ACT Government agrees to consider trial of four-day work week

Lazy ACT public servants. Cut their numbers to match the loss of a day

We need an actual cut in red tape and regulations which would allow a reduction in the public service. What we don’t need is schemes which would reduce their already low productivity and increase costs and annoyance to taxpayers.

For many a 4 day week would be a 3 day increase to their current efforts.
Many have not returned to work post the covid lockdowns, some don’t even live in the ACT or NSW anymore, they just dial into the occasional meeting while still claiming a full pay.
The ACT need to put some of these people on work diaries, they would be shocked if they knew exactly how unproductive many of their staff from the Dickson office are.
Our rates will be at $10,000 a year by the end of this decade to pay for all this low productivity, socially inclusive, junk administration.

No, no, and no. Who do they think they are? They can’t even do a proper job with 5 days, let alone 4. Guaranteed they’ll want an increase in salary too, because that’s the only thing they are good for; demanding more money, for less hours.
When are you citizens going to realise, and actually do something about it?

I’m sure that during the Industrial Revolution there were those who complained bitterly about working hours being limited to 10 hours a day/ 6 days a week

Hope the unions can actually deliver a decent outcome here

Any trial needs to be monitored by a group outside the PS with knowledge of industry level work practices. Also, the idea smacks of idealists with inflated beliefs in hard and smart work with no idea of how people in business work.

There seems to be an expectation by Unions and employees that they can move to a 4 day week but keep their same pay and entitlements.

This is unrealistic.

At best, people should expect to receive their extra day off,in exchange for an increase in the number of hours worked per day. Even then, it’s really only practical where the “business” or department doesn’t have the need to provide services beyond what could be acheived over 4 days.

There are some interesting side issues here. ACT Govt recently allowed flexitime for EL1/EL2. The traditional 37.5 hours a week has long been a joke with 40 hours being usual, 45-50 hours not unusual but unrecorded…for instance a fixed 5 days allowable extra leave for giving about 5 weeks overtime per year. Now that time has to be recorded, acknowledged, and managed. This will be a major issue in its own right, if they force people to work contracted hours then they will need acknowledge they don’t have enough people, which means more jobs or reduction in services.
Secondly, the ‘work from home’ thing has increased the amount of work for most people..no wasted travel, logon at 8 and logoff at 6, do you bother with lunch or just grab some food and work through? The difficulty has been in forcing people to take a break, or go for this mythical lunchtime walk.
What is the long-term effect on the local economy, who wants to buy an apartment close to work when they don’t need to? Who wants to run a lunchtime restaurant with no customers, or a coffee stand with no staff walking past? If anything this is pushing work and business into some of these dead suburbs.
It also has to be said that Canberra is very inefficient, both public and private sectors. Things are kept as they are because the money washes round in a circle, and a lot of the knockers also benefit from that local closed-ish economy.
The one to watch is the outsourcing of services to government-eating companies from the US or UK who are banging on the door via trade agreements and an expected recession, championing much more efficient business management practices that have been honed overseas. Be careful what you wish for when focussing on local parochial arguments, a lot of the government knockers would not stand the heat that would bring either.

Obviously, if the ACT government tacitly admits here that they can function the same with just 4/5ths of the current workforce labour input, then they should just reduce their workforce by 4/5ths. Why are ratepayers expected to subsidize the 1/5 that is unproductive?