Napanee Council approves flexible workplace policy after debate over remote work arrangements

The Council of the Town of Greater Napanee approved a new flexible workplace policy at its meeting on Tuesday, Mar. 10, 2026, after an extended debate over how to monitor and review regularly scheduled work-from-home arrangements.

The policy formalizes practices that staff say have already been occurring informally across municipal departments, allowing eligible employees to work remotely in certain circumstances while maintaining that most municipal staff continue to work full-time in the office. At Tuesday's council meeting, staff said the policy is intended to provide clearer expectations and greater consistency in handling remote work requests across the organization.

“Our municipality has been working towards formalizing a number of practices into policy,” Hollie Knapp-Fisher, Human Resources Manager for the Town, told Council. “While this practice has been functioning informally with success across all of our departments, the absence of a formal policy has resulted in variations in how flexible work is requested, approved, and monitored.”

Staff said formalizing the policy will help ensure remote work requests are assessed consistently across departments while maintaining operational needs and service levels.

Under the policy, full-time remote positions are not supported, and staff told Council that most municipal employees continue to work in person and that structured remote work arrangements remain uncommon.

“I think it’s important to note that all of our staff are currently full-time in-office workers,” Knapp-Fisher said. “Of our 90 full-time employees, we have three in-place remote agreements as it stands right now.”

Two of those employees work from home one day a week, while a third works remotely one day every other week.

Most remote work requests involve occasional situations such as snow days, child-care needs, or the need to be at home for service appointments. 

“The majority of our active remote work arrangements are flexible in nature: those one-off events like your kid is sick, or your internet provider gives you a five-hour window and you need to be home,” Knapp-Fisher said.

While councillors broadly supported such occasional flexibility, much of the discussion focused on provisions allowing recurring remote work schedules.

Councillor Mike Schenk said he supported flexibility for short-term situations, but he expressed concern about regularly scheduled work-from-home arrangements.

“If you have to work from home because something pops up, I don’t have a problem with that,” Schenk said. “But when it comes to fixed arrangements, you have to make sure it’s being policed.”

Schenk said municipal staff ultimately “work for the public,” and residents sometimes expect to “see a face” when they visit municipal offices.

He also questioned how structured arrangements would be overseen, warning that he believes productivity can drop when supervisors are not present. He suggested that, in that case, employees begin to think, “Why should I be here if the boss isn’t here?” While he said he trusts municipal staff, Schenk stressed the importance of ensuring remote work is monitored so service levels and accountability are maintained.

Other councillors said remote work could be appropriate in some circumstances and should remain an option when justified.

Councillor Angela Hicks pointed out that some types of work may be easier to complete outside a busy office environment.

“The difference between working from home in dead silence and working in an office is huge,” Hicks said, "especially when you’re working with numbers or any sort of large volume of technical data.”

She said the key issue is whether employees meet their responsibilities, not where they work: “If it can be justified, I have absolutely no problem with it, structured or flexible."

What does research say?

The discussion reflects a broader debate about remote work across the public sector, one that research suggests is more than just a matter of preference.

Data from the June 2024 Survey on Employment and Skills --- a multi-year research partnership conducted by the Environics Institute for Survey Research, in collaboration with the Future Skills Centre and the Diversity Institute  --- shows that remote work is no longer just a pandemic-era experiment, but rather a structural shift in how Canadians work.

About two in five workers now work from home at least one day per week, while two-thirds would like the option to do so, highlighting widespread demand for flexibility. Most workers agree that home-based employees are just as productive as those in offices, and that remote work makes the workplace more enjoyable. 

The trend has also shifted the economic landscape of city centres: with fewer employees commuting downtown, restaurants, cafes, and small businesses are seeing fewer customers, underscoring the broader societal effects of a workforce increasingly splitting its time between home and office.

A two-year study by Stanford University found that remote employees were 13 per cent more productive, largely because they faced fewer distractions and could focus more deeply on complex tasks. Similarly, research from the US National Bureau of Economic Research shows workers worldwide reinvest roughly 40 per cent of the time saved from commuting back into their jobs.

Despite this evidence, both the Government of Ontario and the Government of Canada have, in recent years, required more employees to return to their offices, citing benefits such as collaboration, supervision, and consistency across departments. Officials also point to the broader economic impact: with fewer workers commuting downtown, local small businesses have seen customer declines, highlighting the ripple effect of remote work on city cores.

Critics, including public-sector unions, argue that remote work can improve productivity and help attract and retain talent, leaving municipalities to balance flexibility with accountability and public access to staff.

The Town's Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), Matthew Grant, told Council the policy was brought forward in part to formalize existing practices and ensure Council was comfortable with how remote work arrangements are managed.

“The reason this is here before you is [that] this sort of stuff is already happening,” he said. “We wanted to formalize it and have that conversation with you in a public forum.”

Grant added that offering some flexibility has helped municipalities attract and retain employees. 

“We’ve already benefited from that by drawing in some really good talent,” he said.

During the discussion, Mayor Terry Richardson raised concerns about remote work agreements that could continue indefinitely without review. 

“I’m not content with open-ended contracts,” he told Council.

Council ultimately amended the policy to remove wording that allowed structured remote work arrangements without a defined review period.

Under the amendment, recurring remote work agreements must now be reviewed annually.

Council then voted to approve the policy as amended late in the meeting, formally establishing guidelines for remote work arrangements within the municipality.

Meetings of the Council of the Town of Greater Napanee can be viewed virtually (or watched afterward) on the Napanee Town Council YouTube channel or attended in person in Council Chambers at Napanee Town Hall, 124 John Street. Further information about Council meetings, including agendas and reports, is available on the Town’s CivicWeb portal.