Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
PARTICIPANTS ARE BEING sought for the latest edition of the national remote working in Ireland survey, which launches today.
Led by researchers from the Whitaker Institute at NUI Galway and the Western Development Commission, the survey will gather data on people’s attitudes to remote working and working from home over a year into the pandemic.
It’ll also ask what people’s preferences are post-pandemic – whether they would they like to return to the office, work remotely, or a blend of the two.
This will be the third survey carried out by the team since the large-scale move to remote working in March 2020. The two surveys commissioned last year received 12,000 responses from employees across the country.
Previous surveys have shown that as many as 94% of people who are now remote working want it to continue in some form when the pandemic is over. This includes just over half of these workers who want the option of working remotely a few days a week in future, when asked in October.
As well as asking people for their opinion on these matters again, this round of the survey will also ask managers of their experience of leading and supervising their teams remotely.
It will also look at how managers are planning for the post-pandemic world of work.
The research team expect to publish their findings in early May, and include recommendations for employers on how to manage remote working in the current crisis and into the future.
The survey is led by Professor Alma McCarthy and Noreen O’Connor at NUI Galway and Tomás Ó Síocháin and Deirdre Frost at the Western Development Commission.
Ó Siocháin said: “Much has been learned about the transition to remote work over the last year.
“This information helps to inform the decision making about balanced future development in our country, helping the transition to a low carbon economy and ultimately has the potential to transform the way we live and work.”
The survey can be accessed here.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
I know 2 Irish doctors personally who had to go on anti depressants because of their job. Our broken system is failing everyone.
@FacelessJuniorDoctor: likewise. I’ve had medical doctor friends just break down in tears sometimes, and it’s heart wrenching. A good friend of mine was devastated after his colleague had killed themselves, and I remember just holding him in the kitchen while he cried and cried.
Our health system is completely broken, and meanwhile Harris pisses away hundreds of millions on basically nothing.
I’m not surprised one single bit that a lot of our nurses and doctors leave after finishing college, there is no incentive to stay whatsoever.
@FacelessJuniorDoctor:
WTF!! Even though it’s not too surprising to hear that, it’s still quite sobering.
@Veronica: Its broken and do you know why its broken?, its because its so heavily unionized no needed change can be made, as long as the unions hold so much power of the public service we will always get shocking levels of service. Its nearly impossible to fire a person for poor performance, I have talked to a manager that works in the HSE and she said its riddled with pen pushers and wasters…..and she meant riddled. In the UK there are 2 admin staff per patient, in Ireland there are 5….enough said.
@Nollaig Elliot: the main issue for our health system was real reduction in health spending and capital investment following the banking guarantee ie the stripping of Irish public assets to European Banks. This was nothing less than Euro imperialism and we are being distracted from the reality by manipulative stoking of histories prejudices and Brexit.
The HSE is spending over 900,000 euro per day on agency staff to keep the public health service at the bare minimum level of functionality. Yet they won’t employ the staff needed to provide the service they are charged to provide.
It would be very interesting to find out what agency is used and who the directors are and who benefits.
@Dave Doyle: Hi Dave. It’s so much cheaper to employ agency staff— no maternity pay, no holiday pay, no pension contributions, no sick pay ( which is paid out in large amounts to HSE staff)
i have a neuro-muscular degenerative disease, i’m age 66 in a wheelchair. i spent from 2am to 11am the next morning – all night – on a chair in the A&E waiting area of St Vincents. due to my disease i could not hold myself upright. i begged, cried, pleaded to be let lie down. i was feeling utterly – close to death (wasn’t , but felt dire) – feeling awful. i saw a doctor at around 11am-12md the day after being taken by ambulance to the A&E. i was in a dreadful emotional, psychological, physical state by then. i complained only to be told the A&E consultant had written he was happy with the medical care i received. HE was happy that i suffered a god awful night (alone) in the waiting area after I called an ambulance at 2am. He was HAPPY. I wasn’t. The A&E was shambolic. there were very few doctors and the nurse i pleaded to was disinterested and ignored me, in fact she was angry and shouted at me. i was desperate and felt very ill. this is what happens to patients when the service is at breaking point. doctors JUSTIFY bad , awful, unacceptable treatment. if that consultant had confessed I had been treated badly the Minister might get a better picture. but he didn’t he justified leaving a 66 year old woman with muscle myopathy, parkinsons and mitochondrial disease on a chair all night unable to sit up and feeling utterly awful. He said he was HAPPY. but i know why – no doctor wants to challenge the system. not really. they accept as normal shambolic health care and if we patients complain – we are blamed. i am now terrified of st vincents A&E – i just don’t want to go there – but i have to. Why should sick, older, disabled patients be so terrified that they fear A&E will kill them?
@Margaret Kennedy: I’m so sorry you went through this. This government are letting everyone down. I hope you don’t need to go back there any time soon.
@Margaret Kennedy: The same old age people who constantly vote FFG do not see that it is theirs and other peoples voting that has the country the mess it is, we reward failed corrupt parties and then wonder why everything is so bad?, its basic common sense which so many just cannot grasp…..join the dots folks.
@Margaret Kennedy: that’s awful! The last time I was in A&E was midnight to midday, accompanying my sister who turned out to have double pneumonia (I was heavily pregnant) we sat on steel chairs for 12 hours, but seriously counted ourselves lucky when our poor elderly neighbour was brought in by ambulance having had a stroke and was still waiting to be treated 12 hours later. on a steel chair. overnight. i mean even a young fit person with no illness would feel horrendous sitting up with no sleep for that long, but it’s people who are old and very sick. it’s really shocking
Cut the committees cut HIQA cut management cut pen pushers, hire real old style management matrons, you have CNM 1 2 3 4 but nurses on the floor minimum. Accountability lacking, snowflakes
Maybe if the consultants dropped their salaries the system could afford more staff
@Me_a_monkey: That was done in 2013 and now we have 500 empty consultant posts and the lowest number of consultants per capita in the EU.
Your begrudgery politics has failed patients.
@Me_a_monkey: Maybe if they paid the consultants the money they are looking for (which is not above the industry norm) they might get more consultants applying for the posts that are vacant, we are down 1200 consultants as it is, due to the wage cut brought in by James O’Reilly back in 2012
@Marie Agnew: so it really is greed over helping patients then…
@Me_a_monkey: ah come off it. You must be a real sharp mind if your solution to overworking the crap out of our doctors is to also pay them a lot less.
@Me_a_monkey: what a heartless response to an article about suicide and mental health.
The anti doctor attitude in this country of begrudgers is astounding. Why would any highly qualified professional want to stick around to be part of this. The great unwashed continue to reap what they sow…
@Me_a_monkey: “so it really is greed over helping patients then…”
So how much do you propose a consultant earn considering..
1. It takes, on average, 10-15 years (AFTER 5-6 years of college) of continual studying, professional exams, training schemes, time spent doing research or fellowships abroad (generally unpaid) while moving to a different part of the country every year during this time which is completely incompatible with any semblance of a normal family life (not to mention the 60-80hr weeks and 24hr shifts weekly)
2. Consultants not only have clinical responsibilities but also responsibility for teaching medical students, supervising junior doctors, involvement in governance issues and carrying out research.
3. You have all the responsibility for patient care yet none of the resources to allow you to meet those responsibilities and operate in a system which is extremely litigious.
4. The marginal tax rate in 52%
Oh and don’t forget being ultimately responsible for making life and death decisions in real time with changing complex fact patterns and limited access to information (and being held to account, legally and professionally, for every decision made)
I’m really curious to know what you think the salary should be specifically, taking account of the above?
Health system is a mess, insurance sector is a mess,Broadband deal is a mess, children’s hospital costs are a mess and homelessness is rising why is this government this here and why is the cowardly FF still propping them up!!!!!!
As long as we have 3 billion for broadband that’s fine. Lives really don’t matter in this country. I also think the population is to blame also. Like I said before 10,000 marched for homeless, yet 100,000 marched over water charges. Unless you have a Hong-Kong style revolt nothing will change.
Get rid of all the paperwork attached to medical care. As far as I can see all government services is so now preoccupied with ar*e covering documentation that personal care services are diminished as a result. We are now lost in bureaucracy.
@Mac Eoin: Which is a direct response to the highly litigious society we live in.
Doctors are professionally, legally and ethically obligated to provide high standards of care to patients and rightly so. The problem is the system at present is so dysfunctional that it makes it downright IMPOSSIBLE to provide those high standards of care, yet the legal and professional obligation remains. This is made worse by the highly litigious environment in which doctors operate in in Ireland. This is extraordinarily stressful as you’re put in an impossible situation. There are so many cracks in the system from inadequate admin support, to extreme volumes of patients, excessive working hours and a byzantine system of patient records in which patients have volumes of illegible, tattered paper notes (that are often falling apart). There are so many ways for things to go wrong or mistakes to be made and as a doctor you will ultimately be held responsible for said mistakes despite the fact that the dysfunctional nature of the system makes them inevitable (of course the back-room bureaucrats are never answerable to anyone!). What’s more, its doctors who are on the front-line who are having to constantly apologize for system failures over which we have no control (wait times, difficulty getting scans, pts. on trolleys) and having deal with angry patients/family members (a not insignificant portion of whom just want someone to shout at – its certainly not pleasant spending large parts of your day being berated at for things outside your control). As long as these issues with our health system remain and the myriad of others (illegal and unhealthy working hours especially) then posts will remain vacant, doctors will continue to leave for greener pastures and a disproportionate number of those who remain will be forced into various shades of ill mental health by the dysfunctional system.
@Damon16: Spot on. Unfortunately this statement of fact is falling on deaf ears, or more specifically, ears that don’t want to hear. It would seem that no one cares…
If your job is getting to you that much, you leave. No ifs/buts. You leave. Better alive on the dole than dead behind a desk!
@GerryCummins: if you find your calling you’ll never leave. It’s your vocation. Improve conditions of the job.
@Dermot Foley: they are also just human, they have limitation. I’m just curious why the 2 Docs left their US jobs? Is it because they want to help or because they will make more money in Ireland?
@GerryCummins: You’re being a little short sighted in your response. What about the bigger picture when all our doctors break and leave. Will our wonderful suited imbeciles outsource our health system?
@Green Lentils: I was talking about individual health. I’m sure there are some who thrive on the stress!
@worldpeace: Maybe they have family here?
All this and the electorate will go out next time and vote for the same idiots again. And they got another pay rise this week to add insult to injury.
@wacker macker: There’s only one thing for it; run in the next election as a non-idiot candidate.
The HSE has to many chiefs, and no Indians. It is a total disgrace.
Another Fianna Gael cock up.
have your say