Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) has joined other federal departments in closely tracking whether employees comply with new in-office attendance rules. The department has launched a pilot project to monitor staff presence, aiming to strengthen reporting and ensure consistent expectations across its workforce.
The move follows a Treasury Board directive requiring public servants to return to the office four days a week starting July, with executives mandated to attend five days a week from May. NRCan’s system builds on earlier aggregated attendance statistics and now uses more detailed data, including IP login information from office networks, in line with privacy regulations.
Other departments have already implemented similar measures. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) began with a pilot programme using office login data and made it fully operational in January. Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) has tracked attendance since 2024, initially through weekly aggregated reports. In 2025, it expanded to individual-level monitoring, combining IT login records with HR data to produce “Low Onsite Connectivity Reports.” One such report showed nearly full compliance, with 99.5 per cent of employees present as required.
Enforcing attendance mandates hasn’t been easy in the past. When the government first ordered a three-day office return in 2024, more than a quarter of ESDC employees did not comply. Since then, departments have tightened oversight, with ESDC emerging as a model for enforcement.
As the four-day requirement approaches, NRCan’s pilot signals a broader push across federal workplaces to ensure employees meet attendance obligations, reinforcing accountability and consistency in the public service.
Earlier this year, Delhi University, Infosys, TCS and Amazon also put in place strict attendance monitoring systems for employees. Looks like a trend that is catching up across the globe.