GCworkplace
The government started phasing out permanent desks before the pandemic, shifting to hotelling and co-working to save billions on real estate. The original plan was to cut the federal office footprint in half by 2034. That target got pared back to 33 per cent, but permanent desks undo the strategy entirely.
For a government already in the middle of downsizing — bent on saving to spend — that has real fiscal implications. It’s also coming amid predictions that AI could kill the relevance of the office – and location.
One senior official called the move to assigned-seating “table stakes.”
“Unless you do that, this is not going to work. It changes the space quotient markedly. There’s a cost. And if you don’t do it, the whole argument about efficiency and collaboration falls apart.”
The strategy: soften resistance and build acceptance.
Time to unpack this.
Today:
Your desk, my desk: For humans, territory matters.
Remote ≠ flexible: There's a distinction.
The ritual daily scramble: Booking desks is a free-for-all.
The space reality: There’s no room for everyone at once.
But forget the desks: Is this about performance or attendance?
AMID THE CHAOS
The timing is hard to miss
It’s unclear what’s behind bringing public servants back for an additional day — the third RTO order since 2023. But timing matters.
The new mandate lands in the middle of a 40,000-job staff reduction. Critics call it unnecessary pressure. Supporters call it sound management strategy.
The timing alignment with downsizing is hard to miss. The government is still counting on some voluntary departures to reduce the number of surplus notices and SERLO competitions. Early retirement incentives — penalty-free exits for eligible employees — were supposed to help, but they won’t be available until the budget bill passes.
Then came the delayed RTO order initially expected back in January. Many public servants had hoped it was off the table at least until the smoke from the workforce reductions had cleared. Instead, it arrived in the middle of chaos with workers receiving notices that their jobs could be cut.
An extra day in the office changes the math. For some employees — particularly those already eligible to retire and unhappy about returning — that additional day could tip the balance to leave.
The culture of showing up. Prime Minister Mark Carney and his inner circle come from finance and business — where showing up is the default and the employer decides when and where people work.
Nobody is suggesting the four-day mandate came straight from the PM, but both he and PCO clerk Michael Sabia work seven days a week — and expect results, fast, at every level.
This is the third RTO mandate since early 2023, and messaging has shifted slightly. The office is a hub for collaboration and culture, yes, but the new framing emphasizes how critical they are to delivery, that longstanding Achilles heel of the public service. Bringing employees back is partly about showing Canadians that work is happening, some observers suggest.
But it’s about power, too. Hybrid work handed public servants and their unions a new level of freedoms. Management now sees it as creeping entitlement, with attendance in the office still below required levels even though employee location is a management prerogative. Reclaiming management control could help recalibrate the power balance between employer and employee, said one senior official.
“It's not just where you work — it’s becoming what’s appropriate to be asked to do and when. I think it may be part of a broader trend that was swinging the wrong way,” said the official.
DESKLESS DILEMMA
Territory is important, it turns out
A big office redesign was already under way when the pandemic forced thousands of bureaucrats to work from home. The GCworkplace initiative was built on unassigned seating. About 40 per cent of desks were sitting empty on any given day, with workers off sick, on vacation, at meetings, or working remotely. Cutting assigned desks seemed like good financial sense.
But the plan didn’t account for two key things: territory and habit. Humans like having a spot to call their own, and research shows workers are more productive in spaces they consider theirs.
“What people want is simple,” said one senior bureaucrat. “They want to put stuff on their desk — make it their spot. They spend a good chunk of their lives there; let them have a plant or a picture. Don’t make them figure out where to sit while managers try to track them. It just makes no sense.”
When the pandemic hit, employees had real freedom and control over their schedules for the first time, and those changes have become the norm. With everyone getting the work done under the new arrangement, the bigger challenge for government is explaining the appeal of coming into the office.
Clearly, public servants like the flexibility of working from home. But remote work and flexible work aren’t the same thing.
The difference that got lost. Flexible work is about control over when and how to work — staggered hours, compressed weeks, mixing long and short days, shifting hours to accommodate family. Remote work is another flexibility — about where someone works.
That distinction has been lost, one senior official said.
“What most employees actually want is flexible work, which is, ‘Hey, this morning, I’m taking my mom for her cardiac checkup, or kids to appointments, so tell me what work you need from me, and tell me what time you need it done, and it will be done by then. I'll work at midnight. I'll work at two in the morning.’”
Desk roulette. For many employees, the return to the office is a daily scramble — what some call the Hunger Games of desk booking.
Every morning is the same ritual, as public servants have described on Reddit: book a desk, haul possessions across the building, set up ergonomics from scratch. Kleenex box. Advil. Backup shoes. Laptop. Teams don’t end up sitting together because booking is a “free for all.” So they meet using the Teams app.
“We used to have an office with our things,” wrote one person. “It wasn’t perfect; gray-beige ceiling-high cubicles...but I could have a Whiteboard if I wanted one. I could keep printed documents if I felt the need to analyze my Phoenix pay for a 15th time to look for mistakes. Now, we have a working surface, not an office. … It makes going in to the office feel pointless. How am I collaborating with my team if we’re on different floors?”
The frustration isn’t lost on unions. For them, assigned seating is less a perk than part of a broader push to make remote work negotiable.
TBS says its consultations are meant to smooth the rollout of the new RTO order. So far, CAPE is the only union refusing to participate. PIPSC President Sean O’Reilly says assigned seating is a must with employees back four days a week.
PSAC says unions should have been consulted first — and that assigned desks should be negotiated with other remote-work demands. Pre-pandemic, unions resisted unassigned desks. Now they argue remote work could free up billions in real estate savings for services.
NO SEAT FOR YOU
The space squeeze is real
There isn’t enough space for everyone under the existing three-day mandate, and it’s unclear what the plan is for five and four days. Its departmental plan for 2026–27 isn’t out, but the existing plan is full steam ahead on savings. The auditor general took the department to task in a 2025 report for barely making any space reductions — less than two per cent.
A wholesale shift back to assigned desks would upend the real-estate strategy and its savings planned by Public Services and Procurement Canada. So far, PSPC hasn’t said a word on all this.
