OPM has told agencies that it is reconvening an interagency working group for dismissal and closure procedures, following its issuance of final rules effective May 10 on a new category of paid leave called weather and safety leave.
That will replace informal administrative leave policies which previously had been used in severe weather or other emergency reasons, including those in a guide to dismissals and closures for agency facilities in the national capital area. That guide on its face applies only in that area but it serves as a model for such decisions elsewhere, typically made by the regional Federal Executive Board.
In a memo, OPM asked agencies to designate representatives to work on updating that guidance to incorporate the new weather and safety leave policies. One topic of particularly strong interest is the treatment of employees who already are assigned to telework, or who could telework, when employees at the main work location are instructed not to report for work or are dismissed early.
“It is particularly noteworthy that, under the new statute, an agency will be unable, in most circumstances, to grant weather and safety leave to an employee who is a telework program participant and able to safely perform telework at the employee’s home. This new provision will apply regardless of what is stated (or not stated) in the employee’s telework agreement and in agency policies and agreements,” OPM said in its memo.
It added: “If, in the agency’s judgment, the employee could not reasonably have anticipated these conditions, and thus was unable to prepare for telework or otherwise unable to perform productive work, the agency could exercise the discretion to grant weather and safety leave. Conversely, the new regulations provide that an agency may not grant weather and safety leave if these conditions could have been reasonably anticipated and the employee did not take reasonable steps within his or her control to prepare to perform telework at the approved telework site.”
