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Speaker 1: So the old working from home debarkle with the Public

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Speaker 1: Servance has finally got some hard and fast rules around it.

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Speaker 1: The Public Service Commissioner, wo's the boss of the lot

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Speaker 1: of them, has now released guidance on working from home,

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Speaker 1: and this remembers a couple of days only after the

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Speaker 1: union announced they're going to sue the government over this

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Speaker 1: and with us. Now is the Public Service Commissioner, Sir

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Speaker 1: Brian Rach Brian, Hey, good, how's it going? Very good?

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Speaker 1: Thank you? Now have you seen a minimum here? Do

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Speaker 1: they have a minimum number of days they have to

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Speaker 1: be in the office?

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Speaker 2: No, not at all. We've just given guidance. We've created

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Speaker 2: a framework framework which clarifies the position. So flexibility is

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Speaker 2: still a hallmark of what we're doing, but it is

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Speaker 2: only with approval from the employer.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so what is the guidance? What are the rules?

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Speaker 2: Well, the rules is if you want to work from home,

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Speaker 2: you have to get the agreement, not to your employer.

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Speaker 2: The employer has to understand what tasks you're going to

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Speaker 2: be doing. So it's a level of oversight because till

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Speaker 2: now it's been a week bit of whatever peel like

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Speaker 2: remembering over fifty percent of public servants can't actually work

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Speaker 2: from a home. So the guidance is important that we

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Speaker 2: understand what's expected of people when they are not in

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Speaker 2: the office.

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Speaker 1: How many days and how many days a week do

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Speaker 1: you put in the office?

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Speaker 2: I put in an excess of five at the moment

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Speaker 2: that I'm a learning curve.

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Speaker 1: But are you actually going into the office of the weekends.

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Speaker 2: Then no, but I work probably every day for part

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Speaker 2: of the day. But you know this is for rank

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Speaker 2: and file people would do that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So how many days are you going into the office, Brian?

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Speaker 2: I go in five days a week, okay?

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Speaker 1: And so as a boss, do you not have an

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Speaker 1: opinion when you look around and you see young, oh

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Speaker 1: mate's been at home three days this week, don't you

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Speaker 1: sort of form a judgment on that.

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Speaker 2: I try not to because I trust people and.

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Speaker 1: We obviously we've just some guidelines.

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Speaker 2: The guidelines are important because without them, actually we have

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Speaker 2: no levers to actually be able to understand and defend

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Speaker 2: what is happening. And this is not the public sector.

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Speaker 2: The private sector have the same dilemma of you know,

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Speaker 2: when people are not in the office, what are they

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Speaker 2: doing and who are supervising them?

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Speaker 1: Do you think that there is an element of taking

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Speaker 1: the mickey that's been going on. Here, are we betters

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Speaker 1: a sense of entitlement?

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Speaker 2: I don't, That's not been my experience. But you know,

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Speaker 2: these guidance for the avoidance of doubt. This is not an.

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Speaker 1: Entitlement has the PSA. My understanding is the union was

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Speaker 1: actually involved in working with you guys, with in creating

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Speaker 1: these guidelines.

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Speaker 2: Is that right, that's correct. We've got a really strong

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Speaker 2: relationship with them.

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Speaker 1: Well, so if the guidelines were basically at the finished point,

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Speaker 1: why have they jumped the gun and gone for the

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Speaker 1: legal action.

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Speaker 2: That's probably a question you should put to them. I

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Speaker 2: can assure you we gave it our best shot to

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Speaker 2: understand what the nature of the issues were. They were

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Speaker 2: unable to satisfy us on that, so I thought it's

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Speaker 2: best that for the reasons of being certainty, we push on.

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Speaker 1: Listen, that's what we did. Why don't we follow the

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Speaker 1: example of the UK and Canada have a sixty percent

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Speaker 1: minimum three days a week. You've got to be in the.

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Speaker 2: Office, because we don't need that at this point. All

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Speaker 2: options still remain on the table. That's not a threat

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Speaker 2: to anyone, but you know, this was a new thing

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Speaker 2: in our work practices. We've learned from it. We've given

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Speaker 2: this framework and guidance. We will continue to monitor and

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Speaker 2: we will modify it as required.

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Speaker 1: Brilliant stuff, Brian, it's really good to talk to you.

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Speaker 1: Thank you so much. It's Brian Roche, the Public Service Commissioner.

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Speaker 1: For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to

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