Work dispersal contingency now needs priority over social engineering
| Napier, MSCNewsWire, Nov 24, 2016 | - Earthquake damaged and currently uninhabited government buildings in New Zealand’s capital Wellington indicate a practical reappraisal of implementing a distributed or cottage workforce contingency.
This especially applies for the stricken government buildings in the defence and emergency services category.
These structures house people who are in information business and who do not need to be in the buildings in the first place, regardless of how safe or unsafe their condition.
Most of the staff are in fact candidates for remote working, meaning that they can just as easily do their job from their place of residence.
After a promising start in the remote working sphere which was characterised by such things as glide time and hot desking, the departmental scene in Wellington reverted to its literally time-honoured custom of bottoms-on-seats 9-to-5.
In spite of its intense susceptibility to other social trends in this same era the government employment scene after dabbling in things such as flexi-hours clung to traditional time/place work practices.
The sector clung to established practices with a singular determination, and has done so in the face of the infrastructure consequences so visible in the working week day rush hour traffic jams.
Remote working was taken up by the Arthur D Little management consultancy in the late 1980s. The underpinning facilitator was the technology of networked personal computers. This merged with the concept of the paperless office.
The demonstrable result was that the bureaucrat could just as easily fulfill their functions from their home, or anywhere else, as from their place of work.
This early official enthusiasm now gathered force as it coincided with the property Klondike which saw public service-grade office space literally spiral through the roof in cost terms.
Another factor in the early enthusiasm for remote working was that it now became legislatively and thus expensively necessary to house public servants in modern or retro-fitted buildings because of the threat of claims resulting from things like frayed linoleum (falls), rickety furniture (falls +internal anatomical injury) and poor ventilation (general ailments.)
The subsequent property bust and a huge new public building administration construction scheme, especially in what became known as the Parliamentary “precinct,” (pictured) dampened down office costs and it was now that the emphasis slid away from remote working.
The recent round of earthquakes and the vulnerability of this same precinct to seismic activity now indicates that remote working will have to be re-considered. If not as an integrated reality, then as a well-rehearsed contingency response.
The government is updating copyright regulations to ensure the Copyright Act 1994 full takes account of New Zealand international copyright obligations, says Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Paul Goldsmith.
“When a foreign work is protected by copyright in New Zealand, it is protected because of international agreements to which New Zealand is a party to. Our Copyright Act needs updating from time to time to ensure continuity with our international obligations,” says Mr Goldsmith.
Amendments to the Copyright (Application to Other Countries) Order 1995 (the Order) will provide nationals of countries who have recently joined the World Trade Organization, the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works and the Universal Copyright Treaty with copyright protection in New Zealand.
“A significant number of new countries have joined one or more of these agreements since the Order was last updated in 2000.
“At the same time, amendments to the Order will help ensure New Zealand’s creative community of copyright owners receive reciprocal protection in these countries,” says Mr Goldsmith.
The update also includes some minor technical amendments to bring the language of regulations into line with changes previously made to the Copyright Act through the Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Act 2008.
The regulation update takes effect 1 January 2017.
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Sew-Eurodrive has launched a new website for the Australian and New Zealand market. It offers a wide selection of new and expanded content and functions and can be accessed from a range of devices, from PCs and tablets to smartphones. As well as restructuring the site’s content, the company has also revamped its design.
According to the company, the structure of the site ensures accurate responses to all enquiries, provides good orientation and points of reference, takes users to where they need to go reliably, and makes relevant information quick and easy to find and read.
Main features of the new website:
Palace of the Alhambra, Spain
By: Charles Nathaniel Worsley (1862-1923)
From the collection of Sir Heaton Rhodes
Oil on canvas - 118cm x 162cm
Valued $12,000 - $18,000
Offers invited over $9,000
Contact: Henry Newrick – (+64 ) 27 471 2242
Mount Egmont with Lake
By: John Philemon Backhouse (1845-1908)
Oil on Sea Shell - 13cm x 14cm
Valued $2,000-$3,000
Offers invited over $1,500
Contact: Henry Newrick – (+64 ) 27 471 2242