City of Ottawa to require staff in office 5-days a week, with flexibility for hybrid arrangements

City employees will be required to work in office five days a week, but there will be some flexibility for other arrangements. CTV’s Katelyn Wilson reports.

All City of Ottawa employees will be required to be in the office five days a week starting on Jan. 1, but there will still be flexibility to accommodate alternative work arrangements for municipal employees.

Council watered down a motion from Coun. Jeff Leiper to rescind the city manager’s five-day in-office mandate, voting to confirm the top bureaucrat’s return-to-office mandate with the flexibility of allowing hybrid work arrangements as appropriate.

The motion from Coun. Cathy Curry, approved by a vote of 15-10, encourages senior leadership and managers to maintain the current hybrid policy as it stands.

There has been debate over the future of hybrid work at Ottawa City Hall since late August, when City Manager Wendy Stephanson announced that the city will return to “five days in the office as the new standard for all city employees,” effective Jan. 1.

Stephanson insisted the new policy is not about the productivity of city staff.

“It’s about being more present in the workplace, leveraging the space that we have, providing those face-to-face opportunities for staff to be looking at what’s happening in our organizations,” Stephanson said during the two-hour debate Wednesday.

“Over the past number of years, we’ve had significant turnover, significant retirements and we need to build up the strength of our workforce in terms of passing on that corporate memory, building those relationships, having continued collaboration and more collaboration. When you look at the use of the workspace, it’s having that five-day coverage.”

Stephanson said flexibility would not be unreasonably denied by managers when assessing cases for hybrid work on a case-by-case basis.

The City of Ottawa currently employs approximately 17,100 full-time equivalent positions, which includes police, fire, paramedics and Ottawa Public Health. While 85 per cent of municipal staff are required to be on site or in the office five days a week, Stephanson said 93 per cent of staff are currently in the office five days a week.

Some councillors suggested that elected officials should not get involved in human resources decisions.

“This has become political because a motion was put on the table. I did not run, nor do I want to be the councillor of HR,” Coun. David Brown said.

“I manage my office staff and council collectively manages one employee – that’s the city manager. Beyond that, it is up to the city manager to administer the workforce of the city manager.”

Coun. Shawn Menard opposes the return-to-office mandate.

“This decision makes no sense. It really smacks of a political decision made one week after Doug Ford encouraged municipalities to make this choice and I think it’s the wrong choice for our employees,” Menard said.

“A hybrid work schedule is the best of all worlds. It allows in-person collaboration, it allows for flexibility and happier, more productive employees.”

Mayor Mark Sutcliffe asked Stephanson if he or Premier Doug Ford asked her to change the city’s workplace policies.

“No, mayor,” Stephanson responded.

Sutcliffe told council that elected officials should let Stephanson “do her job.”

“As much as I appreciate the conversation we’ve had today, to me, fundamentally, it comes back to whether we should be having that conversation because we’re talking about HR stuff today and we don’t do HR – the city manager does HR,” Sutcliffe said.

“We hired the city manager, and we hired her to do a job, I think we should let her do that job. For me there’s a fundamental line we should not cross, which is to get into doing HR at the council table.”

Horizon Ottawa and several unions held a rally outside Ottawa City Hall Wednesday morning to call on the city to scrap the mandate return-to-office mandate for municipal employees.

The head of the Civic Institute of Professional Personnel says the return-to-office mandate is a “lack of respect” for workers.

“They’re incredibly frustrated because they know that hybrid works. They care deeply about their work and their jobs and doing their jobs well, and they know they do their jobs better, they perform better in a hybrid model,” Peter Bleyer, executive director of CIPP, said.

“A hybrid model gives them all the tools they need to be in the office when required and to work in other places as required. It’s a lack of respect for that experience, that positive experience.”

Bleyer says the contract agreement between the union and the city does “give our members the right to have individual evaluation in order to receive a hybrid work arrangement.”

Horizon Ottawa and the Civic Institute of Professional Personnel were joined by members of the Amalgamated Transit Union, the Canadian Association of Professional Employees and the Public Service Alliance of Canada for the protest.

City manager admits “confusion”

Stephanson looked to clear up “confusion” over the return-to-office mandate this week, saying the city will still provide “alternative work arrangements” for employees.

“There will be continued flexibility and manager discretion when considering alternative work arrangement requests, including requests for hybrid work arrangements, based on the nature of the position, service delivery and operational requirements, and available dedicated and hoteling workspace,” Stephanson said in a memo Monday evening.

“We all recognize that circumstances can occur where an employee will be able to work most productively at home and the service they provide to the public will not be impacted.”

Stephanson says a regular on-site presence for municipal employees is “critical to help strengthen relationships, reinforce team norms, support formal systems and processes, facilitate ongoing knowledge transfer between leaders and employees, support mentorship and succession planning, protect the integrity of our corporate memory, build confidence in the city’s ability to deliver service excellence, and ultimately strengthen public trust.”

In August, the Ontario government announced all members of the Ontario Public Service will be required to be in the office four days a week starting in November and full-time in January.

Federal employees in the core public service are required to be in the office a minimum of three days a week.

With files from CTV News Ottawa’s Katelyn Wilson