Peter Karwacki: Hybrid Work

A good number of Ward 13 residents work remotely — some for private employers, some for the City of Ottawa itself. So when return-to-office mandates come up, this isn't an abstract HR debate for this ward. It's commute time back on the table, childcare arrangements upended, and in some cases a City employee being told to drive downtown to do the same job they were doing fine from a kitchen table in Manor Park or New Edinburgh.

We've heard the usual list of concerns about remote workers for years now: productivity paranoia, weaker culture, harder mentoring, cybersecurity risks, isolation, blurred work-life boundaries. Managers say they can't trust what they can't see. Some call for full return-to-office as the cure.

I look at the same list and see a different problem.

Remote Work Concerns: Measure the Work, Not the DeskTuesday, 4 August 2026

We’ve heard the usual list of concerns about remote workers for years now: productivity paranoia, weaker culture, harder mentoring, cybersecurity risks, isolation, blurred work-life boundaries. Managers say they can’t trust what they can’t see. Some call for full return-to-office as the cure.I look at the same list and see a different problem.We have recently called federal workers back to a centralized office. Madness.Presence is not the same as performance. If a manager needs people sitting under fluorescent lights five days a week to know whether the work is getting done, the management system is broken—not the location.

You can’t manage what you won’t measure. That principle applies whether the desk is in an office tower or a kitchen table.The real issues are not mysterious:

Accountability and results — Define the deliverables. Track the metrics that matter. Publish them. If output, quality, and timelines are clear, location becomes secondary for many roles. Vague “culture” complaints often hide the absence of those metrics.
Collaboration and mentoring — These suffer when left to chance. Fix them with intentional design: structured check-ins, documented processes, occasional in-person sessions where they add real value, and technology that actually works. Blanket mandates do not magically create mentoring.
Security and compliance — Legitimate risks. Treat them as such: proper controls, tools, and oversight. Do not use them as an all-purpose excuse to drag every knowledge worker back into under-utilized buildings.
Isolation and boundaries — Real human costs for some people. Acknowledging them is fine. Pretending that forcing a daily commute solves them is not.

Forced full-time office returns create their own externalities that rarely appear in the official accounting: commuting time and energy costs, underused real estate, reduced talent pools, higher turnover, and lower morale. Decision-makers who push the policy often do not personally bear those costs.Hybrid or fully remote arrangements are not a free lunch. They require better systems, clearer expectations, and managers willing to manage by results instead of by sight. For roles that truly need daily face-to-face interaction, the office still makes sense. Treating every position the same does not.In municipal work the same pattern shows up: projects that drag on, numbers that stay unpublished, and decisions that look decisive but ignore the full set of trade-offs. The solution is not more presence theater. It is clearer measurement, open data, and accountability for outcomes.If the work is defined, measured, and delivered, the location of the keyboard is secondary. If it is not, no amount of office furniture will fix it.— Peter Karwacki, PMP

Candidate for Ward 13 (Rideau-Rockcliffe)

I AM A Candidate for Rideau-Rockcliffe*

"something needs to be done".