The Future of Work in the Public Service: Understanding Public Servants’ Attitudes and Perspectives on Return to Office and Hybrid Work

Impact of the COVID-19 on the nature of work cannot be overstated. In Canada, following the largest and quickest transition to remote work ever, public servants were working from home in 2020 and 2021. As governments come out of the pandemic, they begin to reflect on the lessons learned and how these impact existing work arrangements. This research analyzes attitudes and perspectives of current and former public servants in the Public Service of Canada on return to office and hybrid work shared anonymously on Reddit and discusses how these can inform digital government initiatives. Preliminary results suggest that many public servants had neutral or positive sentiments with regards to the hybrid work model and were predominantly focused on the need to understand the value of being in the office and reasons behind government decisions. There were, however, calls for action against mandated return to office - from “quiet quitting” to labor action.