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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast

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Speaker 1: from News Talks at be.

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Speaker 2: So my take on working from home versus working in

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Speaker 2: the office is you can't really say that any one

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Speaker 2: model is perfect for everyone in every business or workplace

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Speaker 2: and every sector or industry. You know what I mean,

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Speaker 2: There's no one size fits all. There are workplaces where

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Speaker 2: working from home might be better than working from the office,

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Speaker 2: and there are workplaces where the traditional model holds true,

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Speaker 2: and there are also workplaces that will find themselves somewhere

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Speaker 2: in between. I work six days a week, right, and

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Speaker 2: typically I do five in the office and one at home.

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Speaker 2: And the thing about newsrooms is that newsrooms are noisy

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Speaker 2: and distracting and slightly chaotic, open plan environments. Honestly, that's

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Speaker 2: why I love them. But in my job, I have

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Speaker 2: a lot to read, and I have a lot of

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Speaker 2: detail that I really need to understand process, and so

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Speaker 2: once a week it is just so good to escape

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Speaker 2: the office and too bearing myself in detail at home

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Speaker 2: without the risk of being distracted every two minutes. And look,

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Speaker 2: maybe I'm giving the whole productivity argument too much credit here.

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Speaker 2: If the primary reason to get public servants to go

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Speaker 2: back into the office in person is actually just to

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Speaker 2: prop up Wellington businesses, then, yeah, that's a pretty lousy reason.

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Speaker 2: But I actually think the reaction to the government's directive

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Speaker 2: this week was honestly a bit overblown. They didn't say

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Speaker 2: that all public servants have to work from the office

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Speaker 2: every single day. They just said that working from home

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Speaker 2: was not an automatic entitlement and that arrangements would have

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Speaker 2: to be agreed between employers and employees. So working from

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Speaker 2: home arrangements should only be agreed when they don't impact

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Speaker 2: agency objectives and productivity. Am I missing something? I mean,

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Speaker 2: that seems pretty reasonable to me. I don't see anything

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Speaker 2: about mandating. My read at least is that it still

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Speaker 2: allows for flexibility so long as the flexibility doesn't compromise

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Speaker 2: the quality of an employee or an agency's work. And actually,

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Speaker 2: this government is making a bit of a habit of

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Speaker 2: issuing directives that don't cost it any money but will

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Speaker 2: probably be met with a similar reaction from a big

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Speaker 2: slab of the public. I mean a prime example would

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Speaker 2: be the new cell phone ban in schools.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 2: I have always supported it. I just think it's I

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Speaker 2: just think it's total consense. I think we'll look back

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Speaker 2: at it in years to come and be like, oh,

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Speaker 2: my gosh, can you believe that once upon a time

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Speaker 2: we let kids have phones in schools? And now even

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Speaker 2: the opposition education spokesperson supports it too. And perhaps another

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Speaker 2: example is teacher only days. Unions and schools might rightly

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Speaker 2: frustrated at any implication that they are wasting time or

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Speaker 2: doing something that isn't worthwhile goodness knows, they have incredibly

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Speaker 2: difficult and undervalued jobs. And look, many schools time their

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Speaker 2: teacher only days for long weekends, and obviously schools have

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Speaker 2: to be open for a specific number of days every year.

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Speaker 2: And personally, I think it's a bit rich to suggest

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Speaker 2: that teacher only days have a major impact on truancy.

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Speaker 2: But I for one was honestly surprised to learn that

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Speaker 2: under the current rules, teacher only days are actually only

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Speaker 2: supposed to be held outside of term time. Is there

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Speaker 2: really a compelling reason that shouldn't be the case. Look,

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Speaker 2: it'll be a blow to morale for teachers and for

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Speaker 2: many schools, But that directive was all about parents, and

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Speaker 2: I can tell you now a vast majority of parents

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Speaker 2: are not going to be marching in the streets to

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Speaker 2: demand a return of midterm teacher only days.

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Speaker 1: For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, Listen live

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Speaker 1: to News Talks EDB from nine am Saturday, or follow

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Speaker 1: the podcast on iHeartRadio