Ottawa Post-Work-At-Home: CRERAR

Published 09/07/2025 · Updated 09/07/2025

The age of work-at-home is ending. So what will happen from all that?

Soon all city of Ottawa employees will be leaving the comfortable and creative work spaces they’ve set up in their home offices.

You know, all those places with Covid dogs to pamper, easily-accessible Led Zeppelin albums together with a stereo system and many more attractions.

Instead they get a return to the office where they’ll sit in a cubicle at a metal desk with metal drawers, metal bookshelves, ergonomically designed office chairs, an IT staff to fix their computers when something unexpected happens, water-fountain discussions, and many more features not available at home. The new work paradigm that arose as the result of Covid-19 will be replaced by the same-old same-old and the new reality that many pundits felt had merit will be shelved after a short-lived test run.

City staff who have been working out-of-office throughout Covid-19 will likely wonder what all the fuss is about because not much will be changing for them. But others. Well that’s different.

In some ways Covid-19 was a blessing. The the cost of gasoline dropped dramatically for a short period of time and some motorists were able to fill the tanks in some cases for as little as $50 even though the carbon tax was still in effect. What was especially pleasurable for me was driving on country roads south of the city without other vehicles driving six feet behind me expecting me to step on the gas.

Meanwhile, the city was finally able to catch up on some roadwork with minimal disruption to traffic. Once vaccines were introduced and proved to be more or less effective, many people began to return to the office, but not all. It’s time for them to join the rest of the gang.

Now that municipal and provincial governments have mandated that workers return full-time to the office, we’ll have an opportunity to observe what impact a larger workforce has on our daily lives. Roads that were not attended will deteriorate more rapidly as additional vehicles start driving on them. Travel time to and from work will increase.

In addition, the city will find out whether or not OC Transpo users will step back onboard. Will ridership increase to pre-Covid levels if riders have to deal with even longer travel times resulting from the New Ways to Bus initiative? Will Ottawa’s transportation master plan require a re-think?

One benefit to having all government offices filled again is taxpayer dollars will no longer be paying for as much space not utilized. But will the service benefits city manager Wendy Stephanson has promised materialize? The city chose to take a new approach to office work to adjust to the impact of Covid-19. In the interim much has changed so a “new new approach” will have to be adopted to re-adjust to the old ways.

Howard Crerar is a project manager and has worked in the software industry for three decades.