest industry

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Speaker 2: we've got sort of lining up with the sort of

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Speaker 2: work there. Eighty one percent of people are able to

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Speaker 2: work from home, so it is massively prevalent, as you'd expect,

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Speaker 2: I guess through you know, those sort of office based jobs.

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Speaker 1: Do you think that sending these guys back is the

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Speaker 1: proportion of the workforce in Wellington being the civil service

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Speaker 1: big enough to actually impact Wellington if we sent them

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Speaker 1: all back five days a week, let's say.

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Speaker 2: Well, I mean, look the civil Service, it's about twenty

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Speaker 2: percent of Wellington's workforce, compared to across the rest of

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Speaker 2: the country around about five percent. So it is significant.

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Speaker 2: But I was fascinated looking at the public transport usage

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Speaker 2: actually on a regional basis, I mean, Wellington's public transport

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Speaker 2: usage this year to date, it is down about six

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Speaker 2: percent from where it was in twenty nineteen, back when

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Speaker 2: the world was all normal. Auckland, I was surprised to

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Speaker 2: look at Auckland fourteen percent down, and then I remember

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Speaker 2: that you guys have had massive problems, you know, and

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Speaker 2: fixing your train lines and all that sort of thing.

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Speaker 2: But even bus usage in Auckland are still around, sitting

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Speaker 2: around about seven percent below where it was in twenty nineteen.

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Speaker 2: So there's sort of a bit of a feeling that

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Speaker 2: there's other issues at play in Wellington apart from just

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Speaker 2: the fact that public servants have been working from home.

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Speaker 2: I mean, there's been a lot of discussion down here,

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Speaker 2: of course about the sort of freaking infrastructure and the

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Speaker 2: unattractiveness of the center of town with earthquake damaged buildings

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Speaker 2: and that type of thing. We haven't had a lot

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Speaker 2: of population growth here as well at times. And you

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Speaker 2: overlay all of that, of course, with the actual job

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Speaker 2: cuts we've seen too the public sector, and I think

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Speaker 2: there's probably bigger issues at play then simply, you know,

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Speaker 2: too many people working from home and not spending enough

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Speaker 2: in the cafes in town.

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Speaker 1: The defense that you get from people who don't want

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Speaker 1: to have to go back to work, the unions or

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Speaker 1: you know, don't want to have to send the staff

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Speaker 1: back to work is that there isn't a problem with productivity.

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Speaker 1: It hasn't decreased. But can we actually say that with confidence.

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Speaker 1: Is anybody at any of these agencies or private sector

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Speaker 1: employers actually measuring productivity often enough to know for sure?

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Speaker 2: I think there's been so many sort of conflicting studies

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Speaker 2: on it, it's really hard to come to any sort

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Speaker 2: of firm conclusion about the productivity outcomes. And I get

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Speaker 2: the feeling that it really depends on your organization, It

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Speaker 2: really depends on the individuals that play as well. You know,

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Speaker 2: for some people working at home with the lack of

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Speaker 2: interruptions is fantastic and they do get more done. For

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Speaker 2: others you kind of feel like, you know, maybe maybe

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Speaker 2: they'll take and the piece of bit and you know,

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Speaker 2: a couple of hours work here and a couple of

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Speaker 2: hours work there.

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Speaker 1: So, gare, if you work in Wellington, do you know

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Speaker 1: any public sector? It got any mates? So we're taking

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Speaker 1: the mickey a little bit.

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Speaker 2: No, my mates are all very very strong work if

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Speaker 2: I can't believe you to cure some of that, but no,

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Speaker 2: loant I know heaps, Yeah, no, I mean look for

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Speaker 2: look from an infimetrics point of view, I mean we've

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Speaker 2: always had quite a flexible working policy, even pre COVID.

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Speaker 2: But we're a small organization with you know, twelve thirteen

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Speaker 2: fourteen people. It's pretty easy to see sort of holes

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Speaker 2: in people's productivity if they're not pulling their weight. It

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Speaker 2: is a lot harder in those bigger organizations and obviously

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Speaker 2: the public sector, I think imagine it's a lot harder

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Speaker 2: to keep tabs on everybody and that sort of situation.

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Speaker 1: Yeah too, right, Hey, Gareth, as always really appreciate you

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Speaker 1: doing the numbers for us and chatting to you. That's

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Speaker 1: Gareth Cannan.

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