ESDC to track individual workers’ sign-in location to enforce return-to-office rules

ESDC will start producing its new reports in July. Photo by TONY CALDWELL /POSTMEDIAArticle content

The largest department in the core public service will begin producing reports on whether individual employees are signing in from the office beginning in July.

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The new initiative deepens the data collection and surveillance of employees at Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) as the department pushes to meet return-to-office directives.

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The department was formerly producing aggregate data reports from a “roll up of all login data,” ESDC spokesperson Maja Stefanovska said in an email. The department will now provide information at an individual employee level.

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The so-called “low on-site connectivity reports” will be compiled with employee log-in data, approved leave and employee work arrangement information. The data will also reflect statutory holidays to make sure it doesn’t overcount the days employees aren’t in the office.

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Stefanovska said ESDC “will begin producing a Low Onsite Connectivity Report that will support managers and direct supervisors, including those with large and geographically dispersed teams better understand whether all employees are fully meeting the expectations of ESDC’s common hybrid work model policies.”

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The department defines low-connectivity as an “individual’s low connection to ESDC’s network in the office as per their hybrid work arrangement.”

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Workers inside the department were told of the new reports last week. Data for the July report will be collected from June 2 to June 29.

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These reports will be sent to supervisors and managers who may follow up with their staff to ask why they fell short of the requirement that they be in the office for three days a week. If the supervisor finds that there is no justification for low onsite connectivity, then “employees may face administrative and/or disciplinary action.”

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ESDC told the Ottawa Citizen that the department had “consulted key stakeholders such as they Office of the Privacy Commissioner and completed Privacy Impact Assessment’s to ensure that the information gathered respects employee privacy.”

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Since September 2024, many public servants have been required to work in the office for three days a week. Executives must be in the office for at least four days a week. At the end of that month, only 73 per cent of employees were compliant with the new rules, according to documents obtained by the Ottawa Citizen through an access-to-information request.